Back Ground

My wife and I had been inspired and challenged by the work done with orphans, in South Africa through a charitable organization called International Children’s Aid Network (ICAN).

Having met with Dr. Bill Peters, with his wife Barbara (ICAN founders), my wife and I liked their approach which focuses on empowering the local community to take ownership of both the problem of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVCs), and then to become part of the solution.

Another aspect of the ICAN approach that we passionately admired was the insistence that the Children’s Village Project should be designed with measures that would insure that it would become sustainable and self supporting in the long run.

Rational

Both my wife and I being natives of Uganda, have witnessed well designed and well meant projects by some organizations, aimed at improving the quality of life for Ugandans come to a grinding halt, whenever there is instability be it economic or political, both of which Uganda has had its share. Not withstanding the good intentions of such organizations, mostly from western nations, it is notable that failure to empower the indigenous people to take ownership of the vision would under those circumstances lead to minimal or poor results.

My wife and I are overwhelmingly convinced that any project that wants to produce meaningful long term results in Uganda would have to empower the locals, and contain measures for sustainability and self sufficiency in the long run. Those concerns seemed to be well addressed in the ICAN model.

Determined to be part of the solution, my wife and I met on several occasions with Dr. Bill Peters and his wife Barbara, who recognizing our burning desire to make a difference in the OVCs pledged their full support to us to establish a Children’s Village in Uganda based on the ICAN model but customizable to Uganda’s needs.

In the year 2006, we traveled to Uganda on a Mission that would not only lead me to visit Uganda, but also Uganda’s neighbor, Rwanda. The purpose of the trip was among others to locate a site for a project that would cater for the needs of orphans and other vulnerable children while economically empowering the community in which the project would be domiciled. The project would involve establishing a “Children’s Village that would be comprised of a grade 1 through 7 school, dormitories for students, a clinic – with a goal to develop it into a hospital - , a technical school for students who would not pursue high education, staff housing and a farm.

Experience confirms conviction:
Spontaneously - which I can only interpret as divine guidance -, while being driven through a particular street in Uganda’s capital Kampala, the vehicle in which we were, was swarmed by a group of kids whose images still linger in my mind. These kids sleep on the street; eat from the garbage cans and daily line up by the road side to beg for alms from motorists. It was a heart wrenching experience. I would later continue with my visit to Rwanda, where I still investigated the possibility of initiating the Children’s Village Project, but it later became overwhelmingly clear that strategically, South Western Uganda location would be more suitable in terms of economics, plan implementation, and execution for the proposed project.