Greetings from Miryante Home and School!

April has been a colorful month with lots of Easter gifts for the kids from friends of Miryante. These gifts included 25 boxes of sanitary pads for the girls, 2 big boxes of tooth paste, ice cream, juice and sweets. This was especially exciting because this was the first time that all the kids tasted ice cream! Mr. Chirag Shah from the company Vision Impex Ltd visited with his grandmother and a family friend. They really dedicated the whole day to Miryante with kids. Easter was really fun for the kids and all staff members and it didn’t stop at dancing. We also had church with the community members and later a meal after church as shown in the pictures below. A huge thanks to the Schafer Family and the Hahns Family for sponsoring two days of Easter meals!

Technical School

Ester Atim is one of our children that finished last year and she passed with credit from the tailoring class. This month she departed from the project with a sewing machine as a kit. We are grateful for Mr. Patrick and Diane Corcoran that have been sponsoring Ester since 2011. Ester is a happy girl. She has already started up a business with a friend called Doreen one of our girls that also a year ago from the knitting class. They have started a small workshop from one of the small trading centres in Kyegegwa District.  We also had a party at the technical school for our former students that sat last year together with the new ones that have joined us this year.

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!!!!

MARCH NEWSLETTER 2017

Hello everyone!

March has been a wonderful month here. Seeing all the children in school and healthy makes all of us happy. This month of March we started up a weekend programme for all of our orphanage kids where they are taught how to cook, bake, and respect for elderly people like kneeling when greeting, responding when called by an elderly people and many other lessons. It’s such an interesting class.

We also have a visiting counsellor who comes over the weekends and is also a blessing to us all. This has helped the children to open up especially now that we have different categories of children like those that were abused by their parents, street kids being brought by police and the probation officers, and the orphans. This has brought about a difference in their lives. We also had a police office at least twice in the month of March to talk to the children at both the orphanage and home on how to keep law and order in the community. The children had enough time to ask the police officers any questions they had.

We are also humbled to inform you that the Kyaka II refugee programme is feeding 20 child headed families. Miryante is providing food for 20 child-headed families every month.

Technical

We are so happy to inform you that 8 of our students from the Miryante Technical School that sat for Uganda Business Technical Examination (UBTE) all passed well.

We had 1 student from Mechanics and driving who passed with a distinction, 2 from the tailoring class who passed with credits and 5 from bricklaying class who also passed with credits. None of the students failed. Out of the eight students who took the exam, 2 where from the orphanage. 1 is in brick laying class Charles and Atim Esther from tailoring class. Atim has received her kit already of a sewing machine.

We are also blessed with the tailoring class of 7 girls that finished last year that has been a blessing to the country. We travel to one or two districts every month and train girls in schools and mothers how to make washable sanitary pads and pampers. This programme has been so successful. We partner with Hope and Smile Uganda, a local Community Based Organization and Honourable members of Parliament. Here mothers and school girls are trained to use needles and sewing machines which has now become a source of income to many women all over the country.

Pampers

Farm

The goats’ house has been worked on and we are also now working on the herdsman’s house which we are constructing within the farm. We believe the herdsman’s house is going to increase the security of the livestock especially when it comes to monitoring the cows and during the night.

Goats’ house that has been renovated     Herd’s man’s house under                       construction

Visitors

We were so happy to receive a visit from our friend Salil Jacob. Salil came to visit our children and we enjoyed dancing and singing together.

We wish to extend our sincere thanks to the donors and the community around Miryante for being good neighbours to our organization.

Thanks God Bless Management.

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER 2017

Hello everyone!

We are so grateful for the month of February. February was a blessing seeing all the kids back safely from holidays and also having over 30 new children joining the orphanage. These new children are all posted on the website- so please share with your friends and family about our sponsorship program so we can find sponsors for them!

We are also grateful to inform you that our students that sat for Senior 4 final examinations from King Solomon Secondary School, Vincent and Florence, performed well. Vincent was admitted at St. Augustine’s Primary Teacher’s College Butiiti in two years from now Vincent will be a grade 111 teacher. Florence was admitted at St. Peter’s technical institute Mubende to do a tailoring course her dream is become a designer.

We are also humbled by the priest friends to the children that visit once in a while and pray with the children. Our children feel blessed.

Alex, Billy and Juliet have really played a big role in the gender class by encouraging the girls to do the same work like the boys. This has really made our work easy now. The girls now can graze cattle, feed pigs, spray cattle and also off load trucks that we hire to bring food at the home, which was different the chores assignment before. All the girls at the home thought that this type of work was only meant for boys, but thanks to Alex Rausch and the team, they now know that girls can do a lot of the same work as boys.

Currently the orphanage has got 131 children, 23 go to the technical school, 17 go to King Solomon Secondary School, one is at the seminary, 1 is joining a teaching collage, 1 is joining St. Peter’s institute for craft one and two, 14 are in the nursery and 75 attend Migongwe primary school. We are happy that our children are acquiring the best education and they are moving from one level to another. We want to thank our wonderful donors for helping us achieve this.

Father visits the children and leads them in prayers.

Alex, Juliet, and Billy lead the children in a training on gender roles

Below is one of our own Rosette Arinaitwe. She completed Technical School 2 years back and we got her a job in Mubende where she worked as a sales manager for one year and she was able to save enough money. Earlier this year she was able to start up her own shop where she deals in phones, airtime and mobile money.

Below is Esther Atim who completed tailoring class last year. She sat for the national exams and is waiting to receive her national certificate later this year. She is really doing wonders at the craft shop where she makes these wonderful bags. Everyday Esther makes around two bags and the demand for these bags is really high. Thanks for the Corcoran family for sponsoring Esther for the last 6 years.

Technical School

Our school has 122 students. The tailoring class has 15 in year one, 12 in year two and 8 in year three totalling to 35 students for the tailoring class. Carpentry and joinery has 7 in year one, 2 in year two, and 1 in year three. Motor Vehicles Class has 18 in year one and 10 in year two. Bricklaying and Concrete practice has 5 in year one, 6 in year two and 4 in year three. Hair dress course has 26 students which will all graduate in one year. Computer has 8 students. This all totals to 122 students and these include the 23 students from Miryante Orphans Home. The majority of the students are from the community.

Farm

Our farm is doing well. One of our pigs gave birth to 6 pigglets: 3 females and 3 males. The kids are taking good care of them under Alex and Juliet’s supervision.

Volunteers

American volunteer, Andrew Durke, came to visit Miryante for a weekend. The children had a wonderful time taking him on a tour of the surrounding hills and caves. We were so happy to have a visit from him!

Thanks very much to everyone that is contributing towards Miryante’s shining, God Bless

January Newsletter 2017

Children

January has been so wonderful to us here in Miryante. All the children returned in good health from holidays. Every January children are able to go home to check on any relatives or friends they might have in the village. Those that are completely homeless stay behind with us and they are given a holiday programmes to keep busy. Eleven of our pupils that sat for primary seven leaving examinations passed with good scores. This means that they are able to continue on to secondary school. One has joined the seminary as you will see in the pictures below. Six have joined King Solomon Secondary School which means that right now we have 17 of our children attending King Solomon Secondary School. Four have joined Miryante Technical School. This year we are going to have 23 of our children in Miryante Technical School.

During holidays the 35 children that reminded at the orphanage managed to have different programmes on site that really kept them busy throughout the holidays. One of the programs was the nature class that our Peace Corp Volunteer Alex conducted at least twice a week.

Also this year, thanks to donations on our website, we have managed to extend our services to Kyaka II refugee camp. Miryante is now providing basic needs to 20 child-headed households in the refugee camp. These are some of the basic needs that we are providing now: food, clothing, and scholastic materials. This is going to be done monthly where by each of these families will be signing for the materials or food they receive from Miryante and we shall be keeping the records.

We want to thank Dr. Craig for sponsoring Bosco, one of our boys in the tailoring class, to study a tailoring and designing course in Rwanda as he looks around for his family. We also want to thank Dr. Baker’s family that donated him a sewing machine as a starting kit for him which he moved with to Rwanda.

We are also grateful to inform you that 6 of our girls from the tailoring class that graduated last year are now employed with a women’s group that trains other women and girls to make sanitary pads. They are paid weekly by the women members of parliament. Below are the pics!

A big thank you to the Baker Family for sponsoring a great meal for New Years!

Ronald Nasasira’s Moving to the seminary.

Some of the child-headed households receiving uniforms and food.

Alex with her nature class

Girls training how to make reusable sanitary pads.

Bosco’s last day at Miryante leaving for Rwanda

We managed to renovate the dormitories by painting, fumigating, and repairing all the broken beds before the children reported back.

We have have also managed to add on new staff because of the increase in work. We now have a secretary who has also a role of helping children write letters to their penpals and sponsors. Her name is Ms. Harriet Kobusinge.

We have also hired a herd’s man who is helping us with the cows and the goats now. His name is Laulensio Kimara.

In February we were so lucky to have a visit from Nena Mocnik from Slovenia who came for a day to play games with our children.

Thanks for our hardworking staff and generous donors for helping to keep these children happy and healthy.

Thank You so much!

Management

December was just full of amazing things. This all started with our graduation ceremony from Miryante Technical School with 40 students graduating on 7^th of December. Out of the 40, 11 were from the orphanage. Children from the orphanage who graduated received start-up kits with tools needed to start businesses in their vocations. The preparations for graduation started with choir rehearsals by the children at the orphanage as shown below. The function started with mass that was led by our guest of honour who was Bishop Robert. We kindly pass on our sincere thanks to our wonderful donors that have brought us from the beginning this far to where we are today. For sure without you we wouldn’t be anywhere. Thanks very much and the kids are happy too and they feel blessed.

Special thanks to Aptech Africa which is a company that Laura volunteers with in Kampala. Aptech Africa donated four complete solar systems and also did the installation for free. We now have lighting in all the houses and electricity for charging in the office. Thanks very much.

Christmas celebrations started on 23^rd of December when Fr. Erineo the director came in to have fun with children and also to share with them the meaning of Christmas. Also some of our older children who used to live at Miryante came to visit the orphanage and brought gifts for other children at the orphanage. This has been a colourful season for children and staff. We also want to extend our thanks to Jon Sill, the James Hahn Family who donated so that the children could receive Christmas gifts and a huge Christmas dinner.

On 23^rd each child got a cloth for Christmas and at least a toy. Our day started with Mass as shown below.

On 27^th of December we had a trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese. 35 of our children visited the park and they were all grateful to be there. Our journey started at 5:00am in the morning, but by 3:00am all the children were awake for the trip and by 10:00am we were already in the park because we had booked for the boat ride at 11:00am. There was so much fun! The children were able to see elephants, wild pigs, cobs, crocodiles, hippos and many other animals. By 2:00pm everyone was tired and by 3:00pm we were in Kasese having lunch. We started our Journey back from Kasese to Miryante at 5:00pm and by 8:00pm were home. Thanks to a friend of Laura who donated for this wonderful trip.

We are also grateful to a huge outpouring of support for Miryante this Christmas season. We were donated 12 goats, a heifer, and a mother cow and calf. The goat project is now growing we now have 25 goats on our farm. We can’t believe that so many people helped us this Christmas and the children are so excited and thankful! We have never had a Christmas like this one before.

Thanks to everyone that has donated anything in kind to Miryante. Our children have never slept hungry, never lacked clothes or school fees. This is all because of you people. Thanks very much for having us at heart. Happy New Year to you all God Bless!

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!!!!

AUGUST NEWSLETTER 2016

Earlier this month, Miryante hosted some very special visitors. A mission group came from St. Peter’s Catholic Parish all the way from Ohio in the United States. The mission group stayed for one week playing games and attending daily mass with the children. They also set up 5 new hand-washing stations with materials donated from the United Nations Women’s Guild. Service work they performed included thorough medical examinations, making rosaries with the kids, and donating adjustable shoes, clothes, balls, and art supplies to the home. The mission group also enjoyed singing church hymns with the children and purchased a pig from Miryante’s own farm for the children to eat. The group also shared their music system to have a fun dance party with the kids. It was such an amazing week for the Miryante community. Below are pictures of activities from the week.

Fixing shoes for the children

The kids slaughtering their pig

Dancing time! The kids and staff dancing with the mission group

Teaching children how to make rosaries and to pray

Constructing hand washing stations

Teaching children how to use hand washing stations

Playing games with the kids

Mass

Board members saying a word of thank to the Mission group.

Health check ups

Miryante Orphans Home is proud to present its third Peace Corps Volunteer, Ms. Alex Rausch. Alex is a Community Agribusiness volunteer from Minnesota in the United States. She has been in training for the past three months and just arrived to begin her service on August 12^th. During these first couple of weeks, Alex has been busy meeting district officials and assessing the needs of the Miryante community. Alex loves spending time outdoors and with the children and she is very excited to spend the next two years in partnership with Miryante.

We would like to extend a special thanks to our treasurer, Mrs. Leontina Kaliisa Monday for providing special attention to the children of Miryante. She often houses children at her home for the holidays and provides generous gifts such as avocadoes and papayas.

In closing, we would like to thank United Nations Women’s Guild, the St. Peter’s mission group, and everyone else who has provided support for Miryante.

Thank you so much!

Management

July Newsletter 2016

Children

All the children are healthy and all of them in school. We currently have 72 children in Migongwe Primary School, 14 in boarding at King Solomon Secondary School, 24 in Miryante Technical School and 13 attending nursery at the orphanage totalling to 123children. The 13 attending nursery from here are studying under a trained nursery teacher. All of our children are in school.

Miryante pays school fees, provides scholastic materials, and other requirements for the children as needed.

Miryante as a home has a staff of 14 staff members as listed below by names:

Names                                                       Responsibility                     

1. Rev.Fr. Mushuhukye Erineo Director
2. Ms.  Tigah Doreen                               Communication Officer
3. Mr. Kadoma Joseph Manager
4. Mr. Rwamahe Billy Steven         Social worker
5. Mr. Ngabirano Didas                            Caretaker/ Cook
6. Mr. Twahirwa Amos
7. Ms. Nabatongore Cleophas
8. Ms. Komuhendo Margandarena
9. Ms. Katuutu Margate
10. Ms. Twinomugisa Judith Nurse
11. Ms. Asango Juliet Agric. Assistant
12. Mr. Kitufu Douglas Security guard
13. Ms. Kengozi Rose                           Nursery teacher
14. Ms. Alex Rausch Peace Corps Volunteer

STAFF MIRYANTE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

The school has 20 teaching staff and non-teaching staff members

Enrolment per course (Vocational School)

Course          year I year II   year III

Girls boarding             31

Boys boarding             22

Students from home 24

Day scholars boys       2

Day scholars girls         4

We are glad to inform you that our three candidates from the technical school that sat from St. Joseph’s national examinations last year all passed with credits. We are also proud to announce that the school is now offering 6 courses with the addition of Mechanics. These include:

• Carpentry and joinery
• Hairdressing
• Brick laying and concrete practice
• Computer studies
• Tailoring/Knitting and
• Motor Vehicle Mechanics

The children and staff at Miryante are grateful for the 3 volunteers who visited in July: Chad, Mike, and Dr. Craig. They surprised kids with a lot of donations. These included a projector, balls, clothes, and art supplies as seen in the pictures below.

They also had a chance to visit the children they are sponsoring.

We also thank them for taking four of our older children who are about to graduate on safari with them so that the children could have a chance to see the animals in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Miryante would like to thank the United Nations Women’s Guild for their generous donation of 4,987,500/=. We have used it to expand the farm by clearing 9.5 acres of land and installing a new barbed wire fence to keep the cows and goats in. The money was also used in the construction of hand washing stations for all of the pit latrines.

We would really like to end with a word of deep thanks for our hardworking staff and generous donors for helping to keep these children happy and healthy.

Thank You,

Management

Newsletter for the Month of May 2016

Greetings from Miryante Orphans Home and School!

The children and staff from both the school and home send you greetings. All the children are in good health and have been out of school for spring holidays.  We have eleven candidates registered to sit for primary level seven graduating examinations. We also have two candidates that have registered for senior graduating exams and three of our children have also registered with the national exams for technical school. They will be graduating and will be resettled by December this year.

While the children were at the home on school holiday, we implemented a time table program that was successful in keeping the children and caregivers active throughout the holiday. The girls have been more involved in sports this holiday than ever before. The girls had football on their time table and they really enjoyed it.

Our new Agricultural worker, Madam Juliet, conducted daily educational classes in the mornings focusing on animal husbandry topics with the help of the books donated by the 4-H Foundation from Ohio.

We also had several life skills programs including interview skills and money management. Below is the manager pictured teaching our children on finance management.

The children have been so hard working during the holidays. Some of the activities include helping in the garden to weed the bananas and cassava, helping in the kitchen to cook and also grazing the animals and feeding the pigs.

Volunteers:  We were blessed to host two volunteers on site Tina and David. They got to know about our organization through Laura our Volunteer manager and we were all happy to see them on site for a few days having fun with the children. They hired a music system for the children and this was fun. The children enjoyed.

It’s our culture here in Miryante to have at a cow, goat or pig slaughtered for the children at least once every year. We believe as these children contribute a lot towards grazing the cows, goats and also feeding the pigs. They should enjoy eating meat every once in a while to make them happy and to keep them active towards looking after the animals and to help them feel like they have ownership of them.

We also had Mass led by Rev.Fr.Mugisa. This happens once in a month where the children get a joint mass with the community led by a priest.

We would like to extend our thanks to Phillipe Duff and Lianna Tasker-Steeves. They made a stop at Miryante on their bicycle trip from Uganda to South Africa and decided to fund raise for the home. Their donation will go towards the education of the children including school fees, tutoring for the children who are not performing well in school, and materials for the Technical School.

All of our Thanks!

We would also like to thank Gordon Cross and everyone from Aegon for their generous donation of clothes. Now our kids are looking very smart. We are completely humbled and thankful for these donations and the continuous support from everyone which allows us to continue to provide services for our children.

Thank you so much everyone! God Bless!