February Newsletter 2018

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER 2018

Hello everyone!

We are so grateful for the month of February with so many activities going on at the site. We have had over 30 new children joining the orphanage.

We are also grateful to our Peace Corps Volunteer Alex who started up a bible class every Thursday of the week. It really is a blessing seeing our children growing up with the fear of God and also praying for our donors that have provided for us generously just as shown in the picture below.

feb1

We are also grateful for our penpal program that is growing every day. This month we received a couple of art supplies from Amanda Hall for our children. It was such a great joy to our kids as shown below with a big smile.

feb2

We are also grateful to our well-wishers who have donated to the organization generously to help us improve and also come up with a number of projects as shown below.

The nursery class has been separated from the dining hall. This has been one of the challenges to our nursery teacher is that the pupils were having trouble concentrating in an open dinning hall. The teacher was also not comfortable teaching in the open dining hall because she could not leave her charts hanging up.

feb3 feb4

Our piggery unit has also been improved. Our pigs can no longer escape outside. All doors are now fixed with the floor also worked on.

feb5 feb6 feb7

Our rabbit project is now done with three rabbits for starters: one male and two females. We have just ordered for one female rabbit. Our plan is to see them multiply so that our kids can have enough meat every quarter of the year. The house is big enough to accommodate even 20 as shown below.

feb8 feb9

We have also been in position to improve our office by making more partitions and beautifying the office with artwork from the children. Below is the Library, Counselling room, social workers’ and volunteer room. We have enough space to enable our work go on well.

feb10 feb11 feb12

Water has been one of our biggest problem around the site. The one borehole couldn’t serve the purpose at all. Our borehole has been breaking at least two to three times a month and the cost of fixing has been very high and also the demand for water has also been increasing daily. Thanks to a donation from Inno-pak and well wishers, we received 15 water tanks, 5 of which are 10,000 liters and 10 which are 5,000 liters. All house have tanks including all dormitories at the orphanage, church, girls hostels, boys hostels, and the whole school including the teachers unit. We are so blessed as Miryante to have all this and we say thank you to the well-wisher that funded for this project.

feb13 feb14 feb15

Below is also our bio-gas project that was started last year and it’s now in its finishing stages. This has been our biggest challenge as Miryante organization we have completely run short of firewood as the organization grows bigger and there is no firewood available in the surrounding area. This is a problem already on site. We should be able to start using the biogas after two months. First the biogas chamber needs to be fed with human waste and animal waste, and then later it will produce enough gas that we can use for cooking. Below is how the whole construction took place. Also pictures are the trainings the children and caregivers received on what to feed it and not to feed it. Thanks to Fr. David at Sacred Heart Church in the Diocese of Crookston who fund raised for these efforts to save Miryante from its firewood problem.

feb16 feb17 feb18 feb19 feb20 feb21

We were able to have a reward program for our children to begin the year. The 2 children who serve as chapel leaders were given Bibles, Children who are Hygiene Captains were given racks to hang their knickers, the 3 best time keepers were awarded with wall clocks and the little ones received awards. This was the best way to thank them for good behaviour and also to keep things competitive for following rules.

feb22

During the last Saturday of the month we visited our children in King Solomon Secondary boarding school to check on their progress and all was well.

feb23 feb24

On the 28th of February we were privileged to receive our volunteer’s husband at Miryante. He travelled all the way from India to come visit with a couple of things for our children such as balls and sweets. It was such a good time and the kids got to enjoy the Indian music especially when he sung with Alex and the kids also entertained them. This is now our culture in Miryante whenever we receive a visitor we get to entertain him or her.

feb25 feb26 feb27

We are also grateful to inform you that four of our students who sat for UBET (Technical School Certification Examinations) last year all passed and right now we have received a centre number for UBET. This mean that Miryante is now an official Technical School testing center, so our students can test from within instead of traveling to other schools for examinations. We are also grateful for our board members who help us to orient the new students during the second week of the school opening. Our technical school currently has 98 students and we expect more still to come from the community. Out of the 98, 23 are from the orphanage.

feb28 feb29 feb30

This is our second phase of the perma-garden program with our volunteer Alex supervising caregivers and the children per dorm. This is now a competition within the dormitories. A huge thanks to Alex for this project.

feb31 feb32 feb33

We are also happy to inform you that all our kids who received animal donations from their sponsors such as goats and heifers were labelled with tags. A big thanks to Alex and Laura for tagging the children’s goats. This will really help us to identify the livestock as we breed them and make sure the children keep their animals well. The children are very happy and we believe for the stubborn children, its one way to encourage them to not run away or cause mischief at the orphanage because they won’t want to leave their animals behind before finishing school. We believe it will be one way of keeping them around rather than running back on the streets. Thanks to the sponsors for the great job.

feb34 feb35 feb36

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