During the last December holiday, three of our staff members generously dedicated their spare time to travel to different parts of Africa for outreach work. Chanel, our Hub leader and manager, and Gerda, our foundation phase educator, chose Ethiopia, while our Online Educator journeyed to Uganda. In this article, we delve into their experiences. We interviewed Gerda and Juanita to illuminate the significant impact their efforts had on both them personally and the communities they collaborated with. Their commitment reflects a broader aspiration to contribute to positive change and make a difference in the lives of those in need. We are so proud of you!
<aside> 🌍 COUNTRY: UGANDA
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I had an incredible opportunity to go on outreach to Uganda with a team from my church in December 2023. In the city of Kampala and some of the rural towns, we partnered with a local church, reaching out alongside them to spread Love and kindness to the people in the city and villages, and to serve them in the ways in which they needed our help.
I was especially blessed to go with the team I was allocated to because everyone had their hearts and minds set on our purpose for being there, on taking care of each other, and protecting our unity as a team.
I learned a lot from each one of them. The church leaders in Uganda were such an example to us of what love looks like by serving and taking care of the needs of others. Kampala is blessed to have people amongst them who love selflessly and look after each other in the ways they do. It was a life-changing experience. I fell in love with Uganda and it’s beautiful, joyful, dancing people. - Juanita
<aside> 🌍 COUNTRY: ETHIOPIA
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We went to visit ‘Hope for the Fatherless’ in Ethiopia. It was a special time for me to reconnect with the children and staff again as I have worked with them all for many years. Chanel and I brought them donations of 30 pairs of tekkies and flip flops as we were told this was a need.
The children were mostly at school while we were there so we worked a lot in the office and also reorganized their storage room for them and made it more practical to use. I also helped with their project proposal and budget for the next 3 years. In the afternoons we played with the children and enjoyed dinner time with them. We walked them to school and back and were very busy every day.
It is such an incredibly different world and culture and we are blessed to have been a part of it. The vision of the director, Belay Teka, is amazing. He has changed ‘Hope for the Fatherless’ from being only group homes for orphaned and vulnerable children to a proper adoption agency and now mostly focuses on transferring the children directly from the government orphanage into families. The original children who are in the group homes now will remain in their care until adulthood. Belay speaks in churches and at events to try to raise orphan awareness as many people don’t know about adoption over there. He is well known in the community and has even been visited by the president and prime minister.
The children at ‘Hope for the Fatherless’ get the best treatment and are incredibly loved - they are our kings and queens. If we don’t give them the best, who will? It is a blessing to be able to be involved there. We also spent time with Belay and his family. His wife runs a school for young autistic children to make sure that they are functioning well and are school-ready. We had the opportunity to see her school and find out more about the incredible work that she does***.***
- Gerda
🌐 To find out more about ‘Hope for the Fatherless’ and the incredible work that they do, click on this link to their website:
**https://hopeforthefatherless.org/**
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