Hello everyone!

Greetings from all the children here at the home. All our children are in good health.

On 24^th & 25^th of November our Miryante team conducted trainings in various schools. These trainings were about preventing COVID-19 in schools, especially the primary schools that our children attend. It was mainly teaching the children skills such as makin homemade masks, liquid soap and tippy-taps for hand washing. 

Our counselors also had counseling sessions conducted at schools where our children attend. These counseling sessions focused on psycho-social support and the prevention of child-marriage and child labor.  

The week started well. We had four days of training in four schools. Each day we trained one school. At each school we had a meeting and provided positive feedback for the foster families we support. As their children are now returning to school, we wanted to recognize these families for all that they have done to continue supporting their foster child’s learning and to give them confidence to stay engaged in school.

During the training, we found out that all the pupils in the four schools where our children attend (Humura Primary School, Kako Primary, Kabweza Primary, and Wekomire Primary) had some knowledge about COVID-19. All knew the preventative measures and the risky places in their schools. In all of the schools, the pupils and their teachers were really interested in learning life skills.

Kaka Primary School for day one

Day one went well. Even though the rain interfered with our program, we were still able to finish all the sessions! All the pupils were well information about COVID-19. The head teacher was also very interested in learning life skills as well as the other teachers. The head teacher kept moving around to check on his pupils’ progress with life skills, especially masks making. Of all the three skills we taught them, the pupils’ biggest worry was where to get the 100% cotton material to make masks.

Below is Humura Primary school for day two

The pupils turned up early and their main interest was learning life skills. Each of them was in a position to make one mask, including their teachers. Each of them went home that day wearing a mask that they made by themselves. All participated in making the liquid soap and the tippy-taps for hand washing. They all promised to construct tippy-taps in their homes and also to teach others in their community. Their biggest challenge for them was where to buy the chemicals needed to make soap. Below are pics for all the sessions:

Kabweza Primary School for day three

It rained almost the whole day, but this didn’t stop the pupils from coming to school. Most of them moved in the rain and they were able to make it to the school. All the children knew how to wear masks, even though only 5 out of the 10 kids had masks. The children also knew the effects of COVID19, risky places in school environment and how to prevent COVID-19. They were all interested in making masks, liquid soap and tippy-taps.

Wekomire Primary for day Four

Day four! The training started late due to the rain but later the pupils turned up and were able to have a successful training. This was so interesting because almost all the teachers turned up for life skills training. Below are the pictures of all the sessions.

During this holiday, our children have been involved in a number of activities such as planting greens/vegetates, maize, Irish potatoes, matooke, pumpkins, fruits etc.

We visited the families under our foster/guardianship program. We gave them a number of things such as scholastic materials and basic needs like soap, toothpaste, sanitary towels, clothes, and food.

Some of our children are already running projects like rabbit raising and maize, watermelons and beans growing. It was really awesome during our visit seeing everything our children are doing. We are glad to inform you that the children and their guardians are seriously picking up on the farming skills.

Below are the pictures showing children and their guardians with their projects.  

We appreciate you all for the support, thanks for making a difference!

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from all the children here at the home. We are all grateful for all your support and the most important report is that all the children are in good health. Our children are really happy and healthy. This month we had a lot of activities that took place at the home and the most important news is that our government is opening up places of worship and also candidate classes.

On 15^th October 2020, Schools re-opened and all our children who are candidates for exams this year went back to school. The schools include King Solomon Secondary School, St. Thomas Primary School, Miryante Vocational School, Butiiti teachers college, St. Michael Secondary school, St. Peter’s technical institute and Migongwe Primary School as shown below: 

Guardianship Program:

All the households are doing well and we are now working to transition more children into this program as recommended by the government. Our social workers are very busy visiting homes where our children will be placed by the end of this year.

We are also planning a meeting with all the guardians to assure them of the support that they will be receiving monthly just like the ones on the program are receiving. For some guardians they are very concerned about paying school fees, and buying food, soap, bedding, clothes and scholastic materials. Miryante is providing all of this to children under the guardianship program.

According to our observations, there are already great improvements for 25 children under the guardianship program in the different households. This hasn’t been an easy journey to educate the guardians on providing improved care for the orphans who are living with them.  

During visits, we teach and engage our children in farming and perma gardening. The good news is that most of the farming techniques have been adopted in each home, and they each have a small garden they are running as a family. Mucunguzi Peter has a rabbit project and we are now looking at his family has a model home. He built a semi-permanent structure for his rabbits. Peter started with two rabbits and now has 10 rabbits. We are also encouraging other homes to start projects like this.

Below are photos of Doreen Komwaka showing us her maize garden as her project.  

We are happy to inform you of a new motorcycle that Miryante has received from the Uganda Women’s Network. This is to help us as we move in the field in a program for empowerment of women/mothers. This program is funded by Uganda Women’s Network, and has the purpose of working to help vulnerable women and their children.  For this project we have a social worker who is working with 85 households in the surrounding districts.

Agriculture Programs:

 We are still planting more vegetables this season and our children are having plenty of vegetable, which is nutritious for their bodies. We have planted maize, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes and also expanded on the banana plantation.   

Under the farm our animals are okay and healthy. We manage to get 15 liters of milk per day to mix in the children’s porridge. Our rabbits gave birth to more young ones everyone month and they are increasing in number and are now 40 rabbits. We are looking at doing this as a project to every guardianship house hold by next year and the vegetable project just as our sister project St. Gyavira Buyende Home is doing.

We can never stop saying thank you to you all for the wonderful support!

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Children’s Home. The children are all in good health. We are glad to inform you that the children are helping us around the campus with garden work. Since education institutions will be reopened and classes will resume on 15^th October 2020, we bought all requirements that were requested by our children who are in candidate classes so that they all get prepared early to start school very soon. Candidates are children who are in primary level 7 and secondary level 4 who are sitting for their entry level exams. The other children in other grades are continuing with the home-schooling lessons until the government informs us of the second phase of the re-opening for educational institutions.

We are also preparing more children and their families to transition to the guardianship program since the government of Uganda is now requesting us to help most of our children find homes with their relatives instead of institutionalizing them. With time, we hope to have fewer children living on site at Miryante Children’s Home and more children to be resettled in their homes. We will be providing support for these children in their homes with Scholastic materials, paying fees at the schools where they attend, paying for all medical care that the nearby clinics or health centers, providing bedding, clothing, and food. 

Below are photos showing children doing their different activities:

Following the government standard operating procedures, we were able to sew 2 reusable masks for each child to use at church and also at school. These masks are for the candidates who are returning to school, those children who have to go to the hospital, and to those children going to public places for shopping. More masks are being sewed by our children who study at Miryante Vocational school.  We also managed to buy two temperature guns for the vocational school since it was one of the requirements for the institute to reopen. We need to check temperatures in order for the vocational school to open. Please see pictures of the masks as shown below:

On the 26^th September 2020, we received visitors from Mubende Rotary Club who were here to celebrate the birthdays for all children born in September. Below are photos of some members sharing a cake with our children!

The guardianship program is going on well as shown below with big smiles from children and their relatives while receiving food, soap, gel, and other basic supplies. So far we have 30 children that we are helping under the guardianship program and they are all progressing very well. The families are also doing well with their agriculture projects (children and their guardians have planted different types of crops which is an achievement and they are all healthy).

Akandiinda Isaac’s successful story.

We are all every excited for Isaac’s successful journey, he can now walk by himself, feed himself, and also help the family members do some domestic work. You can tell by his smile and pose that Isaac is now a happy man and ready to go to school.  We at Miryante are excited and can’t wait to see Isaac start school.

Thank you so much for all your help. You are always willing to be there for us whenever we need you.

Hello everyone!

Greetings to all. The children are all in good health and we are glad to inform you that they all send you greetings. We really appreciate all the support for the children, especially during the lockdown period. We made wardrobes for each dormitory for the children to put their clothes and new beds with hooks to help make it easy to spread their mosquito nets.

Our children are also following a programmed time table which runs for a full month and includes activities like digging, games, debate, home schooling, rearing animals and so many others. This is all done to helps us manage our children. Below are the photos: 

On behalf of Miryante Children’s home we would like to thanks Crutches for Africa for donating a number of devices to people with disabilities. All these devices were distributed to people by Rotary Club of Mubende. Thanks to Rotary Club of Mubende for its service!

Miryante Market: During this month, we managed to open up a market to enable us purposely sell our excess vegetables. This semi-permanent market is built along the road to help us also market our technical school sell hand crafts made by students at the school.

We are grateful and very happy to inform you that we have never run short of the vegetables. Our season runs throughout the year and the children are eating vegetables at every meal.

This season, we have planted a number of vegetables and fruits. These include: kale, simsim, green peppers, eggplants, nakatti, papaya, pineapples and pumpkins. Most of these vegetables are being harvested and some are still being grown in the nursery beds. Also, a number of foods have been planted and these include the expansion of the banana plantation, yams, cassava, maize and beans as shown below:

All our animals are very okay and also increasing in number. This month we managed to deworm all of them.

Thanks to all our donors that have helped us push this far. We are all humbled for you being part of us.

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Children’s Home! The children are all in good health. We are glad to inform you that the kids are all very happy due to different programs that we have setup this month that have enabled us to manage our children during this long holiday. Programs we are doing include sport and games, digging, grazing cattle and goats, debating, and also home schooling since there are some teachers on site . Below are photos showing children doing their different activities.

We have had a great harvest of different foods which has enabled us to balance the diet of our children.  

Under the farm, our cattle, rabbits, and goats are doing fine. The rabbits project is really doing very well as you can see from the picture below. We now have 20 rabbits!

We have also working hand in hand with the councilors in our area to see that people with disabilities also live a happy life. Thanks to Crutches for Africa for the support, as we have been able to distribute assistive devices to people in need within the community.

The guardianship program seems to be giving good results as the kids look happy staying at a home as long as they receive support. We are also identifying more kids in the orphanage to join the guardianship program by October of this year. Through the guardianship program they will be receiving support like: scholastic materials, clothing, bedding, medical care, and food. We believe these are the key things that make every child happy and this what the Ministry is recommending for now.  Below are pictures of our social workers while on a visit in one of the homes where we have a child staying with a grandmother.

We are grateful as Miryante Management to our donors that do support us even during this lockdown.

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Home. We send you all warm regards from Uganda. Despite COVID-19, we still thank God for the gift of life that He has given to us all. We also feel so grateful for your monthly support towards Miryante Children’s home, especially amidst this entire crisis.

Education:

The children are doing very well and their health is good. They are trying to study remotely via Uganda’s national teaching program on the television. It’s still is not the best because they cannot ask the teacher when they haven’t understood something, but it’s better than nothing. The other holiday programs are still carried on as usual i.e. daily slashing the compound, playing games, and digging in the garden as shown below:

Thanks to our former Volunteer Olly who surprised our kids with 15 cartons of soda, a goat, and 25 kgs of rice. Thanks for being part of us. The children were happy and felt loved especially during such a season in a lockdown.

Every Friday our social workers and caretakers meet with the children for group counseling and listen to the children’s concerns. They teach them about sanitation and body hygiene and general cleanliness and its importance. We always award marks to different dormitories according to their performance.

Agriculture:

 Despite of the drought during this season, the children are of great help in watering and mulching the vegetables. As management we are happy to inform you all that despite the drought, we have enough vegetables for the children. We even have a surplus that we are donating to the community to share with families that are in need during this time.  Below are some pictures of our gardens and cultivating the vegetable garden

Thanks to everyone, that is giving a hand towards this great work. We feel blessed at Miryante Home.

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Community and Home. We are here to thank you for your generosity. Despite the lockdown, we are able to study and have three meals a day. It is because of your support that we are able to have all this. We are not happy with the situation everywhere from what we have read in the news, but we are in this together and we do pray for the whole world everyday to stabilize so that we can go back to school, go to church, and get to see our friends back in school.

All the children are safe, healthy, and they are praying for everyone.  Due to the long holiday, our children are following a holiday program to keep them busy around the home. These programs run from Monday up to Sunday and these activities include prayers in isolation, exams & revisions from lessons, cow grazing, rabbit and goat rearing, planting crops, slashing the compound, digging, Bible study every Thursday and football every evening. This has helped our children learn more skills and has helped us as management and caregivers to handle them since the holiday is still going on.

Below are photos of the children practicing exams with social distancing.

Donations!

 We are very happy to update you on a number of donations that we received this month from two companies. We received over 30 boxes of sanitary pads for the girls and 8 boxes of toothpaste for all the children to use. We are sure this will take us through the year. We received this donation from Vision Impex.

We also received over 72 dozen books of 96pages, 44 dozen books of 48 pages, 5 boxes of beans and 11 reams of paper for the office use, all this was from Prime Impex Limited in Kampala, Uganda. We surely feel blessed as management and the children feel loved.

Another donation of $650 to cater for food came in from David Talbot the president of Crutches for Africa who donated over 780 kgs of posho and 200 kgs of beans. We really feel so blessed to have people think about us especially in a season where people are meant to think about themselves.

Another big surprise came from Stanbic Bank that donated a number of items to us and thanked us for banking with them. The items included sugar, rice, and cooking oil, pads, soap, beans, posho and toothpaste. The Stanbic Team spared time to visit our project and played with the children and shared smiles. We really thank you our sponsors for allowing us bank with Stanbic Bank group.

During this lockdown, we have also received a lot of new cases from the community and all these cases were a result of poverty and family breakdown due to this pandemic. These children were found living without parents or guardians in child-headed house-holds and they have been moved to Miryante to receive services. The children include Sirivano aged 14 who has been grazing people’s cattle to get food for the siblings, Lillian aged 13 who was working as a maid in the neighborhood,  Aloyozous aged 9, and Gerald aged 6.

The four children lived in an old muddy structured house and shared beddings. These children were also malnourished and infected with jiggers because of being neglected.  We managed to rescue them; they are very happy here and their health has improved in one month.  The first pictures below show their condition when found by children services, and the last photos below were taken a week later at Miryante when police visited to check on their condition.  

Our latest arrival is a seven-year old boy called Sirivano, who was found living without a responsible parent or guardian. The Community members became concerned and reported the case to Miryante. We are trying to locate the parents and reunite these children with their family. We are working with a government team from the office of child welfare services. Sirivano is now with us till the situation normalizes.  Below are pictures of Sirivano with a big smile on his face after joining us at Miryante.

Under agriculture department!

We are grateful for the wonderful works done by the children during this break. The drought has been very long here and the children have helped a lot with watering the vegetable gardens and weeding the bananas and sweet potatoes. This hasn’t stopped at that, they are also mulching in the vegetable gardens where we are growing green peppers, egg plants, kale and the banana plantation as shown below: 

Below is a photo of the land we cultivated to plant more vegetables and greens. It’s about 1 acre of land.

Under the farm project, 3 of our sows gave birth to 8 healthy piglets and our two female rabbits gave birth to 14 young ones. The little children have shown much love to for rabbits and they find it very interesting. We have also given them a chance to manage the rabbit project but under serious supervision by the agriculture officer.

Thanks very much to everyone that is contributing to support this project and also thanks for loving us.

                                         APRIL NEWSLETTER 2020

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Orphanage. We really love you all and we appreciate all the support that you are rendering to us despite COVID-19. All the children are safe, healthy, and they are praying for everyone all over the world. On the 12^th of April 2020, we celebrated Easter day which was really fun, although we weren’t able to celebrate mass as usual. The Easter celebrations came along with a lot of food such as plantains, rice, meat, pork, fish, peanut sauce and soda. After lunch the children watched movies such as The Passion of the Christ.

During this long break from school, Uditah Komuhangi, one of the students that graduated from Miryante Vocational School, used this time to teach the other children how to make African baskets and also how to make different designs of girls’ dresses. Below are the photos:

The gardens are doing very well this season. The temperatures are a bit high, but with the help of our children, we are able to mulch all the vegetable gardens and use the drip irrigation system. Our harvests are very good. We are also looking at extending our vegetable gardens to five acers since they are nutritious and provide great food for the kids. Below are some pictures of our gardens and the harvests.

We have also managed to donate vegetables weekly to families who are in need of food due to the COVID-19 lockdown in the community.

The tailoring class with the help of their instructors are making face masks for all the children to use before school opens.

On the farm, our cows are doing well. We have routine medical checkups for all of the animals which is done every two weeks, and the animals are sprayed for flies and ticks every Saturday:

Thanks very much to everyone who is endeavoring to help us to meet our basic needs. We would be completely nothing and nowhere without you, especially during COVID-19 season. May God Bless All.

Kate Namanda

We are devastated to share that Kate Namanda passed away on April 25^th, 2020 at the age of 13 after a long battle with Leukemia.

Kate was born on June 5^th,  2006. Her mother passed away and her father left the family in 2014.  Kate came to Miryante on the 30^th of November 2018. Kate came to Miryante via a referral from the doctors at a hospital in Fort Portal where she had been left. Her family had been unable to care for her. When Kate came to Miryante her health was very poor, but she soon improved with medical care and love from the other children and staff.

It was amazing to see Kate’s condition improve with time and we were so happy to have her with us.

By April 2019, she  was able to start home schooling from Miryante and she was very happy when she got a sponsor. She enjoyed making drawings for her sponsor. Schooling gave her hope and she had the dream of becoming a fashion designer in the future.

She also demonstrated an unshakeable Christian faith while at Miryante.  We as staff were so proud of her development of friendships with the other children. Besides that, Kate had a passion for drawing and coloring pictures, reading stories books for other children, and cooking.

Unfortunately, because of the cancer, Kate had to spend a lot of time in the hospital during her time at Miryante. We want to thank everyone who has been there for Kate, especially her sponsor. It is because of this sponsorship that we were able to cover her hospital bills every time she had to be admitted. We also thank the caregivers that stayed with her while she was admitted in the hospital on and off for almost the entire year. We also thank her fellow children that accepted her and welcomed her in Miryante community.

While in the hospital, Kate drew photos to send to her sponsor when she bed-ridden:

Kate was survived by her brother, Joseph, who is living with their grandmother in the village.

 Kate died on April 25^th  2020 at 8:30 pm.  On the morning of 26^th/ April/ 2020 she was buried at her grandmother’s home in the village. The village where Kate was buried is called Mukarama in Kyegegwa district.  Below are pictures of the burial.

We are going to miss Kate terribly and the joy and happiness she shared with all of those around her. MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE.

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Orphanage and School. We really love you all and we do appreciate all that you are providing to us. The children are safe and healthy. Due to the outbreak of the Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID -19) the president of Uganda ordered closure of schools on 20^thMarch 2020 across the country in attempt to prevent the spread of the virus. We managed to pick our children from boarding school at King Solomon secondary school, St. Thomas primary, St. Peter’s technical and St. Augustine Butiiti Teaching College. We brought them back to the orphanage and we also sent students from outside who were attending Miryante technical school back to their homes.

The social department also came up with the Easter holiday programs to help us manage the children and to make them busy around the orphanage during this time until the situation normalizes for them to go back to school. This program runs from Monday up to Sunday and these activities include prayers from their dormitories since the government has told us to avoid social gatherings, school book revisions, cow grazing, rabbits and goat rearing, planting vegetables, slashing the compound, digging in the gardens, and football every evening. This has helped our children learn more skills and helped us as management and caregivers to manage them and keep them occupied throughout the holiday. Regarding health, all our children are okay and we sensitized them about the coronavirus so that they are aware on how to prevent the spread of the virus. We are also in touch with children under the guardianship program to know if all is well with them. Since public transportation has been banned in Uganda, we have been limited on our movements, however the government has allowed us to check on the children in the guardianship program, especially those on medications. We have been given permission from the government to use a car to travel to their homes. We supplied 50kgs of maize flour to each household during the quarantine period.

Below are the photos of the children at Miryante occupied by different activities and food given to guardianship program  :

Under the agriculture department, our crops are yielding and we have plenty of vegetables, plaintains , cassava , potatoes, pumpkins  and greens as show below:

Under the farm our animals are doing great

We have managed to balance the diet of our children with the milk and different foods.

Thanks everyone for the support especially during such times when the world is at war with the Coronavirus.