Greetings from Miryante
Home. We send you all warm regards from Uganda. Despite COVID-19, we still
thank God for the gift of life that He has given to us all. We also feel so
grateful for your monthly support towards Miryante Children’s home, especially
amidst this entire crisis.
Education:
The children are doing very
well and their health is good. They are trying to study remotely via Uganda’s
national teaching program on the television. It’s still is not the best because
they cannot ask the teacher when they haven’t understood something, but it’s
better than nothing. The other holiday programs are still carried on as usual
i.e. daily slashing the compound, playing games, and digging in the garden as
shown below:
Thanks to our former
Volunteer Olly who surprised our kids with 15 cartons of soda, a goat, and 25 kgs
of rice. Thanks for being part of us. The children were happy and felt loved
especially during such a season in a lockdown.
Every Friday our social
workers and caretakers meet with the children for group counseling and listen to
the children’s concerns. They teach them about sanitation and body hygiene and
general cleanliness and its importance. We always award marks to different dormitories
according to their performance.
Agriculture:
Despite of the drought during this season, the
children are of great help in watering and mulching the vegetables. As
management we are happy to inform you all that despite the drought, we have
enough vegetables for the children. We even have a surplus that we are donating
to the community to share with families that are in need during this time. Below are some pictures of our gardens and
cultivating the vegetable garden
Thanks to everyone,
that is giving a hand towards this great work. We feel blessed at Miryante
Home.
Greetings from Miryante Community and Home. We are here to
thank you for your generosity. Despite the lockdown, we are able to study and have
three meals a day. It is because of your support that we are able to have all
this. We are not happy with the situation everywhere from what we have read in
the news, but we are in this together and we do pray for the whole world
everyday to stabilize so that we can go back to school, go to church, and get
to see our friends back in school.
All the children are safe, healthy, and they are praying
for everyone. Due to the long holiday,
our children are following a holiday program to keep them busy around the home.
These programs run from Monday up to Sunday and these activities include
prayers in isolation, exams & revisions from lessons, cow grazing, rabbit
and goat rearing, planting crops, slashing the compound, digging, Bible study
every Thursday and football every evening. This has helped our children learn
more skills and has helped us as management and caregivers to handle them since
the holiday is still going on.
Below are photos of the children practicing exams with social
distancing.
Donations!
We are very happy
to update you on a number of donations that we received this month from two
companies. We received over 30 boxes of sanitary pads for the girls and 8 boxes
of toothpaste for all the children to use. We are sure this will take us
through the year. We received this donation from Vision Impex.
We also
received over 72 dozen books of 96pages, 44 dozen books of 48 pages, 5 boxes of
beans and 11 reams of paper for the office use, all this was from Prime Impex Limited
in Kampala, Uganda. We surely feel blessed as management and the children feel
loved.
Another donation of $650 to cater for food came in from David
Talbot the president of Crutches for Africa who donated over 780 kgs of posho
and 200 kgs of beans. We really feel so blessed to have people think about us
especially in a season where people are meant to think about themselves.
Another big surprise came from Stanbic Bank that donated a
number of items to us and thanked us for banking with them. The items included
sugar, rice, and cooking oil, pads, soap, beans, posho and toothpaste. The Stanbic
Team spared time to visit our project and played with the children and shared
smiles. We really thank you our sponsors for allowing us bank with Stanbic Bank
group.
During this lockdown, we have also received a lot of new
cases from the community and all these cases were a result of poverty and
family breakdown due to this pandemic. These children were found living without
parents or guardians in child-headed house-holds and they have been moved to
Miryante to receive services. The children include Sirivano aged 14 who has
been grazing people’s cattle to get food for the siblings, Lillian aged 13 who
was working as a maid in the neighborhood, Aloyozous aged 9, and Gerald aged 6.
The four children lived in an old muddy structured house
and shared beddings. These children were also malnourished and infected with
jiggers because of being neglected. We
managed to rescue them; they are very happy here and their health has improved
in one month. The first pictures below
show their condition when found by children services, and the last photos below
were taken a week later at Miryante when police visited to check on their
condition.
Our latest arrival is a seven-year old boy called Sirivano,
who was found living without a responsible parent or guardian. The Community
members became concerned and reported the case to Miryante. We are trying to
locate the parents and reunite these children with their family. We are working
with a government team from the office of child welfare services. Sirivano is
now with us till the situation normalizes. Below are pictures of Sirivano with a big
smile on his face after joining us at Miryante.
Under
agriculture department!
We are grateful for the wonderful works done by the
children during this break. The drought has been very long here and the
children have helped a lot with watering the vegetable gardens and weeding the
bananas and sweet potatoes. This hasn’t stopped at that, they are also mulching
in the vegetable gardens where we are growing green peppers, egg plants, kale
and the banana plantation as shown below:
Below is a photo of the land we cultivated to plant more
vegetables and greens. It’s about 1 acre of land.
Under the farm project, 3 of our sows gave birth to 8
healthy piglets and our two female rabbits gave birth to 14 young ones. The
little children have shown much love to for rabbits and they find it very
interesting. We have also given them a chance to manage the rabbit project but
under serious supervision by the agriculture officer.
Thanks very
much to everyone that is contributing to support this project and also thanks
for loving us.
Greetings from Miryante Orphanage. We really love you all
and we appreciate all the support that you are rendering to us despite
COVID-19. All the children are safe, healthy, and they are praying for everyone
all over the world. On the 12th of April 2020, we celebrated Easter day
which was really fun, although we weren’t able to celebrate mass as usual. The Easter
celebrations came along with a lot of food such as plantains, rice, meat, pork,
fish, peanut sauce and soda. After lunch the children watched movies such as The
Passion of the Christ.
During this long break from school, Uditah Komuhangi, one
of the students that graduated from Miryante Vocational School, used this time
to teach the other children how to make African baskets and also how to make
different designs of girls’ dresses. Below are the photos:
The gardens are doing very well this season. The
temperatures are a bit high, but with the help of our children, we are able to mulch
all the vegetable gardens and use the drip irrigation system. Our harvests are
very good. We are also looking at extending our vegetable gardens to five acers
since they are nutritious and provide great food for the kids. Below are some
pictures of our gardens and the harvests.
We have also managed to donate vegetables weekly to
families who are in need of food due to the COVID-19 lockdown in the community.
The tailoring class with the help of their instructors are
making face masks for all the children to use before school opens.
On the farm, our cows are doing well. We have routine
medical checkups for all of the animals which is done every two weeks, and the animals
are sprayed for flies and ticks every Saturday:
Thanks
very much to everyone who is endeavoring to help us to meet our basic needs. We
would be completely nothing and nowhere without you, especially during COVID-19
season. May God Bless All.
We are devastated to share that Kate Namanda passed
away on April 25th, 2020 at the age of 13 after a long battle with Leukemia.
Kate was born on June 5th, 2006. Her mother passed away and her father left the family in 2014. Kate came to Miryante on the 30th of November 2018. Kate came to Miryante via a referral from the doctors at a hospital in Fort Portal where she had been left. Her family had been unable to care for her. When Kate came to Miryante her health was very poor, but she soon improved with medical care and love from the other children and staff.
It was amazing to see Kate’s condition improve with time and we were so happy to have her with us.
By April 2019, she was able to start home schooling from Miryante and she was very happy when she got a sponsor. She enjoyed making drawings for her sponsor. Schooling gave her hope and she had the dream of becoming a fashion designer in the future.
She also demonstrated an unshakeable Christian faith while
at Miryante. We as staff were so proud
of her development of friendships with the other children. Besides that, Kate
had a passion for drawing and coloring pictures, reading stories books for
other children, and cooking.
Unfortunately, because of the cancer, Kate had to spend
a lot of time in the hospital during her time at Miryante. We want to thank
everyone who has been there for Kate, especially her sponsor. It is because of
this sponsorship that we were able to cover her hospital bills every time she had
to be admitted. We also thank the caregivers that stayed with her while she was
admitted in the hospital on and off for almost the entire year. We also thank her
fellow children that accepted her and welcomed her in Miryante community.
While in the hospital, Kate drew photos to send to her
sponsor when she bed-ridden:
Kate was survived by her brother, Joseph, who is living
with their grandmother in the village.
Kate died on April
25th 2020 at 8:30 pm. On the morning of 26th/ April/ 2020
she was buried at her grandmother’s home in the village. The village where Kate
was buried is called Mukarama in Kyegegwa district. Below are pictures of the burial.
We are going to miss Kate terribly and the joy and happiness she shared with all of those around her. MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE.
Greetings from Miryante Orphanage
and School. We really love you all and we do appreciate all that you are
providing to us. The children are safe and healthy. Due to the outbreak of the
Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID -19) the president of Uganda ordered closure
of schools on 20thMarch 2020 across the country in attempt to
prevent the spread of the virus. We managed to pick our children from boarding
school at King Solomon secondary school, St. Thomas primary, St. Peter’s
technical and St. Augustine Butiiti Teaching College. We brought them back to
the orphanage and we also sent students from outside who were attending Miryante
technical school back to their homes.
The social department also
came up with the Easter holiday programs to help us manage the children and to
make them busy around the orphanage during this time until the situation
normalizes for them to go back to school. This program runs from Monday up to
Sunday and these activities include prayers from their dormitories since the
government has told us to avoid social gatherings, school book revisions, cow
grazing, rabbits and goat rearing, planting vegetables, slashing the compound,
digging in the gardens, and football every evening. This has helped our
children learn more skills and helped us as management and caregivers to manage
them and keep them occupied throughout the holiday. Regarding health, all our
children are okay and we sensitized them about the coronavirus so that they are
aware on how to prevent the spread of the virus. We are also in touch with
children under the guardianship program to know if all is well with them. Since
public transportation has been banned in Uganda, we have been limited on our
movements, however the government has allowed us to check on the children in
the guardianship program, especially those on medications. We have been given
permission from the government to use a car to travel to their homes. We
supplied 50kgs of maize flour to each household during the quarantine period.
Below are the photos of the children at Miryante occupied
by different activities and food given to guardianship program :
Under the agriculture department, our crops are yielding
and we have plenty of vegetables, plaintains , cassava , potatoes, pumpkins and greens as show below:
Under the farm our animals are doing great
We have managed to balance the diet of our children with
the milk and different foods.
Thanks everyone for the support especially during such
times when the world is at war with the Coronavirus.
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 27th 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 28th 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 29th 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.
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 27th 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.
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 20th 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!
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 29th 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 23rd 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.
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 6th and went up to the 27th
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.
