Newsletter for the Month of November 2016

Greetings from Miryante Orphans Home and School!

The children and staff from both the school and home send you greetings. We have eleven candidates that sat for primary level seven graduating examinations and we are expecting good results. We also have two candidates that sat for senior four examinations.

We are also grateful to inform you that we have started harvesting our plantains that we planted last year in August. This has helped us to improve the diet of our children here at the orphanage. We have also managed to harvest 250kgs of beans.

On 15^th of November, our volunteer Alex Rausch trained the staff and the children on how to make perma-gardens. As a home, this is helpful to our staff and our children to help improve the variety and the amount of food that we are able to grow in our gardens. Community members also attended the training and will be able to implement the new agricultural technics in their gardens at home.

Our director, Fr. Erineo, had a chance to visit Ohio and do a missions appeal through St. Peter’s Church. We are so grateful to everyone from the US who was part of hosting him and taking him around to see so much of the US! Fr. Erineo loved his trip and was so happy to meet everyone who has been incredibly instrumental in supporting Miryante. Father came back to Uganda on November 17^th with a lot of things for the children and staff. These included clothes and sweets from Mary Smith. Thanks very much Mary Smith and thanks for the letter that you wrote to the kids and staff. We are sure Andrew is in safe hands with God. Below are the pictures of everyone very happy!

We were also very lucky to host some visitors in November! Dr. Steve Kelly, CJ Fleming, and John Yessitore from the JCK Foundation stopped in for a visit. They brought donations of art supplies, sports equipment, and a whole lot of joy. Thanks for the visit!

Our piggery is under renovations by our Peace Corps Volunteer Alex, with the help of one staff member from school and of course the children.

THANK YOU FOR AN AWESOME NOVEMBER!

September Newsletter 2016

Greetings from Miryante!

We are so grateful and humbled for the continuous support given to us. You have really loved our children. September has been a busy month at Miryante Orphans Home. Children have been helping us with garden work at the orphanage and also going back to school. We are grateful to report to you that the organization, Feed My Starving Children, has been of such great help to our children. Children who were identified by St. Peter’s mission group as being malnourished and children under the age of five were placed on a special diet high in protein. Below are the little kids happy with their packs of food and also having a meal with the nurse.

The board members advised the Home on how to create a better learning environment for the nursery children. This is now what the nursery class looks like now.

The board also advised for the Home to put in new playground equipment which the children have been enjoying.

New permagarden and piggery expansion project!

Our Community Agribusiness Peace Corps volunteer Alex has planted a small garden as a demonstration plot and part of the Feed the Future initiative. It is designed to catch and hold water in a tropical climate so that the garden does not need to be watered during the dry season. Double digging techniques are used to add nutrients to the soil and the small garden produces big yields with triangular spaced seedlings. We are also adding three more pens, gates, and a gutter system to our piggery so we can better manage more pigs, control breeding, and hopefully make a profit one day.

Current situation with our gardens and animals!

We have nineteen cows (we lost one calf) and out of the eighteen we milk two. All the milk goes to the children’s diet. The piggery project is doing well with six new piglets born this month. We have one banana plantation and are now planting some fruit trees. Our children are doing a great job of spraying the animals every weekend and deworming them, especially during this holiday. We have also planted five acres of cassava. The children have partly contributed towards these gardens though much of the work has been hired labour, especially during school days. We are trying to train our children with farming skills so that they can still live a better life after they have graduated and resettled.

Nutrition Programme!

We are so grateful for having Peace Corps Volunteer Alex. She has really played a big role in improving the children’s nutrition with the help of our Agricultural Assistant. They have created a program where all the children are taking vegetables with every meal. We have planted now half an acre of kale and spinach. We also need to thank the NGO Root Cause Uganda which has been donating money to help with supplementing more vegetables so that the children are eating healthy at every meal.

We thank you for all of your support and may God bless you and your families. Director and all the staff and children at Miryante!!!!