Author name: Jen

WHAT’S NEXT IN SKILLS FOR LIFE?

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17-year-old Vivian, above, designed and created this amazing outfit for her final project in Tailoring last year. That was just before the June 2021 lockdown.

After the lockdown happened, Vivian had a very difficult time coping, and, for her and a few other girls, we re-launched the Ndoto Cooperative. This gave them a small salary, a place to come every day, and the freedom to design and create items to sell in local shops.

Now that the lockdowns are over and Term 1 2022 is underway, we are FINALLY ready to launch an Advanced Tailoring class for girls like Vivian who really have a flair for fashion and design. Our new teacher, Martha, is a professional seamstress, and she is very excited to be spending the next 6 months with such talented teens.

We don’t have an exact date that we’ll start yet, but we are aiming for the middle of March. We have purchased the final 2 electric machines and all the materials and supplies that are needed. Martha is designing a completely new curriculum. The girls are having an orientation and conversations with Marth on what they want to learn to do.

We are SO pleased to be able to offer this opportunity to 5 or 6 girls who have waited and hoped for months! I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot about it in the coming year – and make sure to check out our social media for great photos and updates.

Thank you for your support – these kinds of opportunities are really and truly changing lives.

Blessings,

Jennings

PS If you want to help with our vocational program, we have several projects up on DonorSee to purchase supplies. Just click the button below! Webele nyo!

SHOW ME THE PROJECTS!

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A SPECIAL COUPLE OF DAYS IN NAMUWONGO WITH BOB DITTY

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Bob Ditty is an international award-winning photographer and film maker who lives in Uganda. Through mutual friends, we connected with him a couple of years ago and asked him to do a shoot at the Ross House compound and around the Namuwongo slum. First covid and then a bout with malaria delayed his visit – UNTIL TODAY!

Bob is shooting both images and video for us today and tomorrow, and we cannot wait to see what he produces. Because he is just amazing at his craft.

But equally as exciting is that he is mentoring Fauza and Monica Angel, the two girls in our Skills for Life Videography class. They are training to be Namuwongo’s first-ever female videographers, and having someone like Bob spend time mentoring them, as well as letting them shadow him as he works, is absolutely priceless.

I woke up this morning to photos and videos like this one. Bob demonstrating, explaining, encouraging, answering questions… For two teenagers from the slum, this is an experience that could change their entire lives.

One of our core philosophies is that we empower our teen girls to create lasting, sustainable change in their lives. We provide OPPORTUNITIES which give HOPE and SKILLS, and those things drive CHANGE.

Bob’s visit will bless all of us with amazing images and video, and give us a glimpse into our work with new eyes. But what it is giving Fauza and Monica Angel is literally life-changing.

We can’t thank you enough for your support!

Blessings,

Jennings

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THE NEW HAVEN CLINIC

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Our new clinic, which we decided to call the Haven Clinic, opened on Valentine’s Day. Its function is to serve the girls, children, and staff in our programs — right now that’s about 60 people not including babies.

We already need to restock some supplies and medications! Our full-time nurse is doing well-baby checks, dispensing medications for cough, doing malaria and typhoid rapid tests, and keeping records on all the babies so we can make sure they’re healthy and developing well.

This is HUGE. Health care, even for very serious illnesses and diseases, is out of reach of almost everyone in the Namuwongo slum. We’ve done a lot of DonorSee projects to help us cover the costs we’ve incurred over the past year. The average has been about $90 — while the average income in the slum is less than $10 a month.

But now, we have scenes like this. Teen mom and Ross House resident Christine’s joy at baby Zoe’s first-ever wellness checkup. Free of charge.

It doesn’t get much better than this!

Thank you for all your help and support as we’ve set up this clinic. Obviously, we will have ongoing costs of medicines, supplies, and the nurse’s salary. You can become a monthly donor (in any amount!) or donate to our current DonorSee project by clicking the button below if you want to help.

Webele nyo!

Jennings

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TEN EIGHTEEN IS IN THE PARTNER SPOTLIGHT ON DONORSEE!

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When we began using DonorSee in September 2021, we really had no idea what we were doing. (I mean REALLY…!) It’s a truly unique fundraising platform that relies on lots and lots of relatively small projects, shown in video format, with follow-up videos so donors can see exactly what their money accomplished.

Switching from a general “please donate to help us” to dozens and dozens of individual projects, figuring out the best way to create compelling but short videos, and doing timely follow-ups around time differences, and power and internet outages — not to mention just learning a whole new platform’s algorithms and rules — was a pretty steep learning curve.

BUT

We did it! It helps that I’m really stubborn and a natural problem solver. It also helps that DonorSee is extraordinarily responsive to our questions and suggestions, as well as committed to our success.

And now we’re in the Spotlight! You can click the button below to see my interview and hopefully get a broader overview of our work, our challenges, and our dreams.

We’ve raised over $11,000 on DonorSee in 5 1/2 months, and we’re very excited to see where 2022 takes us!

Thanks for being here!

Jennings

PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Ditty Photography

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VALENTINE’S DAY IS FUN IN THE SLUM, TOO!

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Ok… For most people in Namuwongo, Valentine’s Day is not fun. It’s not any different from any other day: it’s hard.

But we don’t do “normal for the slum.” We just do NORMAL.

That means we celebrate, laugh, dance, and promote joy every chance we get.

So for Valentine’s Day, we teamed up with our good friend Rinty’s social-enterprise Lekker Bakery to give heart shaped brioche buns to everyone, along with soda. Our residential girls got a special chicken-and-chips dinner as their February “one fun thing”.

“TRUE LOVE IS INEXHAUSTIBLE: THE MORE YOU GIVE, THE MORE YOU HAVE.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

THANK YOU for all your support!

Blessings,

Jennings

If you want to support our work, just click the button! Every donation makes a difference, and 100% goes to the program.

YES! I WANT TO HELP!

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THE CLINIC IS OPEN!

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During 2021, we had a LOT of medical issues come up for our girls and babies. The most common were malaria and typhoid, but we’ve also had intestinal parasites, pneumonia, and burns… to name a few.

We have a wonderful doctor who sees our girls at a discount and without requiring payment up front. But he does, of course, require payment in short order, as does the hospital where most treatments have to be done. (Many meds for advanced typhoid and malaria, as well as antibiotics for children, are done through an IV canula that stays in for a week). Plus there’s transport to and from the hospital on boda bodas.

We’ve done a LOT of DonorSee projects to cover medical bills… So I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it before, but in January it hit me: OPEN A CLINIC, DUMMY!

So we did! We’d contracted for more space within our compound in August, and at the end of the year most of it was finally ready. That allowed us to move the Ross House girls to a more private apartment area and free up rooms in the main house. VOILA! A clinic was born.

We are now officially open for business, with a fully stocked medicine cabinet, first aid supplies, IV supplies, a bed, and a full time nurse.

We’ve already had our first patients!

Of course, this is free to our girls and their children (and our staff). But it’s not free to US. We will have ongoing expenses to restock medications and supplies, as well as the nurse’s salary. We also had the expense of setting it up. If you’d like to help, just click the button below – 100% goes to the program.

Thank you ALWAYS for your amazing support! We’re so grateful to have you with us.

Blessings,

Jennings

SUPPORT THE HEAVEN CLINIC

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HOW YOU KNOW A DAYCARE IS WORKING

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Call me crazy, but I think this is one of my favorite photos ever!

Why? Because this is KID LIFE in a nutshell. These kids aren’t out on the filthy lanes of Namuwongo, crawling around in typhoid-ridden puddles.

They aren’t tied to their mamas’ backs while their teen mom tries to learn.

They aren’t crying because they’re hungry.

They’re just being KIDS. And that’s a beautiful thing!

(BONUS QUESTION: Which kid were you??)

Thanks for supporting us with this daycare. It really is a year-long dream come true!

To help us with the day-to-day like staff, food, formula and milk, please click the button! We so appreciate you!

HELP WITH DAYCARE TODAY!

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THANK YOU FOR 2021!

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THANKS TO YOU, WE GREW 70% IN 2021!

Let’s be honest, 2021 probably wasn’t anyone’s favorite year ever… but you stepped up for Ten Eighteen in a big way, and we can’t thank you enough!

Donations for 2021 were up a little over 70% from 2020 and that’s AMAZING.

We met not just our year-end giving goal, or our stretch year-end giving goal… you donated 20% more than even that!

We really can’t thank you enough!

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WHAT IS HOLISTIC LITERACY?

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Last fall I started using the term HOLISTIC LITERACY to try to describe what our Namuwongo Skills for Life program is about. It’s probably a little different for a teen girl living in the slum than it would be for someone in a developed country, so I want to explain both the what and the why.

WHAT

Many of the girls in our residential and Skills for Life programs have never been to school. Of course, that means no reading, writing, and arithmetic, but in Uganda that also means no English.

Why? English is, after all, Uganda’s official language.

But there are 60+ tribal languages spoken in Uganda. The Namuwongo slum is like every other slum — a mix of displaced and desperate people who come to Kampala to try to have a better life. People tend to spend time with those of their own tribe and language. They do not speak English.

English is learned in school. In fact, it is actually illegal for schools to teach the tribal languages. They speak, read, and write in English.

BOTTOM LINE —> No school = no English

But there’s more to literacy (for us, at least!) than the three Rs and English. We add a meaningful vocational skill so girls have a lifetime of income potential.

If needed for immediate survival, we teach a smaller skill that can start bringing in some money right away.

We conduct health and hygiene workshops so girls — and boys — can physically take care of themselves.

We are adding a computer lab in 2022 to bring digital literacy and enable routine things like national ID card updates and job applications to be done by the girls themselves.

And we will begin using Neema Development’s Entrepreneur training this spring to bring basic business literacy to the girls.

WHY

If you read through that list again, these are things that you probably already know. You may not have been taught them, per se, but you picked it up along the way. You already live in a world of holistic literacy, and you use these skills every single day.

We believe the teen girls and teen moms in our program deserve that opportunity as well. They are smart, motivated, and hard-working, and they know the alternative. They are choosing a better life and doing what’s required every day!

THANK YOU for partnering with us as well change lives AND change the culture. If you want to make a donation, click the button – 100% goes to the programs!

LET ME HELP!

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WHAT A MONTH JANUARY WAS!

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At Ten Eighteen, we have always promised to use your funds in the most transformational ways possible. And WOW, did we outdo ourselves in January!

The Literacy Class launched, with 20 girls who are eager (desperate!) to learn basic reading, writing, English and math. Our own teen mom Gloria, from the Ross and now Suubi House, is the most dedicated student there. (She’s on the left with her son Imran.)

Skills for Life Tailoring and Hairdressing courses did their 2-week-split, dividing the more advanced students into the afternoon classes and the ones needing more help into the morning classes. Our goal is COMPENTENCY, so we want to make sure that the girls who need more time (usually because they are illiterate and don’t speak English) get everything they need.

The daycare is now open, and our staff is already exhausted! hahaha Having done daycare in my home for a year, many many years ago, I warned them that it is a LOT of work. They now believe me! But it’s going really well, and it is SO helpful for the moms who are in class to be able to leave their children for a couple of hours to fully concentrate and learn.

Best picture ever!

AND THAT’S NOT ALL!

Yesterday, we hired a full-time nurse. Today, we put in the order for the clinic furniture. By the end of the week, we will have stocked medication and supplies, and we should have a fully functioning and staffed clinic by Monday. We had 4 medical issues in January alone, so this will significantly help us in prevention, early treatment, and emergency care.

Sharon graduated from the Suubi House and moved with Patience to her first home of her own. She is working in a salon and told Ronald yesterday she has a new prospect for a better job. Shadia also graduated from the Suubi program and is in her own place, too! Both girls bring their kids to the daycare while they are working, so we see them — they’re doing great, and we’re so proud of them!

UPDATES

Bob Ditty had to postpone his photoshoot due to illness. We’ll let you know when that will be once we know.

The Advanced Tailoring class will be up and running by the end of February (probably sooner). While she waits, Ross/Suubi House resident Jenifer is doing an internship at a local tailoring shop.

We are now feeding over 60 people a day at the Ross House compound! We had to get a second stove!

Schools in Uganda FINALLY went back in session after 22 months. Wells of Hope in Rwakobo Village has 300 students! We provide food for Wells as well as Hopeland (150 students).

THANK YOU for your support and encouragement! We couldn’t do this without you! To become a monthly supporter or make a one-time donation, click the button. 100% goes to the programs!

I WANT TO HELP!

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