JANUARY NEWSLETTER 2014

Happy New Year. Greetings from Miryante! Hope you’re all fine. Lots of updates here in Miryante!

Last month we received a short time volunteer for a few weeks from Germany.  Christian Sigil was here for two weeks and has been a wonderful support! He generously donated one table, three chairs and some craft materials. Christian has also helped build a craft market.

Children update

The children are in good health. This year the number of children has increased to 110. The Eleven primary seven pupils that sat year 2013 performed well. They passed in second grade and third grade. The biggest numbers of them is  excited to join technical school next week.

Vocational school

We are glad to inform you that this year 2014 the turn up at the vocational school is good. We have 50students and we are expecting more children from the community to join. All the teachers reported last week.

Currently our animal husbandry project is booming!  We are up to 18 cows. One of the youth our animal husbandry projects are a great way to teach kids responsibility and the importance of having something to take care of.

Market/craft shop

In january this year 2014 we started of with a craft shop. This has been a blessing to the home.  We have started making some money at the craft shop. Sofar three muzungus have stoped to buy stuff and community members. This is really a blessing. Girls supply the craft shop with baskets and we also buy mats at a low price from the community. This has made Miryante village a place to be.Thanks for adding such good values to the project  because this is all gotton from the donations that you contribute towards the home.

The Girls working on baskets for sell at the

Our first grass house finished

Gifts from St. Peters church

Miryante home, school and staff were all glad for the gifts they received from St. Peters church. Thanks for the love, care that you are showing us. Watch the excitement from the children.

Thank you for all of your support and may God bless you and your families,

Doreen Tigah and all the staff and children at Miryante!!!!

DECEMBER 2013 NEWSLETTER

Greetings from Miryante Orphans Home

First off we would like to thank all of our Sponsors and Donors for their generous contributions.

Of course it was the month of Xmas and thanks to your kind donations we were able to give all the children new clothes for presents, which they were all very excited about and we even had a mini fashion show as they all tried them on.

We also ate very well and the children were spoilt for choices as we had a range of beef, chicken, goat and pork to choose from as well as rice, beans, Irish potatoes and sodas.

The day was extremely joyful with the children singing and dancing and playing games throughout the day. We had two great sessions of Mass, one in the morning and one in the early evening as the sun set. Led by Father Aloysious they were filled with prayers for loved ones, thanks and appreciation for a wonderful year, and the usual hymns sung by the children

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MIRYANTE XMAS FASHION SHOW 2013

More lovely summer wear from our girls at Miryante Orphans Home. This show really would stand up against the big events like London and Milan fashion week.

A round of applause  please for all our stars of the show and a big thank you to all our donors and sponsors for making it all possible. It was a great night, we look forward to more ground-breaking fashion next Xmas and a special thanks to our photographer Olly for capturing all the action.

MIRYANTE XMAS LUNCH AND SUPPER 2013

The boys enjoying  the fruits of their labour. We ate enough food to make Santa proud!!

Smiles all around as  sodas  where drunk on a hot Xmas  day! Wishing you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at Miryante. Thank you again for your on going support and God bless you all!! See you next year! We are off to enjoy the holidays!!!

NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER 2013

Greetings from Miryante and hoping that you’re all well!

Thanks and appreciation:

Firstly we would like to start off by thanking all of our donors for their generous donations towards our projects at the orphanage. The garden project is doing well and we have already harvested 2500 kg of beans to be used to feed the children and our banana plantation is already growing well. The Irish Potato garden is doing well and this season we have so far harvested 2 sacks.

We completed construction of our multi-purpose store, which will be used for storing tools and food and will be a much used and needed structure.

Report about children:

Currently we have 102 children at the home. They are all doing well health-wise and they all help with improving the agriculture at our home. In October we had 13 students complete their studies. 11 completed P7 and 2 completed S4 with the hope of good grades. Our orphan’s who study at the Vocational School performed very well with top grades in their classes.

Volunteers:

We have had 2 Volunteers this month, Max Herbet and Olly Dalley. Max is a teacher from the UK who came to teach English at the Vocational School and also at the home, and is planning to take a Fine Arts class. He was teaching 2 classes in English; Beginners and Advanced which have also helped care-givers and children to improve their English.

Max teaching

Our other volunteer Olly has just recently joined us. He is from New Zealand although he has currently been living in The Netherlands. So far he has helped with the construction of the Market/Restaurant, getting his hands dirty with some hard labor and concreting and also teaching some coffee making skills to the kids in the restaurant to make some money from passing customers. He is getting along well with the staff and children and developing some good relationships, playing games and hoping for a football match once the rain stops!

Olly helping with construction of the Restaurant/Market

Market:

All of our planning and hard work paid off when we finally opened our Restaurant and Craft Market this month. With the help of all the kids and staff we have created a lovely area for locals and passing traffic to come and sit and enjoy some home cooked meals, fresh Ugandan coffee and buy some great jewelry made by our kids. We hope to generate some earnings from this market to put back into the orphanage and the well being of our children.

Christmas:

We are looking forward to a big Christmas celebration with fun and games for all the kids. We have also been hard at work making Christmas cards to sell locally and abroad. We have scanned and emailed the cards to volunteers who want to help out at the orphanage but are not able to come to Uganda and they will sell the cards to friends and family and send us the earnings.

We also want to wish you all a Merry Xmas, and a happy New Year and look forward to sending you photos and updates from our Christmas celebrations!

Thank you!

Hello Everyone!

I was able to return to visit Miryante in August where I worked for three years from 2008-2011. Liz Jinnings, a Peace Corp Volunteer, was just finishing up her service. She has done incredible work during her time at Miryante. It was amazing to see how much the project and the kids have grown in a year.

Left: Doreen Tigah, Center: myself, Right: Liz jinnings

There have been a lot of new developments at Miryante this past year. The vocational school has opened, a piggery has been started, and the number of children who live at the project continues to grow. Unfortunately, because the Ugandan government does not have the funds or the infrastructure to support a Child Welfare program, Miryante has grown to be the Child Welfare services for Kyegegwa District. This means that the number of children who permanently stay at the home hovers around 100, but there are many more children who temporarily live at the home while the government finds relatives to care for these kids. Literally hundreds of children have been housed at Miryante at this point.

One of the biggest changes I have noticed in the children is the level of confidence and assertiveness the older children have gained in the past year. Peace Corps volunteer Liz Jinnings has instituted Life Skills Classes and camps to help these children gain confidence in their use of English and develop the skills they need to succeed in the world after they leave the home. It is no secret the challenges that these kids will face in the world will be difficult and many, especially for the young girls. Liz has done a tremendous job of developing programs to empower these kids.

Peace Corps Volunteer Liz Jinnings teaches a cooking class to children at Miryante.

Miryante Girls attend a Girls Empowerment Workshop

Returning back to the states I am humbled and thankful for the hard work that is going on at this organization. There is tremendous leadership by the men and women with huge hearts who have poured fourth the effort to make sure these kids do not fall through the cracks. Thank you to those working so hard at the project and thank you to the donors who continue to the support these kids.

I hope to see more people from around the world taking the opportunity to come volunteer at this project!

Laura Corcoran

OCTOBER NEWSLETTER 2013

Hello everyone!

I hope all is well. The home and the school send greetings. We have got a volunteer called Max Herbert from London, England. The school is doing well. These are some of the materials that the children have been able to make recently, under the supervision of the tutors. Tailoring class/Crafts class:

This is our multi-purpose store that has been under construction. It is now in its last stages of completion and soon to be ready for use.

Land survey: Finally, Miryante land has been surveyed. We have eighty-nine acres of land. We are trying to make plans to broaden our sustainable projects, such that the land can be utilized effectively.

To congratulate the most exemplary students we took them out to dinner in Kyegegwa town. This is a regular incentive to encourage the other children to live an exemplary life.

We would like to thank the donors for their continuing support of the home.

Thank you!

Management

We appreciate your support towards the school. The school is still very young; it cannot stand on its own without your support. We do have seven tutors, one security guard and one cook. What the students pay cannot cover salaries and meals for the school, but we are trying to get there. Last team we made around 5.5 million shillings on fees and we promise to work very hard to see that this increases every team.

Thanks very much, Greeting from the Director, Liz, School and the home.

Doreen Tigah

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from the children!

The tractor is back in Kasese for work. The Vocational school also started this year on 25th -2-2013. The Hostels currently are accommodating eighteen students who are paying. The home has five students who do attend vocation in tomorrow’s report I will include their names and courses offered by these children.

Our market has grown in terms of crafts I do request if there is a way we can get gowns for hire please help us because we do have a saloon. We are planning to start up that if we get the gowns for brides.

Doreen.

Miryante Orphans Home Newsletter October 2012

Happy fall from Miryante Orphans Home! Hope all is well! Things are going splendidly here at MOH.

Currently we have 93 children, 52 boys and 41 girls. Right now is an exciting time for 14 of our children who are currently in the primary level of schooling and are gearing up to take exams to qualify for the secondary level, which is the equivalent of high school. The students have been studying tirelessly and are so excited to take the test at the beginning of November.

Currently MOH has 12 employees and one volunteer. We have all been working very hard this year focusing on income generating and awareness of our cause to the community and the family members of our children.

We have been very busy working on income generating by developing our roadside market. At this market we sell milk, greens, vegetables, avocado, mangos and jack fruit which we produce and harvest at Miryante. We also sell tomatoes, sugar cane, shoes, mosquito nets and rosaries which we receive from outside sources. The month of October, the market brought in around 444,000 Ugandan shillings.

We are still working on our animal husbandry projects which are going well and the children enjoy helping and having this responsibility. Currently we have 12 cows, 7 goats and 6 chickens. We are working with a local farmer in Kyegegwa who has promised to provide us with rabbits so we can revamp our rabbit project.

Our gardening has been going well and the rainy season has been promising! We have been buying beans to feed the children, but it seems that next year we will be able to feed them our own beans because the season has been going so well. We have been growing potatoes, cassava, corn and coffee. We also have a few small vegetable gardens where we grow lettuce, dill, cilantro, chard, beets, green beans, basil and broccoli. It has been wonderful teaching the children about gardening and the importance of healthy eating.

This past August three of our young ladies here at MOH attended a girl’s empowerment camp in Fort Portal. This camp was incredibly beneficial and taught the young ladies about assertiveness, HIV/AIDS awareness, cooking, life skills and small activities/projects they can develop to generate income for themselves. An example; making small, lovely coin purses that they can sell (let us know if you would like to buy one from our ladies!). This December, MOH is sending 19 of our children to camp. There are two camps that are occurring, Camp Build for boys and Camp Glow for girls. The camp will happen in Entebbe which is a town by the capital Kampala. The kids are so excited and many have never left Kyegegwa District, so this will be a huge adventure!

Our Peace Corps volunteers Liz and Heather are still busy teaching Life Skills class at MOH. They are continuing to teach the youth 13 and above every Saturday. Liz also holds a cooking class in the morning every Saturday and teaches PIACY (Presidential Initiative on HIV Strategy for Community to the Youth) on Wednesdays. Many of our children are also involved in clubs at school. An example of some of these clubs; Straight Talk, which is a paper youth write themselves focusing on issues concerning life skills. There is also the GEM club which is a girl’s empowerment club and Shoots and Roots which focuses on environmental issues.

Happy August from Miryante! Things are going great over here at MOH and we just
Wanted to give you a little update! This past August 15th was our 3 year anniversary!!
The children celebrated by attending mass with our director, participating in holy
Communion with our staff and having a celebratory meal.

The children are currently on a school break and many of them are visiting family. It is
always wonderful when our children are able to spend time with family. They will resume
school on September 3rd.

The rains have been few and far between this rainy season which has been unfortunate
for our crops, but also for the livelihood of many farmers here in west Uganda. We have
crops of maze, cassava, beans and green which were dry this rainy season, but this
month has brought rain so fingers crossed! This past July and August we have
harvested 180 KG of beans and 4 basins of potatoes. We are also working on a large
vegetable garden. Surprisingly, our cabbage is doing well.

I am sorry to say that our rabbit project is down to one rabbit. We will try again and this
time know what precautions and steps to take! However, our children built a beautiful
rabbit hut which is now housing the chickens. Our chickens were eating our crops so
this is a great solution. We will keep you posted on our hopefully soon to be new rabbit
project!

Our vocational school is coming along well and all of the buildings are fully erected.
Now we are working on a few of the ceiling boards and the final finishing touches! Very
exciting. With the completion of the buildings comes a lot of administrative work and
fundraising to raise money for vocational equipment. We are also planning on installing
a rain water harvesting system to provide the school with water and Liz will be initiating
a transitional plan at the school to help graduating students have direction once they
leave our school and go out into the real world.

These past couple of months we had a few children become sick with a cold/flu. This fall
our goal is to work on hygiene and reiterate to the children the preventative measures
they need to take to stay healthy and flu and malaria free.

MARCH MONTHLY REPORT 2012

March has been a busy much with too march rain and planting. We hired some people to start clearing land . The rain has given us hope that there will be no drought as we have been expecting. So far we have planted nine acres that are covered by beans, G.nuts, Irish and maize.

Currently we are housing 94 children and 8 caretakers. We have been working on vegetable gardens for the kids and hope to try a monthly planting scheme with irrigation to insure a more steady supply of vegetables. We have welcomed one new caretaker to the project: Madam Irene.

This season being so cold the children have seriously fallen sick which has really increased the medical costs

On 2/3/2012

We received a donation of 190,000 (one hundred ninety thousand shillings) from the district. With this money we have been able to put up a bigger rabbit house.

ON 7/3/2012

We received a donation from Laura. Which had sweets, books and toys for the children. Our children were so happy. These were given to the well behaved children, such that they would keep it up and also others to learn from them. Thank you Laura for the spirit you have for the orphanage.

8/3/2012

We celebrated women’s day with our girls in Mpara sub-county. On this day our girls were able to sell some of crafts.

ON 12-3-2012

We received a new caretaker. She is called madam Irene Kamugasa. She comes from Fort portal, in a place called Rubona. She enjoys staying around children. She also likes staying in Miryante Orphans Home as caretaker.