April Newsletter 2016

Hello everyone!

April has been a colorful month with a lot of stuff taking place here. The nursery pupils are sitting for their end of term examinations. All our nursery children can say hello and also write their names on their own. Gaurav Vijayvargiya with Seba Foods Uganda visited the project with a donation of food products including local Zambian porridge, Tomato paste, chilli, tomato source, food. Mr. Vijayvargiya also hired a music system for the children. The children we so excited and they also welcomed the visitors with a dance. We feel so blessed down here.  Our children feel so blessed and they feel very safe here.

Children’s Nursery School Class hard at work.

Donations from Gaurav V. and Seba Company                 

Children performing a welcome dance

Guests being entertained with dancing

Children enjoying a dance party                                               

Children enjoying special food donated

Children enjoying food donated

Rosette and Erina washing clothes

Technical school

Early April we hosted parents and guardians for all our technical school where all the board members, director and staff were involved in orienting parents on school curriculum and informing them about how our students from the previous year sat for national exams and performed very well with credits. We are also calling upon parents to get us more students. Before the meeting, the parents inspected the school, stores and dormitories for the students and also some of the practical work done by the students such as bricklaying class.

Parents Meeting for Technical School                    

Practical by the brick laying class

In addition to administrative work, Volunteer Laura has been giving Caregivers training on alternative discipline for the children. Technical School Students who will be graduating this year are completing health and parenting classes conducted by Laura and Billy the social worker.

Vegetable gardens! Our vegetable gardens are doing very well. We have had enough rain this season and this has helped us a lot on the side of vegetables for children.

Animal project! Below is Charles showing us our new puppy who is named Fox. Charles is the child in charge of this puppy. We bought it for security purposes. Also one of our pig gave birth to 10piglets.

Thanks very much and God Bless.

Miryante Management.

NEWSLETTLER FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH 2016.

Greetings from Miryante!

We are so grateful and humbled for the continuous donations given to us. You have made the children glad here. Easter was fun at Miryante Orphans home. You have given children hope that every big day they will get to slaughter either a goat or a bull. Easter was as colorful as you see from the pictures below. We slaughtered one of our big male goats for the Easter celebration. The day started with Mass. The children had Meat, Matoke, Rice, Bananas, Fish and G. nuts. For those that do not eat meat, they at least received a bottle of soda for each of them. Later they watch three movies to make their Easter celebration. For every child, that is what they call a big day.

Agriculture Program!

We are so grateful for the agriculture books donated to the project by the Ohio 4-H program. Below is Laura our Volunteer manager having lessons with the children and the care givers.

We are also glad to inform you that Miryante Orphans Home has expanded its services to children who are being abused by their parents. Below is Deo Byamukama aged 8 years old who was burnt by his father for going to the neighborhood to watch television. Deo is still with us till the high court conducts a review of his case since we believe that Kyegegwa court miss-managed the case. We are working with the NGO Justice for Children to advocate for his protection. He is now fine and attending school from our nursery school. Deo is a bright and happy boy. We shall resettle him with his mother once the issue is sorted out with the high court.

We are also glad to inform you that our little children below 7years have been immunized against polio.

 Volunteers!

In March, we were blessed with two visitors/volunteers, Paul and Alison. The two stayed with us for four days and they did a great job with the young children. During the four days they were helping with the drawing and shading for the little children and also working on repairing the playground for the little children.

Current situation with our gardens and animals!

We have got 18 cows and out of the 18 we do milk 4 cows and all the milk goes to the children’s diet. The piggery project is doing well, as well as the goats’ project. We have two separate new banana plantations as shown below with the director inspecting them. Our children are doing a great job of spraying the animals every weekend and deworming them as shown in the picture below. We have five acres of cassava, six acres of bananas and three acres of beans. The children have partly contributed towards planting these gardens, though much of the work has been hired labor, especially during school days. We are trying to train our children with farming skills such that they can still live a better life after they have graduated and resettled.

Vocational school

We are glad to inform you that this year 2016 the turn up at the vocational school is good. We have 75students and we are expecting more children from the community to join us with the introduction of our mechanics course. We hope to introduce driving early next term since the two classes work hand in hand. The course has 7 students so far and we expect a big turn up next term with the introduction of driving. Below are some of the mechanics students trying to assemble an engine with their teacher.

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!!!!

February Update

February was a good month here at Miryante Orphans Home. We received a number of generous donations this month that we would like to recognize. Herman, our Austrian volunteer who recently arrived, donated a solar panel to the guesthouse. Gordon Cross also donated a fantastic wooden plaque displaying our mission statement and a goat was also donated by Ryan Willi, a donor in the US.

We also received a much delayed, but eagerly anticipated donation of dresses, shirts, and sanitary pads from Karla Kensey for the children!

Our vocational school opened on Monday 22^nd and we are expecting a bigger turnout this year compared to last. We have started our new courses of mechanics and driving, which have both already proved to be very popular.

The farm is running nicely and one cow gave birth this month!

Miryante Orphans Home is also expanding its services to helping children in the local community that are being abused by their parents. This month saw a child brought to us after he was burnt by his father. Byamukama Deo’s father burnt him as a punishment for leaving his local neighbourhood to watch TV. His father was arrested and he was brought to us where he received treatment in our sick bay. Once his father is released he will receive counselling from the probation officer along with the mother and when the child has recovered he will go back to his family.

Finally, this past week we a priest from Kakabara parish came to visit the children and we celebrated a memorial mass for Docus Sincere. Thank you for everyone who has offered prayers for her and her family.

A special thanks to Adam and Claire who left behind donations of art supplies and toys for the kids to enjoy. We were so thankful to be able to host them for a brief time and thank them for all their work (including the compilation of most of this update).

Thank you for everyone who is supporting our organization in so many ways! We are incredibly grateful for all your support which helps to bring joy into the lives of our children.

God Bless!

We recently lost one of our children, Docus Sincere, and we would like to take a moment to remember her and reflect on her life.

Docus Sincere was born November 15, 2000. She was born in the village of Kyakabamba within Kyegegwa District. Her father died in an accident and her mother was unable to care for her due to a disability. Prior to coming to Miryante, she completed the 5^th grade at Kisinda Primary School. Her major interest as a child was athletics. Although she did not often dig in the garden, she was very good at helping others in the house with chores such as cooking and cleaning and caring for the younger children.

She came to Miryante on September 2, 2014 because of the death of her father and the inability of her mother to care for her. Her family did not have a permanent home and was moving from place to place. Once she came to Miryante, she lived in the St. Mary’s dormitory. She was in charge of mopping the dormitory and would help out with digging in the gardens with the other children. She was a great help to the nurse and was one of the children who helped to take care of an infant Miryante temporarily took into its care in 2015. She was always quick to help with work and always had a smile on her face. She loved to dance and was in the Miryante Choir. She was also an avid netball player and was described as one of the best players on the team by her friends. She wanted to be a nurse when she grew up.

Children are encouraged to go home to visit their extended families during their school holidays. Docus returned home to visit her mother, aunts, and uncles in December 2015 after Christmas with her brother and sister. While she was home visiting her family she became severely ill. She was diagnosed and treated for typhoid, but did not respond to treatment and passed away while at home with her family.

She is survived by her mother Juliet Rutts, her 14 year old brother Rutto Roger Henry, her 8 year old sister Babara Chebetti , and her 6 year old brother Mubaraka Jonas. All three siblings are now living at Miryante.

Staff at Miryante describe her as a well-behaved girl. Whenever she was asked to do anything she would accept quickly. She was very good at sharing all of her things with her friends. She enjoyed playing and laughing with the small children. She loved to entertain visitors with singing and dancing. She was also a member of the church choir and was always found singing on Sundays. Her best friend, Doreen Atuhaire, reflects on Docus:
“She was like my daughter. We were always keeping our clothes together. We were always working together. We would do things like wash our clothes, fetching water for bathing, even each and everything. Docus was also good a friend to the twins Nyangoma and Nyankato and Kasende Rachel. Sometimes we would share a bed together. She was always a good girl. If you told her to do something, she could not refuse. During Christmas day we celebrated together with her friends. We enjoyed watching a film together with Kasende, Nyangoma, Nyakato, and me. When it was time to go home for the holiday, we woke up very early and did our usual house work. Then Madam Doreen told us we could go home to visit our families. And Docus told me that she was going home with her brother Roger and sister Barbara. She was not stubborn. She was a good singer, she liked to participate in singing, drumming, dancing. Even church choir. She was a humble girl. Smart girl. And she had kindness”.

Docus was well-loved and we miss her terribly, but we know that she is with God. Please join us in prayers for her family including her brothers and sister and all of her friends at Miryante who are missing her beautiful smile and her helping hands.

January Update

2016 started off wonderfully here at Miryante Orphans Home. All of the children have been on school holidays after their exams. We had 11 students take exams, with four passing 2nd Grade, four passing 3rd Grade and three passing 4th Grade.

We are very pleased to announce that the children are all fit and healthy. We had two children undergo hernia opperations recently, but they are both doing very well and are on the road to a full recovery. The dentist also came in to see a couple of children who were suffering with their teeth, however, after some treatment they are now doing very well. The dentist will be coming over again in the coming month to check more of the children's teeth, when they are back from their school holidays.

The First Lady of Uganda donated two million Ugandan Shillings to our farm project, allowing us to purchase two new cows. We now have a herd of 18 cows, two of which have given birth.  We are also able to milk four of our herd, ensuring that there is enough fresh milk for all of the orphans.

The farm has been coming on nicely, and the children have recently harvested three bags of beans, five sacks of Irish potatoes, six basins of groundnuts and 200 pumpkins! We couldn't have been more pleased with the harvest, and everyone's hard work was justified as the children tucked into the pumpkins for the first time. We have also managed to loan the tractor out for the coming season to raise some much needed extra funds for Miryante Orphans Home.

The end of the month also saw the arrival of Claire and Adam, our two new volunteers from Great Britain. They will be staying with us for the next month, and have already been working on a number of tasks. Their first job was to sort out the library, and after a day's hard graft, all of the books were organised neatly into categories, making it easier for the children to find the books they need.

Claire and Adam also brought with them some clothes to donate, which the children were very pleased to receive. And, with Adam being an avid football fan back in Britain, he decided to bring two new footballs for the children. It is safe to say that they boys were very pleased with this donation. Whilst many of the children have been away from the orphanage over the holidays, those that have stayed have had fun playing football, netball and volleyball with our new volunteers. They even treated Adam and Claire to a night of entertainment as they played the drums, sang and danced for our new guests.

Miryante Vocational School opens on the 22nd February, and we are expecting more students than ever before in all of the courses we offer. As well as the orphans, the Technical School is also open to children from the local area, who pay a small fee. This is a fantastic way for us to raise more money for the project, whilst also offering local children access to technical education. We are especially excited to launch our brand new Mechanics and Driving courses, which are already proving popular, with plenty of children signing up to begin this term.

We are optimistic about 2016, here at Miryante and want to thank the generosity of our donors, who make our work here possible.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

SEASONs GREETINGS FROM MIRYANTE.

We are so grateful for such a wonderful season. Every child had a new cloth on 23/12/2015 and this excited all of them. Every child feels happy to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus with a new cloth, meat and rice. I am to tell you that every child had a new cloth and meat. The whole place was full of happiness. We are so grateful for your love that you share with us daily. No child has missed school because of fees, books, pen, uniform or food and this has been each on our side because of your support that comes in daily. The children, staff and community do appreciate and they all pray for you.

One 23/12/2015, we gave out clothes and shoes to all the children. On 24^th/12/2015 we slaughter a bull from our farm which we have been feeding on since 24^th/12/2015 to 4^th/1/2016. Miryante has made a difference to the children’s lives.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!

NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER 2015

Greetings from Miryante Home and School!

The children and staff from both school and home send you greetings. We are humbled to have your assistance and we greatly appreciate your love and kindness that you share with us every day. This has really been a progressive year for the Organization with a lot of good things taking place here. We are happy to have a home that can provide basic needs to our children and also a home that everyone looks at in the community.

A report about our children

All the children are in good health and all going to school. We have eleven candidates that sat for primary seven leaving exams. We are around 10 little children that cannot walk a long distance who study in the dining hall at the orphanage. The children are all happy and they all feel blessed for you changing their lives. They now see a bright future ahead of them. This comes with a big smile we share with you.

The children do enjoy their stay here. This term every weekend they have been competing with the villagers in a football match and our children have proved to be stars. They have made a strong football team for both the orphanage and the Vocational school. As the boys are on the pitch playing, the girls sing and drum while the rest join in the dance including some of our volunteers as shown below!

The boys shown below celebrating after their win with refreshments.

The Vocation School closed on 25^TH of November 2015. Those of secondary school that go to King Solomon broke off on 24^th of November 2015 and the young children in the primary section will break off on 4^th of December 2015. This vacation is about three months. The children will start school on 23 of Feb 2016. This is going to be the longest holidays for our children because of the Presidential elections that will take place in February 2016.

Activities planned for the children during the holidays;

Activities our children will be doing over their holiday include harvesting Irish potatoes and beans, planting avocado trees, orange trees, Mango trees, papaya trees and vegetables with the help of the volunteers. The planting is compulsory for the elder children and the harvests are only done by the little ones under the supervision of the caretakers. Below are some of the photos for volunteers helping in fencing the fruits garden and the also planting vegetables.

Volunteers! We have been blessed with various volunteers that have helped us in various fields at the orphanage. These include Hermann Allerstrofer from Austria who has helped us fix our taxis, plant trees, and also fix the broken toilets in the volunteers’ house. Gordon Cross from scotland has helped us to teach the infants class and also opened up a vegetable garden with different varieties of vegetables. Laura Corcoran, Adolf Ayesiga and Dr. Craig Conard have helped with the children’s check-ins and also teach the Vocational school students and Miryante orphans that are leaving the home this year a specialized health curriculum.

Hermann                                                 Gordon

Laura and Adolf                             Dr. Craig

Farming!

The children managed to plant three acres of beans and one acre of Irish potatoes with the help of the caretakers. They are now harvesting and we are expecting better yields as seen below.

Children harvesting beans and Irish potatoes

We have several children at the project who are malnourished. To address this problem, we applied for food aid from the NGO Feed Our Starving Children. The food we received is high in protein and will help the special needs children who need this. Below is pictured donation from Feed My Starving Children of 36 boxes of food mixed with rice, chicken, beef, and other body building foods.

Thank you so much to everyone for their generous support to the project. We feel incredibly blessed and we wish everyone a joyous holiday season. God Bless You All!

THANK YOU

Greetings from Miryante Orphans’ Home and School!

The children and the staff are doing well this month. We appreciate the love that you do share with the children here. Thank you for our sponsors and churches that give us donations every month. The children are assured of at least three meals everyday which is every child’s right to have food. The three meals include breakfast, lunch (which they always pack on school days) and supper. All the children are healthy.

Early this month, we received three children. These include Mary Komulembe, Christopher Tumwine and Luke Byaruhanga. The three are of the same father and mother. The lost their parents due to HIV early this year. The three were living in a house on their own. Mary has some developmental disabilities but is so friendly to the little ones. These pictures were taken on their first day to Miryante. The nurse tested them for HIV. Later they were helped to remove jiggers from their feet with the help of Isaac one of the students from the technical school. (Jiggers are insects children get in their feet by walking barefoot. The insects lay eggs under the skin and the egg sacs have to be removed with a needle).

Early this month, we visited Ms Gorretti. She is one of the families Miryante helps support. She is lame and she is a single mother of six children. Gorretti is physically disabled and after hearing this from the leader of disabled people in the district as the Miryante team we visited her and donated a pair of crutches to support her.

This month we were able to donate some new clothes to the children. Every child feels happy when she or he receives new clothes. These little ones couldn’t wait for this moment to come. I know how hard and expensive it is to maintain children but we are grateful to our donors for these wonderful donations that come in on monthly basis. I want to assure you that our children have never lacked. Their lives are full of testimonies. Below is the picture of the children posing in new clothes.

During the first week of this new school term we found that a number of the younger children cannot walk the 5 kilometer distance to school. Currently we have about ten little children that will study at the orphanage this year until they gain strength to join the rest of the children who walk every day to the primary school. One of our caretakers is a trained school teacher so she is tutoring the younger children at the Miryante Home.

The campaign to put fire extinguishers in all the dormitories is still on. This month we have added two for the school. There is now one in the classroom block and another at the administration block at the Technical School. This is to meet national standards for safety in the Home and School.

Technical school

The students at the technical school have all reported for classes which begin again this term. The brick laying class is working on building a small kitchen structure for the Technical School teachers.

Tailoring class making table cloths

Carpentry class fixing broken shelves.

Our piggery project has grown big. We now have 13 piglets on the farm.

We are so happy to be able to give you these updates on our project. Thank you so much for your continuous support that allows us to help these kids.

THANK YOU

Greetings from Miryante!

We are so grateful to have you as friends, parents and as donors. You have made the children glad here. You have made Miryante Orphans home a home, hope and a future for the children. No person has visited Miryante and remained the same. All is well with the children and the staff here at Miryante Home and school.

The Vocational school closed on 7^TH of August 2015 and the young children in the primary section broke off on 15^th of August 2015 a week after. As management we also appreciate the caregivers that stay with these children around the orphanage. As we all know children are never easy to deal with since they all come from different places and different cultures, bringing them up and raising them is quite challenging but they do try their best.

During this school holiday, we have had a number of activities at the orphanage; Digging has been compulsory for the elder children only done in the morning, picking rubbish around the home and school for the little ones, grazing cattle for the middle aged boys, cleaning the dining hall for the middle aged girls, kitchen work and games are compulsory after 4:00pm. After lunch coaching is compulsory for the young children, this is always done by Mr. Billy Stephen who is our Social worker currently.

Below are some of the photos showing children participating in kitchen work and volleyball;

This month of August has been a busy month for our guardians to come check on the children. We appreciate the good work done by the caregivers to keep these children in good health since there has been a big change in these children’s lives in both their social, formal and moral upbringing from the time we got them from the different communities.

Below is Agnes, Peter, Irene and their mother checking on their performance and progress in school;

In addition to the above, mid this week we had an exercise with the boys and the staff on how to use fire extinguishers and how to hang them on the hall. It was a good exercise for the staff and the children. We have so far bought two, one for the library and the other for the dining hall. We hope to keep buying two every month till each dormitory gets one because it’s a necessity for all homes and schools all over the country.

Below are some of the photos showing some of the boys learning how to hang and also operate the fire extinguishers;

On 15^th of this month was our anniversary when Miryante Home made seven years, this was a great day for the staff and the children. We had a delicious meal of meat, juice, cassava bread, fish, and G. nuts. We later had a cinema night till mid-night.

Below are some of the photos showing the children drinking, watching and eating;

This has also been a hectic week of general cleaning. We hired two machines to help in clearing the compound and fencing around to help in keeping the children in one place and also to improve on the physical appearance of the environment at large. Below is part of the slashed compounds;

Stanbic Bank Mubende visiting Miryante Orphans Home

The15^th of this month was such a wonderful day; we received visitors from Stanbic bank. We received the regional manager, Manager Mubende branch and two other staff members. The team donated five buckets, 2dozen of basins, 24 aprons and three big books of bar soap. Later on, the visitors gave a speech and also moved around the site. This was also accompanied by an entertainment by the home children. In addition to the above were more buckets that were also bought by the home as shown below;

Below are the Stanbic Bank visitors together with our home children on their donated aprons;

Below are the visitors watching our dormitories;

The above are some of the donations offered to the home by the visitors which will help improve on the hygiene in our dormitories around the home.

Volunteers! This summer we have been blessed with two volunteers. Petra was our volunteer from Hungary. She has been handling a class of the young children after lunch and learning about nonprofit and NGO management. Laura is working on the check-ins for children and website updates. Currently Laura has got a series of topics to handle with the students that will be graduating from the home and those of the technical school till November

Petra on the left and Laura on the right and side.

Farming

We are glad to report to you about our cattle project. This season we have been blessed with an agricultural officer. The cows get sprayed twice a week. This makes them look healthy and also prevents them from being attacked by some skin diseases. We have also managed to open up another banana plantation of 2acres which is close to the orphanage for easy management. This time round we have had seasonal changes. It’s still very dry but we have managed to plant 2 acers of beans and we are waiting for the rains to plant 4 more acers using the 120kgs donated from the district. Our plan is to plant at least 3acers of maize, 3acers of sweet potatoes, half an acer of Irish potatoes and 4 acers of cassava.

120kgs of beans donated by the District for planting.

Above are our cattle being grazed.

THANK YOU

Greetings from Miryante

Hello to all friends of Miryante Orphans Home and School!

All is well here, the children are doing well, there are 120 children in the home now, and they have returned to school for the second term - from June to August. The young children do remedial studies after lunch which is compulsory.

One of our caretakers Kellen is in charge of these classes being helped by Ms. Lydia Kaliisa who is doing her internship with us. The children seem to be enjoying these classes and we see a big change since last term. After the remedial classes the children go have games.

In June we got a student from Uganda Christian University and she is doing her internship with us in the field of social work. Her name is Lydia Kaliisa. She is staying with us till September.

In the coming months we will have more volunteers - Petra will join us in July, and Laura is planning to come in early August,

so it will be an excellent summer.

All our animal projects are doing well and this time we have the pigs appear in our report after some time. The two are pregnant and this time as management we are planning not to sell piglets so that the farm also grows big.

Vegetable gardens

After serious advice from Dr. Craig and Laura on how to improve the children’s diet and the donation of vegetable seeds for St. Peter’s church and Laura’s family, we have managed to expand the vegetable gardens this season and the children are really getting enough vegetables from the home. All these gardens are managed by the children themselves who water them in the evening after classes.

Doreen, Eve and Annette picking Sukuma weki.

This month we conducted interviews for teachers at the vocational school. This was done in subjects like Maths, English, Entrepreneurship, Hair dressing, Carpentry and Joinery, Brick laying, Tailoring, Security guarding and Agriculture. Announcements were put on radio and passed on in churches. We had many applications and the board short listed them.

During the interviews.

As management, last month we expanded our services to the community. We visited one family that was completely vulnerable. The old man is blind and the grandson who is 22years old completely handicapped. We managed to donate them two blankets and two mosquito nets.

We would like to thank all our friends, supporters and sponsors and to wish you a very happy summer and relaxing holidays.