The sum of the parts: what working together for children really means!

Have you ever had to study for a particularly hard exam, spending all night awake, drinking Colombia out of coffee and racking your brains over one particular question you just don’t seem to get? And how many new mums have felt so desperate when bedtime arrives and their tiny infant just doesn’t seem to want to settle down and go to sleep? “I should know what my child needs!” might race through your mind.

There are many moments in life when we feel alone in the face of a certain problem. So what do we do? Well, naturally, we would seek out the advice of someone who’s been in a similar situation. And how often do we actually find that we are not alone; that many of our classmates have found that topic difficult, or that all new mums have felt frustrated at some point? Someone might even suggest a simple solution, “Have you tried swaddling?” that suddenly makes our lives that much brighter.

100 successful students graduate Viva Equip in Uganda!

“Children were lining up outside my office to confide in me!” An excited Macu tells a room full of smiling graduates, as she delivers a heartfelt speech at the recent Viva Equip People graduation ceremony on Saturday 26th March.

Macu, a recent Viva Equip graduate herself, is a Child Restoration Outreach Manager working in central Uganda. “I have been working with children for years, but before this training there were many grey areas where I just felt like I didn’t have the resources to help or protect children properly,” she explained to her fellow classmates, who were nodding in agreement. “But thanks to this training, my staff and I can now look after children much better. And what is most amazing is that the children are the first to notice the improvement.” She continued enthusiastically, “Never before have children queued so patiently at my door just for the opportunity to speak to me! But this is because they know now that there are people who will really listen to them and who think it is important to help them.” Her closing remarks beautifully summarise the overall benefit of the Viva Equip training: “I am a better person for it- I am a better worker, mother, neighbour, manager and friend and this will all now be reflected in my work with children; in how I treat them, care for them and protect them against the dangers that they have all had to face so far in their short lives.”

Uganda Elections: the results are in, but what does this mean for children?

After much campaigning, debate and speculation, Yoweri Museveni has won the Ugandan Presidential Elections for the fourth time in a row. But what does this mean for 57% of Uganda’s population – its children...?

Abandoned Babies Part III - Interview

Viva interviews Rogers Mbaziira, who works with our city-wide network CRANE in Kampala, Uganda. Part of Rogers’ job is to work with a group of network members – churches, homes for abandoned babies and other projects – that are committed to putting abandoned babies into local families. (Learn more about this group, called Families For Children.) That means lots of networking between projects and churches and families, with some interesting results. Go ahead, listen in...

Viva: Rogers, you have an amazing job. Can you tell us what your normal day looks like?

RM: I used to visit the foster families a lot, but now more of my time is spent on ‘mobilisation’. Most parents call in and some email FFC for advice. I spend most of my time replying to them, and often that involves referring them to different agencies or projects that can help. That’s why it’s so important to work as a network, because we have these other contacts we can put them in touch with. 

Abandoned Babies Part II - Africa

Working at Viva’s office in Kampala, I hear a lot about abandoned babies through the city-wide network, CRANE (we’re in the same office!) Nearly 200 babies are abandoned every year in Kampala alone, the capital city of Uganda. One lady I’ve met, Grace, has a special story about an abandoned baby though – Grace became a mother when someone else didn’t want her child.

Grace remembers falling in love with baby Nabulungi as soon as she met her in the hospital where she works. Nabulungi was tiny – a premature baby of only a kilogram – and the fact that her mother had abandoned her at the hospital made her seem even smaller. “Seeing her arrive to the world, so vulnerable and small, I bonded with this little one that needed so much attention and care,” recalls Grace.

For the first few weeks of Nabulungi’s life, Grace’s job was to care for her. She wasn’t sure where it would lead. As the time drew near for Nabulungi to leave the hospital, Grace couldn’t face the fact that ‘her’ tiny baby would be going into an institution… she needed a family home. 

Switching it up - Police in for Child Questioning!

On my first day in Kampala, I was taken to the Old Taxi Park. It was a dizzying maze of hundreds of small minibuses, known locally as matatus, and we were trying to find the one that would take me to my placement hosts. There is seemingly no system of getting in and out, and I was actually knocked by the side mirror of one as it was squeezing past us to get out. I remember thinking ‘What have I done? Where have I come to?’ My sales job in the UK was, a week after finishing up with the company, a lifetime away.

Yet a month later I had mastered the matatu system and there I was navigating my way to Stand Up Uganda, a community organisation that helps disadvantaged people, all by myself. The organisation is a member of Viva’s partner network in Kampala, the Children at Risk Action Network (CRANE). They told me “Pick a taxi at the matatu stage and then after the big junction look for the small white sign, after the garage and opposite the white building”. After passing what I assumed was the big junction, panic rose within me as I saw a garage, and then a white building and then another garage, and then a white shop… but then, looking across the road, that small white sign gleamed at me. I had made it!

Lukas goes to Uganda

Last week I went to Uganda on business, something I do a fair bit. But this time I brought my eight-year-old son Lukas along with me. The idea was to show Lukas how people live in other parts of the world, and teach him to be compassionate. Our trip was filled with lessons even before we left – having to get shots before you go to a place is a major lesson in the physical challenges facing the world’s poor!

“Dad, what’s typhoid?”
“Well, it’s a preventable and curable disease that kills 600,000 people every year, and these shots will make sure we don’t catch it.”

While I ran about between meetings in a suit in 30˚ weather, Lukas was working at Sanyu Babies Home (a long-standing member of our Kampala network of projects) helping take care of 16 abandoned babies. Having the CEO of a charity for a dad means you hear lots about orphanages, but actually being in one changed Lukas’ life. Not only was he overwhelmed with the concept of babies having been abandoned by their parents, but he was overwhelmed with the task of taking care of all of them! He spent a day and a half playing with the babies and doing crowd control while the Sanyu ladies fed them. “How was it?” I asked him at the end of the day. “Noisy, but well-managed” was his very serious reply!