Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Children’s Home and school. We really love you all and we do appreciate all the love and support. All the children are very well and prepared for the new term. They are eager to join classes for the new school year. Below are the updates of pictures of our children getting ready for the new term.

Schools opened on 27^th of January 2020. All of our children are in back in their respective schools including the children who just joined the first year of secondary school.

We congratulate Ninsiima Christine upon becoming the president of Miryante Girls Club and Nyangoma Jacinta for becoming the choir leader of Miryante. They both joined St. Peter’s Technical School last year to acquire a national certificate in fashion and design. They have been really exemplary students and inspired other children to work hard at their technical education.

We have also included remedial classes in our everyday activities for the little children in grades 1-3 that come back from school by 1:00 pm. We noticed that some are very slow in class and they needed extra classes to catch up. This is now compulsory for them.

The photos below show children playing after remedial lessons. 

On 28^th February 2020, we received a team from Crutches for Africa. This is an organization based in the USA. The team donated a number of mobility devises to people with disabilities in Kyegegwa District. These mobility devices were distributed to the community at Miryante.

The team came along with Returned Peace Corp Volunteer named Sue. She once served in Namibia, Zambia and Kenya. When we gave her our background and experience with Peace Corps, she requested to spend one night at Miryante and meet the children. This was fun for her to be entertained by the children. The following morning before she left, she taught the nursery class and the interested pupils.

Animals and Gardens

 Under the agriculture department, we managed to plant various vegetables this season and some are ready to be harvested like kale, pumpkin, eggplants, avocado etc. Our children are having plenty of vegetables, which is nutritious for their bodies. The agriculture department has really played a very big role in managing all these gardens and all the animals.

Harvests of avocado and pumpkins

0n 29^th February, we were finally connected to the grid and received electricity for our home and school. This is the greatest achievement so far this year by the government of Uganda. We had waited for this power for over 6 years and we had even lost hope of getting it at one point. The whole site is now full of life.

Every two weeks we visit the children under the guardianship program to see if they are attending school and also to check on their well-being at both school and home. We have new children that have joined the program to make a total of 28 children. We thought it could be wise if we visited all the children twice a month. Below are some of the pictures of our children in their schools some with their new friends like Kato and Insingoma.

Technical School

The enrollment this year is promising. We have 104 students in the school including those doing crafts this year. In addition, the performance from last year was good. In the Uganda Business Technical Examination, we had one distinction and nine credits. In Directorate of industrial training, we had 22 students that sat for the exams and we are still waiting for the results.

Thanks very much to everyone that endeavors to see us grow daily.

Miryante Management

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Children’s Home and school. We really love you all and we do appreciate all the love and support. All the children are very well and prepared for the new term. They are eager to join classes for the new school year. Below are the updates of pictures of our children getting ready for the new term.

Schools opened on 27^th of January 2020. All of our children are in back in their respective schools including the children who just joined the first year of secondary school.

On January 22nd, 21 of our children were confirmed by Bishop Robert Muhiirwa Akiiki at Migongwe Catholic Church.

Guardianship Program:  

Uganda government is pushing to transition orphans from institutions to foster care. At the beginning of this year, we placed more children under the guardianship program, bringing the total number of children to 27.  Before the children joined their guardians, we made a baseline survey to make sure the children will be safe in the homes and we interacted with guardians in a meeting. This program has been welcomed since it was a policy from the ministry. In this program where we monitor the children’s progress, provide counseling and guidance, and give them scholastic materials, bedding, clothes, school fees, and food. We also conduct educative programs with the families such as agriculture and animal husbandry as shown below in the photo:

Donations:

Manapack rice!

We received a donation of 66 boxes of Manapack rice from Feed My Starving children from the USA. This is one type of foods that our children were introduced to four years a good and they enjoy it so much. We always receive the same packs after every quota.

The food has all the body building nutrients that help our children grow healthy.

We were also grateful for another donation of 160 sport shorts received from Manoj and Ritu and Mrs. Laura and the Patel family that has really blessed us the children.

 Under the Farm:

Our cows are doing very well and so far with 10 baby calves being welcomed to the world. This has multiplied on the liters of milk that we receive everyday for the kids.

Under the agriculture department. We have planted various vegetables like pumpkins eggplants, kale, spinach, carrots and passion fruits. So far we have planted 3 acres as shown below.

Thanks very much for having us at heart!

Miryante Management

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER 2019

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Children’s Home. We such a wonderful festive season with a lot of eats and drinks. Our Christmas celebrations started as early as the 20^th of December. It was also the first of its kind to have local people support our children here. Vision Fund Uganda, a local micro finance group affiliated to World Vision, visited us with a number of gifts for the children and the staff. These included: loaves of bread, sugar, salt, soap, cooking oil, rice, toilet paper, T-shirts for the staff, and also a cake that we all shared with everyone.

Christmas did not stop with the World Vision’s donations. The excitement increased when all the children were able to make selections with the help of the caregivers to pick out underwear, belts, shoes and clothes for Christmas. Thanks to all our donors that helped us to make it colorful.

On the eve of Christmas. Our children helped to peel matooke and Irish potatoes.

The day started with breakfast for all the children before going to church.

The children couldn’t wait to go to church with their new clothes as shown in the photos below:

  The children help to decorate the church as shown above.

We had a variety of food for our Christmas meal which gave the children a chance to choose want they want. We had rice, plantains, cassava, potatoes, groundnuts sauce, fish, beef, pork, spaghetti and sodas as shown in the photos below:

Trip to the Zoo

The Trip to Entebbe Zoo was so much fun! The children said it was the best trip ever. We started our journey at 3am in the morning and one of our children, Sunday Clovice, led us in prayer to bless our journey. The children were able to see different animals that was very exciting. They especially liked the baboons because they had similar names to theirs.   The children later had their lunch and later we drove to Entebbe airport and the kids were able to see some airplanes though they remained in the bus as they observed them take off. We later started our journey back a bit early. We had our last stop over in Mubende along the high way for: roasted meat, cassava, bananas, and chicken. As shown Below:

Photos showing children looking the eldest tree at the zoo

The carnival was also fun. The little children had lunch before they started their journey and at the carnival they had a dancing competition and eating competition as seen below:

Photos for children with their faces painted:

During this long holiday, we came up with a holiday programs where children had sports and games after their daily work.

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful support! We wish you all a happy 2020!

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Miryante home and school. We love you all; we do appreciate all the love and kindness you do share with us by providing to us all the basics that have enabled us to keeping running for all this period. All of our children went on their holidays from school on 29^th of November 2019. The majority of our children performed well on their exams and were promoted to other classes. Some will be joining the technical next year. Below are photos showing students of King Solomon boarding school offloading their luggage as they came back from school.

We also take to the opportunity to thank Laura and the husband Ambrish who always come around almost every weekend to spend time with the children. While here, they do advise us on the technical things to be done to help the institutions run and also sharing love with the children.

We have managed to come up with holiday programs to keep the children busy around the home. These programs run from Monday up to Sunday and these activities include; fellowship every Thursday, revision, watching movies, cow grazing, rabbit and goat rearing, planting crops, slashing the compound, digging , tailoring and knitting, football every evening and other games. This has helped our children learn more skills and it has helped them to keep busy since they are occupied throughout the holiday.

We received 60boxes of manapack rice the food that all the children enjoy most. This food is a miracle working food with all the nutrition boosters in it.  

Education:

We have just finished the school year and all our children worked hard to be promoted to other classes. Most of our children in primary school and secondary school passed highly in grade I and some grade II.  In addition, at the technical school, our children are performing very well especially in practical work and they have learnt many skills in different courses. We held an academic meeting at the orphanage, announced the children with the best performance, and encouraged others to add more efforts in their studies where necessary.

Since our vocational school is the only one registered with a centre number for national exams, we hosted students from Wekomiire vocational school to take exams at our school.

Our technical school closed on 23^rd of November. We did a stock take before all the departments handed over their respective departments to go for holidays. Below are photos showing machines and other tools before they were stored.

Donation of sewing machines:

 We received a donation of seven electrical sewing machines from Uganda Association of Private Technical Institutions. These machines will be put into use next year.

Due to the hailstorm that destroyed almost all our crops and vegetable in October, we wrote to the Office of Disaster at the district that later received a donation of rice. As Miryante Home we were given 300kgs

On 21/11/2019, we held an internal health check program where our nurse first sensitized our children on hygiene measures, nutrition awareness, sanitation and later screened our children for malnutrition.  Below are photos of children being measured using MAC (Measurement of Arm Circumferance).

Under agriculture, we have replanted our vegetable garden that was washed away by a heavy hailstorm in October. We have planted a number of vegetables like kale, green paper, carrots, pumpkins, dodo, eggplants and tomatoes. Below are photos showing the garden

Thanks very much to our dear donors for the wonderful contributions towards Miryante Orphans Home and school. By your support, we exist.

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Home and School. We really love you all and we pray for you every day to have life. This month has been filled up with visitations to our 35 children that are attending different boarding school. This started on October 6^th and went up to the 27^th of October. We visited our children in King Solomon Kyatega, Kiganda High School, St. Thomas, and St. Peters’ technical school.  The children’s performance was promising, especially for the senior four candidates. They also looked happy and healthy; we gave them scholastic materials like pens, books, pencils etc and other things like fruits and juice as shown in the pictures below:

We also received different donations from the Patel community which has been a blessing to our orphanage. From Prime Impex and Sawan Zakharia, we received dozens of books, pens, and reams of paper. From the Patel Family we received Diwali biscuits, and from Manoj and Ritu we received colorful t-shirts. The children and the staff feel blessed to have such nice people around them.

Gardens and the animals:

We received a very heavy hailstorm that washed away almost all our gardens including the banana plantation, cassava, beans, maize, all the vegetable gardens. The office also sustained some water damage, including to the electronics such as phones and computer that are kept there for charging. We also lost three of our calves. Above all, we thank God that no lives and structures were lost.

Thanks for your prayers and support, Management.

SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER 2019

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante home and school. We really love you all and we are grateful for the support that you render us.

Schools opened on the 16^th of September 2019, and all our children are back to school in their respective schools (King Solomon Secondary School, Kiganda High School, St. Thomas, Miryante nursery school, Miryante vocational school).

Photos below show children posing with beautiful smiles after receiving their scholastic materials and ready to go to school! 

Photos showing some of the school requirements that were given to the children:

Photos showing children under the guardianship program receiving scholastic material for school:

Guidance and Counseling

Report from our counselor indicates that our children’s’ behavior has greatly improved since when they first joined boarding school. According to her, she no longer handles cases concerning bad behaviors.

Her report also indicated that the children are able to interact/seek help from the counselor through sharing the problems they face in their daily lives and finding immediate solutions to their problems.

Children’s hygiene has greatly improved as well as daily supervision of every dormitory.

There has been also a great improvement in the children’s academics.

On the 14^th of September we had a farewell party for our horse trainer Mr. Aman Kumar and his wife Meghan who left the country. In their speech, they expressed how Miryante has been the best and hospitable home for them. Other speeches followed and we later had a meal that was prepared by Aman and the wife.

We also take this opportunity to thank the Dresbach family that donated a number of books and sweets to our children. This excites our children the more, they feel they are loved since there are people who think about them. 

Under the agriculture department, we have planted various crops like 1 acre of kale, beans, more sweet potatoes, more banana stems, chia seeds, pumpkins etc. Below are some of the photo showing  nursery beds with different types of vegetables to be transferred later to main garden:  

A photo showing a garden of kale near the kitchen:

Photos showing paws, maize, beans and pumpkins plants:

Our banana garden is so productive. We are able to harvest at least 4 times in a month:

Thanks very much to everyone that is contributing towards our success! 

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Miryante Home and School. We really love you all and we do appreciate all that you’re providing to us. Our children went on school holiday on  the 16^th of August 2019, and their performance was really promising compared to first term’s performance. We managed to come up with holiday programs to keep the children busy around the home. These programs run from Monday up to Sunday and these activities include prayers, revision, watching videos, cow grazing, rabbit and goat rearing, planting crops, slashing the compound, digging, and soccer matches every evening. This has helped our children learn more skills and has also helped us as management and caregivers to handle them since they are occupied throughout the holiday.

Education:

The performance of our children is really promising. Most of our children in primary school and secondary school passed highly in grade I and some in grade II.  Also under our technical school, our children are performing very well, especially in practical work. They have learnt a lot of skills in different courses. We held an academic meeting at the orphanage and announced the children with the best performance and encouraged others to give more efforts to their studies since they are left with one term to be promoted to other classes.

 On the 15^thof August we celebrated 10 years of existence as Miryante Orphans Home. This was sponsored by Father David. Stanbic Bank also made for us a cake and gave us 240 plastic bottles of soda. This was also their love month as a bank , and when we wrote to them they welcomed the idea of sharing love with us since it was their love month. We are really thankful   for the great love you show to us as Miryante and the community at large. We had a great meal of matooke, rice, meat, groundnuts, fish, greens etc. Later we cut the cake and they also enjoyed the music. Thank you Father David and Stanbic Bank for making our children smile. Below are the photos:

We are also happy to inform you that Father Erineo was able to trace the bag of donated clothes from Ohio and the airlines found it. Thanks very much Mama Karla and Papa Rich for the clothes. The children really loved the beautiful colors. Below are the pictures of the bag and the children on the clothes.

In the same month, we attended training on how to use menstrual caps. This training was conducted by our Peace Corps Volunteer, Alex Rausch before she left. These were donated to us by one of Laura’s friend called Lauben.

CHILDREN’S HEALTH!

About children’s health, this month we have had over 25 children suffer from Measles and 2 suffering from tuberculosis. This has been very expensive on our side. Several times the kids have been admitted to the hospital. Kindly keep praying for us. We also managed to get a medical technician who is partly working with us since it’s a government requirement for all the children’s homes in the country. Because of the medical personal that we have hired, this has helped us to limit on the number of kids that needed to be admitted to Kyegegwa and Mubende referral hospital. They are now being treated from here at out sickbay. He has also improved on the order in the sick bay as you can see from the pics below with the charts on the wall, the new beds, and the mosquito nets on the beds. The government also has a plan of immunizing all the children in the country by the 19^th of Sept 2019.

We have also expended on our offices. We have got a new block for the counseling department since they needed privacy, and the Social workers department since it was also a recommendation by the Ministry. Therefore, we had to improvise one of the boy’s dormitory that had very few children. We combined them with the other children. We now have six Dormitories 3 for boys and 3 for girls.  

Our volunteer Alex Rausch left on the 12^th of August after 3 years of service. In her speech, she expressed how it’s very hard to leave people that you have lived together with as a family. After her speech, she awarded us a certificate from peace corps. Other speeches followed, and we later had a meal and a dance till late.

Thanks to our donors for making this all happen!

JULY NEWS LETTER 2019

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Miryante children’s home and school. We really love you all and we do appreciate all that you’re providing to us.   Our children are really happy and healthy. In this month we had a lot of activities that took place at the home 

    On the 3^rd of July we visited our children at King Solomon to attend a parents’ meeting. We were so happy to hear and read the comments about our children. We were told that they have good grades and that they are well behaved children at school. This showed us as staff that we are doing great work. We also gave the children some school requirements that they needed at school.  Below is a photo showing the children after the parents meeting.

We have resumed reading and writing classes every day at 3 to 4 pm from Monday to Friday with the help of one of our intern students.  This has helped children’s writing and reading skills, and the correct pronunciation of words and spelling has improved.  Below are photos showing first and second graders studying.

On the 19^th of July we had an open day to advertise our technical school and also to promote our products from the school made by our children. We invited the following categories of people: District officers, community members, church leaders and politicians. Different courses such as tailoring, hair dressing, motor vehicle, carpentry and joinery, and computer studies were all able to display their products. The function started with a prayer, the national anthem, and later inspections of the products that were displayed from different departments. The program also included a dance prepared by our students at the technical school. Below are photos showing the different activities that happened on open day.

Our human resource manager, Mr. Kadoma Joseph, and one of our social workers attended a workshop where they were taught the following topics: human rights on land, access to justice, service delivery, and accounts and accountability.  Later Mr. Kadoma shared the information acquired with staff of Miryante and the elder children at Miryante Children’s home . Below are photos showing staff and children  of Miryante  attending  sessions

We also received donations from the sister of St. Peter’s parish in the USA. Below are photos showing staff members and children with happy smiles after receiving the gifts.

Under our agriculture program, more vegetables have been planted by the children since they are nutritious for them.

We cannot stop saying thank you to our lovely donors for the wonderful support.

JUNE NEWS LETTER 2019

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Miryante orphanage and school. We really love you all and we do appreciate all that you’re providing to us. The last Saturday of the month, we visited our children in different schools with our Peace Corp volunteer Ms. Alex Rausch who is in her preparations to go back home after her service of three years. Her visit was to say bye to the children since she will be traveling back to the states on 12^th of August and she didn’t want to go without seeing the children that are in boarding section. She therefore visited our children in the following schools: St. Thomas Primary School, King Solomon College, St. Peter Technical School, and Kiganda Secondary School.  We served them with the requirements they needed at school i.e.: bread, juice, milk chocolate donated by Mr. Sultan, toothpaste, pads , sweets donated by Alex, pencils, pens, books and some many others. Below are the pictures:

We are also greatful and thankful for a donation of  80boxes of soya milk drink and 250bars  of cholcates  donated to us by Mr. Sultan of Leo traders. The childern took the soya milk for three constant days and they are really thankful.

GUARDIANSHIP PROGRAMME

We always visit our children in the guardianship program every month to check on the progress of the children and to also see what they are lacking so that we as an organization can provide. In order to make sure the children get the basic needs that they need. There is really a great improvement according to our observation in the different households.

 Below are the photos showing guardians and the children receiving scholastic materials

Guardians by the help of the children are growing crops and rearing animals to support their households which show a great improvement.

Below are the photos:

Vocational School:

Miryante Vocational School is preparing for the open day function which will take place on the 19^th of July this year. Different courses are practicing hard for their presentations to make the function colorful. Many people are invited such as the government officers, community members, religious leaders, well-wishers and political members. All the workshops are busy in preparations. Our main aim is to market the school and get more students and also to raise some money to help us in the school operations.

Below are the pictures:

Gardens:

We planted beans in April this year and this month children are enjoying fresh beans that they planted themselves with the help of the caregivers.

Photos showing different nursery beds with green peppers, egg plants, and spinache seedlings ready to be transplanted to the main garden:

To all our donors and well-wishers out there, we just want you to know that we are so grateful and appreciative for your kindness.

Thanks very much.

MAY NEWS LETTER 2019

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Miryante orphanage and school. We really love you all and we do appreciate all that you’re providing to us. We thank our dear sponsors Marty, Bogie, Natalie, and Patrick who visited us this month at Miryante Home. They showed us much love and care for the time they spent around. They bought two goats for meat roasting, donated a number of items which included maps, sharpeners, playing toys, etc.  The Miryante music and dance club entertained the visitors with songs and dances which the visitors enjoyed.  Below are a couple of pictures showing the visitors touring different departments with the help of the children.

Mugisa Nicholas was sponsored

 Our children both under the guardianship program and the orphans home are getting ready for the new term. Miryante gave them school requirements like books, pencils, new shoes for those who had worn out shoes and other requirements such as juice, sugar etc. We also fried for them hard corns which was harvested from the home garden. As shown in the pictures below:

We are also grateful for the grant of a new pit latrine donated to us by Fr. David Baumgartner. The children and the staff were all happy and the old one was demolished.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank  Mr. Chirag of Vision Impex for the  donations of 540 packets of sanitary pads (Feathers) and 940 packets  of toothpaste (Fresh Up) each with a toothbrush that will take us throughout the year. The children are really happy and thankful and also pleased for the times you visit them that shows the love you have for them.  Below are pictures  showing children receiving the pads , toothpaste  and brushes.

A story of the month about Kyalikunda aged five and Mugisha Nicholas aged Eight. We received two children  who were malnourished and suffering from jiggers which had attacked their entire body from community on 14^th   May 2019.  In 2017, they lost their father to a certain disease that they didn’t know. Later their mother became mentally ill.  The mother was not able to provide food or shelter for the children.  They were later abandoned in some isolated old house. The Community members got concerned and told the chairperson who later brought them to the orphanage. We are glad to report that the children’s health is improving daily. Below are pictures of Kyalikunda and Mugisha Nicholas showing them at arrival and after two weeks .

ABOUT THE CAMP BRO AND GLOW.

ON the 13^TH to 17^th of May 2019, we had a BRO AND GLOW CAMP (Boys reaching out and Girls leading our world) at the orphanage which was led by Alex Rausch our Peace Corps volunteer working hand in hand with Miryante Staff as facilitators. The topics were Gender Equality, Leadership and Volunteerism, Reproduction health, Aspiration and Goals, Self-esteem and Confidence. This camp ended successfully and the children were awarded with certificates of participation on Friday when the workshop ended.

Below are the pictures showing children attending the camp.

We also received a number of donations for the children and caregivers from Laura’s friends. These included clothes, a couple of toys and shoes as shown below.

As a project at times we extend some support to the community when need arises. We especially do this for young mothers like the mother below who is struggling with some personal issues. We were able to support her with a number of clothes for her baby.

We are so grateful and we feel we can do what we do because of your support.

Miryante Management.