Unbelievable But True Story.

Semyalo John Baptist is Kitebi group member, a group that is supported by ChangeALife Uganda under the microcredit program. He is the father to Serufusa Henry, one of the supported children under the sponsorship program.

Semyalo sells fish as an income generating activity. He is so grateful for ChangeALife Uganda for the good work it has done for his family. In addition to sponsoring Serufusa Henry ChangeALife Uganda enabled him to access loans that have opened up new opportunities for improving his life and that of his family.

“Without ChangeALife Uganda intervening in my life, I don’t know where I would be! I was almost giving up my business as a fish monger (someone who sells raw fish). It is not an easy business because I had little capital and the pressure of paying school fees for my other children”, he said.

With a loan from ChangeALife Uganda, he built rental houses two are residential for tenants and one room for a business tenant. These have helped him earn income to pay school fees for his other children who are not sponsored.

John Baptist stands in front of his two rental rooms.

This is his rental room for business.

John has been able to bring tap water at home. This helps him at home. He also sells it to other community members to earn and had increased his income.

Here he stands besides his tap.

In addition John built an new and improved pit latrine to replace the one he previously had.

The newly built pit latrine.

John Baptist was also able to buy a motorcycle. He says his next dream is to start up a small bakery at home and this motor cycle will help him distribute the products from the bakery to different customers.

He stands besides his Motorcycle.

Lastly, he was able to connect electricity to his house and darkness is no longer a problem at night. Congratulations John Baptist. Your entrepreneurial spirit combined with your wise use of funding from ChangeALife Uganda's microcredit program is improving the quality of life for you and your family.

By:

Nankinga Cate
Loans Officer CALU

St. Francis Health Center Welcomes New Staff

The community of Migyera recently welcomed new staff to the St. Francis Health Center. Raphael Ibanda, the clinical officer joined the health team this past December. MILDMAY Uganda, a CALU partner and an NGO (Non government Organization) providing HIV care to clients in Migeyra, agreed to fund a nurse and a midwife thereby expanding the services the health center can provide to the community.

One of the major challenges for the health center and the local community is obtaining clean water due to the severity of this year’s dry season. The ongoing construction of the water project creates excitement among the staff and patients as access to plentiful, clean water is not too far off.

Although additional equipment and supplies are needed in the maternity unit like a fetal scope, a scale for weighing babies, and Oxygen concentrator, ambu bags, and a resuscitation table, there were seven deliveries in the month of December. With the addition of Eva Namuyanja, a midwife we expect more deliveries in the coming months. Additional donations will support equipment for the maternity unit and long term a minor surgery room.

ChangeALIfe Uganda is very grateful to the Rumson Fair Haven High School Global Women Empowerment Club for Sponsoring the Education of Nakivumbi Daisy

Alexandra Siwulec and Hope Haywood, two juniors at Rumson-Fair Haven Region High School, recently started "Global Women Empowerment", a club dedicated to spreading awareness on issues that women face across the globe, with the help of adviser Christie Ferraris.

Recently, the club sold bracelets with the words "Education is Empowerment." This endeavor raised $1054, which allowed them to sponsor a female student from Migyera, Uganda named Nakivumbi Daisy to attend high school for one year. Thanks to Global Women Empowerment, Daisy will begin Senior 3 when the new school year starts in February. Senior 3 is equivalent to a Sophomore in high school in the US. The club plans to sponsor Daisy again next year through Change A Life Uganda.

left to right Hope Haywood (co-president of GWE), Jean Semler (president of CALU), Alexandra Siwulec (co-president of GWE), and Christie Ferraris (adviser of GWE).

Nakivumbi Daisy

CALU Launches GlobalGiving Campaign to Complete Water Project

Change The Life Of A Ugandan Child With Water

Families living in rural Migyera, Uganda have extremely limited access to water. Lack of clean water impacts every aspect of family life from health to interfering with education and income-generating activities. Women and children spend hours collecting water. Our school's 5 rain water catchment tanks empty after 31 days leaving 500 children to depend on contaminated pond water. Completing our water project will provide a sustainable solution greatly improving living conditions for all.

These are the girls who use basins to wash and latrines for the bathroom. How wonderful it will be when they can take a shower for the very first time.

Help us deliver clean water to Migyera a rural village of 5,000 people in central Uganda. Today women and children spend an extraordinary amount of time collecting unsanitary water from a local pond. Access to clean water will help students excel in school by improving their health and giving them more time to focus on their studies. It will empower more women to pursue income-generating projects through our programs and dramatically improve the conditions for patients in our health center.

When filled, the water in the tower will flow to the school, health center and community.

Our comprehensive solution includes two phases - construction and training. We have drilled a 512' well that draws water from an aquifer and built a 50,000L water tower. We need to lay pipe to connect them and complete the construction phase which will provide water to the school, health center and community for drinking, hygiene, cooking and agriculture. Phase two includes training in water purification, conservation, gray water management, crop irrigation and income-generating agriculture.

When the water tanks are empty, the health center gets water in jerry cans for patient care and treatment.

5000 villagers will gain a new level of health, quality of life and economic stability: Women and children will no longer travel miles to collect stagnant water. The number of women engaged in entrepreneurial endeavors will increase. The number of children attending school will increase. 500 students will have access to running water for personal and menstrual hygiene and hand washing. The health center will see a decrease in morbidity and mortality related to water-born parasitic diseases.

Seeing the Doctor!! Clean water will be an amazing gift!!

Timothy S. Cusack

ChangeALife Uganda

Social Media Coordinator

Resources

A Success Story about Ssekabembe Roselyn

Ssekabembe Roselyn is one of change a life’s borrowers. Before change a life’s intervention, she was selling charcoal but on a very small scale and in a rented kiosk.

She is so happy for change a life Uganda for having helped her change her life. After acquiring a loan from change a life’s micro financing project she was able to expand her Charcoal business when she bought just three more sucks of charcoal. Saving bits, with a commitment to grow her small business, she has raised money to acquire her own kiosk.

She now uses two kiosks for her business, one for charcoal selling and the other as a market stall where she sells items like tomatoes eggplants onions, green paper, charcoal stoves among others. She has diversified her income avenues.

She can buy food for her children, pay school fees and buy other needs.

Her next plan is to stock fire wood in the new kiosk as an expansion of the fuel business.


Roselyn in her first rented kiosk where she sells charcoal


Roselyn standing infront of her second kiosk.

By Nankinga Cate
Loans officer, CALU

HOPES FOR SAFER DELIVERY AT MIGYEERA HEALTH CENTRE

Inset is the Clinical Officer, Mr. Simiyu observing the baby's breath

One day in the month of October 2013 i visited Migyeera Health Centre III where Change A Life Uganda is partnering with the Church to deliver health care services to the community. I found a mother whose hopes were lost and pleading to the doctor to use all the tactics he acquired while studying his career in human medicine. This was because she had obstructed labour and the C/O had opted to refer her to the regional hospital because it needed an operation and in Migyeera the staff can only do minor surgery because of inadequate equipments . However, he made a second attempt with the equipments delivered by CAL USA and managed to get hold of the umbilici-co cord that had tied around the neck of the child preventing it from coming out despite the mother's efforts in pushing it out. He then cut it and there came the baby whose mother had lost hope in.
It was a lovely baby boy. The life of the mother together with the child was transformed through Migyeera Health Centre III with support from CAL.

Published by
Rhoda Anyadwe
Program Manager
Change A Life Foundation Uganda

ChangeALife Uganda Wins $1000 in Concept Link's Fundraising Competition.

ChangeALife Uganda entered Concept's Link's online fundraising campaign competition. After participating in an educational webinar series from Concept Link, Kathleen Brown with support from Tim Cusack developed an award winning fundraising campaign called "Help Her Sleep Well".

The story focuses on Najjemba who is a 12 year old student at the St. Lawrence School. Access to water will help improve Najjemba and her fellow students' health and daily living conditions. Our goal is to raise $12,000 to complete the third phase of ChangeALife Uganda's water project. This involves connecting the well to the water tower with 1.5 miles of pipe. We have already raised 90% of the funds needed to complete the project. We are so close.

In addition to winning a prize of $1,000 from the Segal Family Foundation, the CALU team learned new skills that will be helpful in planning future campaigns. We are very grateful to the Segal Family Foundation and Concept Link for a wonderful program and the very generous award of $1,000.

The New Girl in Muganga Aloysious' Life

BY: Leaticia Nakabazzi

Field Officer Sponsorship (CAL)

Muganga Aloysious is the second born in the family of five now, he is just ten years old and in his primary five, he is sponsored by Cynthia Rusis. He goes to school at Bombo Trinity which is a distance away from his home. being among the best five students in his class each year, his teachers are so proud of him and have hope that he can top the district at his finals. his classmates like him because of his academic abilities and the good social characters he possesses. his elder brother is in high school and the young twins are in lower primary and are all performing well in academics.

Happiness filled Aloysious and his siblings this year in May when they welcomed a new member in their family. The mother Annet gave birth to a bouncing baby girls and they named her carol, a very beautiful angel who has just made six months. he and the siblings were so overjoyed with the news in that they could not wait for her to be brought back home, when she arrived home they could not take eyes off her for a minute although they all feared to carry her because she was tiny, they would just sit around and and watch her. At six months now Carol can just sit on laps and this has enabled Aloysious get the opportunity of carrying her around.

Aloysious and his mother Annet and sister Carol,

Carol spends most of the day with her mum with the help of the maid, and as soon as Aloysious gets back home from school he takes on the sister carrying her and singing her songs. but the care and love he has for his sister has not pulled him back from his studies at all,

Aloysious and his sister Carol.

he is just getting better and better each day with the promise of topping up his average mark this term. he also has a dream of becoming a pilot when he grows up because he has passion for airplanes and also likes the idea of being up in the sky as much as he likes being at the top when it comes to his academics.

Introduction To Fair Trade

Clair Namukwaya
Program Officer (Crafts/Tailoring) CALU

Following our gained trade fair status with Uganda Fair Trade Association (UGAFAT), the UGAFAT Country Network Coordinator Anne Kyateesa met with the Artisans in Nabbingo on the 11^th/10/2013 to tell them about the organization’s activities and the opportunities/benefits it involves for the members.

Anne tell the Artisans about UGAFAT and its opportunities

She explained that;

“Fair Trade is a method of creating sustainable economies and new markets in poor developing countries, while simultaneously preserving traditional customs and practices.

And that the organization provides a platform with concern for the social, economic and environmental well-being of marginalized small producers and does not maximize profit at their expense. It is also responsible and professional in meeting its commitments in a timely manner. Suppliers respect contracts and deliver products on time and to the desired quality and specifications. ”

She further elaborated that the producer and consumer mutually agree on a fair price through dialogue and participation, which provides fair pay to the producers and can also be sustained by the market. Where Fair Trade pricing structures exist, these are used as a minimum. And that Fair Trade marketing and importing organizations support capacity building as required to producers, to enable them to set a fair price.

Each Artisan was provided with a UGAFAT brocure to take home by Anne

On seeing and evaluating the Artisans’ crafts;she was impressed, admired their skills, material exploration and usage. And she informed the artisans that the crafts market was unpredictable, and therefore advised them to always think outside the box; come up with their own creatively unique designs instead ofduplicating those that are already in existence and they should not be scared to try something new if they want to make it big on the Craft market.

Anne talks to the Artisans regarding the crafts they make

She informed the Artisans of the mini exhibition scheduled to take place on the 11^th/11/2013; different companies/groups make craft samples to be exhibited to an international buyers and the buyers choose the ones they want to be mass produced.

Anne shows the Artisans photos of similar groups that also make crafts plus samples of their product.

The Artisans were excited by the time she left and started brainstorming ideas of the crafts to be made for the exhibition. And am sure come 11^th/10/2013 we will have beautifull pieces to exhibit.