In the village, both projects are successfully continuing. For the beads project, we finished separating the good beads from the bad ones and counted them to make packages with money to pay the women after one and a half months. The women were so happy to get some payment again!!! We also managed to collect a big box of papers for making the beads so that the project can be continued. 3 weeks ago, we started a new beads session in Kibuye village. We are looking forward to the next meeting this week, when the women from both villages, Kibuye and Bandali, will all come together.

The candle project is doing well too. We have started making candles with different shapes, sizes and colours, But we have to still search for a good market, so we can give a payment to the women making candles too. Otherwise, the projects are all going on well, ladies are so happy to be involved in the income generating projects. Some good news is that we sold a lot of beads these past weeks again, a big thank you to the Stewarts for all this support. They purchased alot of beads for themselves and for their friends as well.This will enable us to pay the beads ladies these coming weeks!Furthermore, we are happy to tell you all that the school received more school uniforms . It is so exciting now that every child has their uniform! The kids all look like little flowers in the school compound.They sure love their orange uniforms and are always excited to wear their uniforms to school each morning.School should be exciting at all times. At Arise and Shine Nursery and primary school we try to make an exciting school environment for the children.More photos on the school will be coming up soon.
We are still working on our website, but we encourage everyone to check it out as there is lots of information on the ongoing projects as well.We also like to hear from you, you can send us feed back through commenting on the sites or emailing us directly through the web site if you go to the “contact us section”.

http://ariseandshineug.org/

In the village, both projects are successfully being continued. For the beads project, we finished separating the good beads from the bad ones and counted them to make packages with money to pay the women after one and a half months. The women were so happy to get some payment again!!! We also managed to collect a big box of papers for making the beads so that the project can be continued. 3 weeks ago, we started a new beads session in Kibuye village. We are looking forward to the next meeting this week, when the women from both villages, Kibuye and Bandali, will all come together.

The candle project is doing well too. We have started making candles with different shapes, sizes and colours, But we have to still search for a good market, so we can give a payment to the women making candles too. Otherwise, the projects are all going on well, ladies are so happy to be involved in the income generating projects.Good news is that we sold alot of beads these past weeks again, a big thank you to the stewarts for all this support. They purchased alot of beads for themselves and for their friends as well.This will enable us to pay the beads ladies these coming weeks!Furthermore, we are happy to tell you all that the school received more school uniforms . It is so exciting now that every child has their uniform! The kids all look like little flowers in the school compound.They sure love their orange uniforms and are always excited to wear their uniforms to school each morning.School should be exciting at all times. At Arise and Shine Nursery and primary school we try to make an exciting school environment for the children.More photos on the school will be coming up soon.
We are still working on our website, but we encourage everyone to check it out as there is lots of information on the ongoing projects as well.We also like to hear from you, you can send us feed back through commenting on the sites or emailing us directly through the web site if you go to the “contact us section”.

http://ariseandshineug.org/

cake = excitement!!!!!!!!! come join us everyone, only fun times…

We have written a lot about the project in the previous blogs but we have never actually introduced to you our babies at the AASU Children‘s Care Home. We thought it was about time we changed that!
We currently have 20 children, both able-bodied and disabled. We take on babies that are orphaned, abandoned or any other children in vulnerable situations. Some children will have parents but due to the financial situations at home, we take such children in our care with the aim of restoring them back to health and then later reuniting them with their families. Other children get adopted while others are put in foster care homes in the kibuye village to attend the Arise and Shine Nursery and primary school. Other than the children with disability, most of the children we take on are 4 years and below. We take care of them to the age of 5 and later send them to their foster families in Kibuye village. The disabled children stay with us at the Arise and Shine care home depending on the degree of disability. For some that have minor disability and can attend school with ease, we send them to the village for school at 5 years of age. But if the degree of disability severe then they stay with us and attend preschool at the care home.

                                                                                       

                                                                       

                                                                                

                                                                                            

                                                                        

                                                                                       

                                                                                               

                                                                                                    

                                                                                                     

                                               

                                                                                                           

                                                                               

                                                                                                      

                                                                                      

                                                                                                

                                                                                    

                                                                       

                                                                                                        .

Peninah and Joan

Peninah and Joan got a sponsor from the Netherlands; they are now in Kibuye village attending school in the Arise and Shine Nursery and Primary school. Education is such an important aspect of life, and while everyone else in the western world can have access to free education, In Uganda education is an opportunity!

Many children go to bed at night praying to God for the opportunity to go to school. What an honor and privilege it is for Bulungi Uganda to be part of that far greater plan and be an answer to some children’s prayers. Peninah and Joan can now get an education and enjoy the benefits that come with it in the future.

 Last Monday they were taken to the village and reunited with their family. It was such a special moment. Very happy to see their older siblings, their mom and of course after telling them about the plan for their stay in the village, I got a question.“Shall we then be able to wear our uniforms and shoes and a back pack to go to school every day? “Joan asked. It was cute! She needed reassurance. Am excited for them, looking forward to see how they do in school, even with the widest vision what they will be in life. I just wish them all the best.

Niina and Sari 

Niina and Sari are also in transition, their adopting parents are here and living with them at the moment. Getting used to a new family has never been such an easy thing especially for a two year old. But God is faithful; I trust that they are well. This is our first adoption and I have to say adoptions are not easy and of course no one said it would be a rollercoaster. Especially doing it for the first time, under the guidance of many people, rushing you to do many different things in such a short time and finding out they are driving you in the wrong direction and such things are not even necessary after so much hard work! We have met our challenges and still pray for the best. God is faithful. We are looking forward to spending more time with the adopting parents here at the children’s care home and we are praying that all goes well with the adoption. What an honor and privilege it is for this family to be God’s answer to a child’s prayer! Niina and Sari will have a home with a loving mother and father!

Renate is a friend of mine from the Netherlands. We worked together for a long time and she helps and supports Arise and Shine in Uganda in many different ways and she played a leading role with her NGO Bulungi in helping the children with a disability at Arise and Shine Uganda.

Renate can get support true a Dutch competition called ’Word of Difference’ to work another year for Bulungi in Jinja. To get this support she needs many votes from users from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

I’m calling up on all my friends, well wishers of AASU to VOTE her in this competition so we can all help Renate to get as many votes as possible.

The website where you can vote is in Dutch so read this information:

•       Click on this link: http://www.worldofdifference.nl/wod-kandidaten/?u=213
•       Click on the red button (Stem op Renate means vote for Renate)
•       Choose the social media site you want to use with voting by clicking on it
•       Allow the social media site and you vote is in!

You can vote EVERY DAY till this Friday 16th of september. If you have more than one social media site it’s possible to vote more than one time a day. You have to click on the web link again (it doesn’t work is you don’t do this) and select another social media site!

Do you want to do more? Share the link on your social media and ask all your friends to vote.

I hope everybody will vote!!

Kind regards,

Sharon Nyanjura

Me, Annet and Renate with the kids at the Nursery and Carehome in Jinja

The parents tried so hard to see that he gets a life by taking him to different kinds of hospitals but nothing changed. Various  tests were made but no sickness was ever found in his little body. Despite of the test results, Robert always seemed in pain. He could not feed like normal children do; he seemed fad up of everything and could throw up each time he was fed.

After the parents trying all they could in vain, they decided to bring him to Arise and Shine Uganda. He was taken right away to hospital and the doctors said that he was only malnourished and needed extra feeding on special me als but first with very soft meals. So he was put on a diet of milk and some special food known as “E-pap” and at first it wasn’t easy for he could throw up still. But we never gave up on feeding him and time went on he started picking and stopped throwing up. He even started putting on a little weight each week. Robert was thriving on a special diet of milk with some added food nutrients, high protein porridge among other foods. Life went on and after some time he got a cough and was taken to hospital and various  tests were made like the T.B test and still nothing was found. He was given medicine and he responded so positively to the medication and he was fine.

Robert was so loved, even though the parents were not able to care for him, the father kept calling to find out how he was doing and he was always fine not until he fell sick on the 9 of Aug on his fateful day. He fell sick early in the night and was rushed to the children’s hospital in the morning. The doctors could not diagnose any sickness and anticipated that it could be T.B because he was breathing so hard. So he was ex-rayed and results were supposed to come back the following morning. Unfortunately, little Robert didn’t make it to the results day.

He was put on medication as they were waiting for results and at around 11:00pm his condition worsened. His breathing was so rapid and whenever fed, everything would just fall in like in an empty tin. He didn’t seem to taste anything. He seemed too much in pain and was whining. So i rushed looking for a doctor to look at him, an injected and a drip was suggested for him. We thought the nurses would have been faster and more concerned about the ill child but that wasn’t something we would definitely expect from our public hospital. “this is a place where hundreds of patients are waiting in a queue , some losing  consciousness and fainting, some in need of blood and looking like they would die the next minute while others are dying therefore you are not the only ones “the nurse informed us with a serious look on her face while giving Robert the  injection. Not long after the injection, little Robert passed away not waiting for the drip. I learned that sometimes life is just too hard to live. But above all, Robert is in the loving hands of his Father.

Arise and Shine Uganda organized a HIV/AIDS testing  day in Kibuye village. Stefanie (one of the volunteers and one of the main  organizers of this project) wrote a blog about it!

At the beginning of July,  Sharon and I were talking about possibilities of different projects for the  community outreach program. She came up with the idea to start a project about  HIV and AIDS. At that moment I was so glad, something medical! Just what I  like, because I am studying Technical Medicine. After a little conversation I  was happy to prepare an outline of the project. We discussed the outline  together and made a plan.  

Laura, from the gender project, had a meeting with Fatumah (an AIESEC’er who worked for The Aids Support Organization) about the possibility of getting free condoms from TASO for the village. I told her about the HIV project and she suggested that I could come with her to TASO on the following day and talk about the project. After the meeting we were able to walk back to the house with 1000 free condoms; a good beginning of the project!

Marieke, after the glance at the gardening project, decided to join the HIV/AIDS project. She is studying Psychology and this was more useful for her. Together we embarked on the project with the first session in the Kibuye Village. During the focus group discussion session, we talked about general information about HIV and AIDS. We asked the attendees about; HIV is, ways in which HIV is spread and its prevention. If they did not know the answers, we would give them more information. A lot of qestions came up after that. One of the questions was from a guy who asked if one can get HIV from wearing an infected person’s shirt. For me that was one of the points backing up the importance of the project.

A Week later, we did a condom demonstration; a fun activity! After the demonstration we split the men and the women up so they could talk to separate people in line with their own gender groups. Men were really interested in the subject. Women were very open and laughed a lot, mostly because at a banana we used during the presentation. After the session every person got 9 free condoms. It was a good session despite the difficulty of the HIV/AIDS subject. In response to our suggestion, TASO decided to come to the village to test the people so that they could know their HIV status. On Sunday before the testing day, we had a session concerning details, how the test works. After the session we were advertising the testing day in the village so that everybody could know about it. We went to the church, to the different men centers in the villages, the school and the borehole putting up advertising sign about the testing day.

The 2^nd of August  was the big day: the testing day. TASO came with 14 people of the testing team,  including counselors and lab technicians. There was also a drama group entertaining the people who were waiting for the test. All the volunteers from  AASU were involved in it during this day. They were doing the registration of all people, preparing and cooking lunch for 48 people, doing  surveys and the guidance for the TASO people. During the day a lot of people  showed up to have tested. At the end of the day we tested 204 people and only 6  people turned out to be HIV positive.

After the testing day we visited  TASO in Jinja to speak to one of the counselors to ask a few questions to which  we did not know the answers. What should we answer, when a woman ask, what she  should do, when her husband does not want to use a condom during sexual intercourse? Or questions about polygamy. During the sessions  women were asking about the female condom. It sounded like the female condom could be the solution to the problem if men did not want to use a men condom.  The counselor told us, they had the same questions, to which it is hard to answer. The counselor was sure, that female condoms were too expensive for the people. We also visited one of the lab technicians, who guided us around TASO.  In the morning he was taking blood from people to check their CD level. CD  level is the amount of antibodies in your blood against HIV. When this level is  under 250, people need to take antiretroviral treatment otherwise they take different kinds of antibiotics. I helped him by calling the names and doing the administration. After lunch he showed us a laboratory. A small and simple place, but with almost everything they needed.

In the meanwhile Sharon  arranged an appointment with coordinator of TASO. After the appointment, she made a partnership between AASU and TASO. The partnership includes 3000 free condoms every month, testing twice a year and giving the HIV-positive people possibility to get free medication.

The last session in the  village was about positive living with HIV. How do you cope with a positive test result? Can you do things to improve your quality of life then? Unfortunately people were really late (2 hours delay is usual). Because of that  we were not able to talk about all points of the session.

The important challenges AASU  still has to face:

• To provide HIV-positive people from the village with free transport to the Kamuli hospital
• To get medication in the health centre
• To make people aware of the importance of protecting themselves.

Hopefully we were able to imprint a mark in the village!

Look for more blogstories at our ‘Blogwebsite’: http://ariseandshineug.blogspot.com/

Arise and Shine Uganda is also on Facebook. ‘Like’ our page t follow us!

Click here to be directed to the AASU Facebook page

Arise and Shine has a special website with blogs and more information.

Click here to get directed to this website!