DonorSee

A Community Well for Rwakobo

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One of our most critical problems at Wells of Hope Primary School has been access to clean water. While we did construct our first ecobrick tank there in 2020, the tank is only good during rainy seasons since it is fed with rain water from the metal roof.

This means that, during the dry seasons, our cook and students — and their families — must resort to the “seasonal wells” dotted around the landscape. These are not actual wells, they are either natural or man-made low lying areas where water collects. They aren’t fed by any water source, so they slowly dry up, and they are shared with animals and insects. In short, they are disgusting and unreliable.

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It has been our dream since 2020 to construct a real, deep-water, borehole fed well that will serve not only Wells of Hope but the entire community of Rwakobo Village — over 3,000 people. (The top photo is just a representative sample.) This will not only give them all the water they need all year round, it will save many lives from contaminated water-born diseases like typhoid.

The project is now LIVE on Donorsee! And we have 5% funding already!

We need another $500 for the project to be visible to the entire platform, and the total of the project is $10,415. There is a full budget spelled out on the project site, so you can see exactly how the money will be spent. This isn’t one of the projects we can start and fund as we go, so we can’t get fresh water to Rwakobo village until we are 100% funded.

Can you help us today? 100% of your donation goes to the project.

We so appreciate your support!

Mwebele mnonga!

Jennings

WATER FOR WELLS!

PS Starting this week, I am reducing the number of blogs per week to one, at least through the summer months. I love writing, and our open rate is way above industry standard so you must enjoy reading. (I am really grateful!) But it does take a lot of time! You can always follow us or check in with us on Instagram, where I post every day. (Click the icon below.)

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We’re Back! Hello from the USA

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Dear {{contact.first_name}},

Hello from NC! I’m looking out of my sunroom at the bright green new leaves of spring, fighting off cats who are so happy to see me, and feeling enormously grateful to be home!

Our travels went well and Susan and I both slept “normal” hours, so we are hopeful that we won’t be jet lag casualties for more than a day or two. (You can’t recover from 28+ hours of travel overnight, no matter how much sleep you get!)

I got the above photo from Ronald while I was in the Brussels airport and I *love* it. There are a lot of things to love: the traditional gomesi that the Tailoring class made for me as a surprise, the uber successful 4th graduation of our biggest Skills for Life group yet, the fashion show where I was showing off the dress and my (questionable) Ugandan dance moves, Peace dancing in the background.

But what I love the most is that it captures why Touch the Slum has been so successful.

Genuine respect and partnership. Friendship. Fun and laughter. Hard work. Collaboration. Gratitude. Celebration. Cross-culture.

The whole team did a phenomenal job putting together the graduation. (You can see some videos at Instagram, icon below.) The speakers — the local Council Chairman, a pastor friend, a bishop, parents, students, and teachers — all spoke of the profound innovation and real changes they have seen. There were a lot of happy tears.

There’s a lot more to come. We have new challenges all the time, an unlimited stream of teen moms and teen girls who need help, the usual constraints and obstacles any nonprofit faces.

But we have YOU. We have the support of the local community. We have all the things that photo above sums up.

We can’t wait to see what’s next!

Blessings,

Jennings

PS We’re going to be posting our new Large DonorSee project this week — a deep well for the Rwakobo/Wells of Hope Primary School community, which will serve 3,000 people with clean, fresh water every day. We’ll need to get to 10% quickly so it is visible to the wider DonorSee audience. We’d appreciate you thinking about what you might be able to give over the next couple of days so we can hit the ground running. If we can fund the well quickly, the students and residents of Rwakobo Village will have a deep well by dry season!

This photo is one of the “seasonal wells” (aka large puddle) where they currently must get water to survive – yeah, it’s as bad as it looks!

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Patience Really Isn’t My Thing

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BUT WHO NEEDS PATIENCE WHEN I’VE GOT YOU GUYS?!

So far, 2023 has been very slow in the fundraising department overall. Don’t get me wrong, I expected January to be slow, because everyone was so generous at year end. It’s kind of like when I had the bakery and everyone went on a diet in January, only to emerge from starvation just in time for Valentine’s Day treats!

But man alive, do you all come through time after time!

Just yesterday the water tank project for Hopeland Primary School got over 10% funded and so appeared to the wider DonorSee audience. Today, someone who subscribes to this mailing list funded the rest!

Not ten minutes later a medical project for Touch the Slum was 100% funded by one regular donor.

First, let me say THANK YOU to ALL of you who have been so supportive with your comments and donations. You are the only reason our programs keep going, and the only reason we can touch the lives of over 550 children and teens every day.

Second, I can’t tell you how much your support buoys all of us here in the trenches. There’s a lot of need in Uganda, and a lot of need that Ronald, Gideon, and all our team are surrounded by every day. It takes a lot out of us all sometimes, not gonna lie.

But then we get so many gifts: previously illiterate girls taking notes in class. An entire P7 class passing their national exams. A text or email or message of support for no particular reason from one of you.

It goes far beyond dollars, no matter how important those dollar are. It’s partnership and friendship and collaboration that makes Ten Eighteen Uganda run, and you are as much a part of that as any of us.

We really can’t thank you enough.

Mwebele mnonga,

Jennings

PS We leave on Sunday! If you don’t follow us or check us out regularly on Instagram, make sure to put it in your calendar to do it while I’m gone. That’s the best way to keep up with all we’re doing, although I will still be sending this newsletter, too. Click the icon below to go to our Instagram feed! (You don’t have to have an account.)

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Girls On the Farm

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Monica helping break up the Ugandan clay soil

Last week was a big one! The team was at the farm Monday afternoon til Sunday without much internet, so I got a LOT of video today (check out Instagram over this week for those!). Monica and Fauza, who head our media team, went with Ronald and some of the lads. Everyone had to work hard to earn their keep. (It must have been fun, though, because they’re going back on Wednesday!)

Now we’re in the final stages. I have the irrigation budget in hand, which will be a big help during the Ugandan dry seasons. The gate and sign will be ordered and installed. And we’re discussing the addition of livestock.

There’s a lot of differences in livestock raising methods between the West and Africa, so we’re working out how to do it that (hopefully!) brings in the best of both worlds. We’ll start with a few dozen hens, using the garage as a coop. It will take a few months until they lay, but that will give us time to make sure we have a healthy setup and happy chickens.

We’ll follow later this year with goats, which we will use mostly for milk for the girls at the compound.

I’ve always wanted a farm — I would like one a little closer to home one day! — and am so excited to get out there NEXT MONTH and dig in the dirt. My gardening gloves are already on my “to pack” pile.

Thank you all for your donations for the farm over the last 7 months! As I mentioned last time, this project will be retired on the 15th, whether or not we reach our full funding goal. If you haven’t shared it, we’d so appreciate your word-of-mouth introduction to friends and family who may want to help as we establish Mikisa Farm for Touch the Slum.

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS I became a Jaja for the second time on Friday, which is wonderful! Congrats to my daughter and Board member Ryan and her husband Eric on their beautiful new boy!

FINAL FARM FUNDING!

PSS As always, 100% of your donations go to the project!

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Let There Be Light!

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I’ve lived in hurricane country all of my life, first in Florida and now in North Carolina, so I’m very familiar with the “WOW, is it dark when the power goes out!” feeling. We also lived in Nicaragua which has… let’s generously say an “unreliable” power grid.

Ronald and three friends are at the farm all week, so Tuesday morning my first question to him was, “It was pretty dark out there, wasn’t it?”

His reply was, “My signal is so poor out here and it’s so dark!”

But Tuesday night… voila! There was light!

Thanks to you and our generous supporters on DonorSee, we’ve now got the solar system installed. This gives us some light at the house as well as power to run the well pump. (There is a hand-pump for rainy days that don’t see a lot of power generated.) We’re also going to put a light at the entrance gate for safety.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be getting the farm project completed. It’s been about 6 1/2 months since we posted it on DonorSee and we’ve raised 88% of the funds. In just a week, we’ll be a fully functioning little farm… That’s just amazing!

We will be taking down this project on the 15th, whether or not we’re 100% funded.

We’ve got some urgent large projects that need to go up on DonorSee — an ecobrick water tank for Hopeland Primary, a well at Wells of Hope, and a culvert enlargement project at Hopeland to mitigate their flooding problems — and we can only have one large project up at a time.

If you want to contribute to this last work at the farm over the next two weeks, we’d really appreciate your support – just click the button below. Either way, we’ll keep you updated on life at Mikisa Farm, including my visit out there in March. (I can’t wait!)

Blessings,

Jennings

PS Gideon just sent me the results of the result for Hopeland’s P7 class national exams, which are a REALLY big deal. If you don’t pass those, you can’t go on to secondary school even if you have the funding. (Yeah, crazy…) THEY ALL PASSED! This is SUCH amazing news. Thank you for your support of Hopeland and Wells of Hope. You’re making a difference every day!

FINAL FARM FUNDING!

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New Desks at Wells of Hope

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Over the past week I’ve made a bunch of food for my very pregnant daughter to put in her freezer for after the baby is born. Today, as I ran bananas foster muffins, burritos, and smoothie packets to her, I got the video from Gideon with the follow up for DonorSee on most recent the desks project.

It occurred to me that we were doing the same thing, Gideon and I: delivering things that were hand made for a purpose. Things you might think you could just buy at a store. (Or from Amazon…)

In Uganda, in poor rural areas like Rwakobo Village, there isn’t a desk or school supply store. There isn’t a hardware store, a clinic, a supermarket, a warehouse store, a pharmacy, or a drive through. There’s no gas station or even a well.

Even in Mbarara, which is one of Uganda’s largest cities, you can’t just buy school desks “off the rack” — they are constructed to order. We ordered these desks last week, and today they were transported and installed in Wells of Hope Primary School, ready for the kids to start the new school year on Monday.

What’s exciting is that the kids know that these desks were made especially for them. In a remote, extremely impoverished area, this isn’t something that happens very often. This village, founded with refugees from “off over there” (Rwanda), has been forgotten by the governments large and small.

BUT YOU REMEMBERED THEM!

Because of you and partners like you, the 400 kids at Wells of Hope have desks, cement floors, blackboards, windows and doors, and panes of glass. They have mosquito nets, a water tank, a kitchen, dishes, and soccer balls.

Most of all, they have the knowledge that somewhere halfway around the world there are people that they don’t know, who they will never meet, who cared enough about them to help them get an education.

That’s more valuable than gold!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS We have 2 urgent projects on DonorSee right now: the funding for the transport and burial of Teacher Justin’s murdered brother, and helping Teacher rebuild her tailoring business after a fire destroyed her shop and 8 other businesses. We’d so appreciate your support of our teachers as they deal with these tragedies.

Take me to DONORSEE!

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Look How We Grew in 2022!

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Dear {{contact.first_name}},

Y’all are the best!

After a whirlwind giving season, which I actually started in August with a Masterclass through Donorbox, I just sat down and got the books caught up. (Just as an aside, I really hate bookkeeping! Anybody else?!)

Here’s what I discovered – and it was even better than I guessed:

Y’all donated $83,332 in 2021 and $125,367 in 2022….. Um HOLY COW.

You:

  • purchased a farm
  • provided desks, windows, and blackboards at Wells of Hope
  • started a Literacy program, computer lab, Advanced Tailoring program, daycare, and clinic
  • helped treat countless illnesses
  • bought water bottles
  • funded graduations
  • gave a home to homeless teens with our dorm
  • provided for funerals and burials
  • created a safe place for rape victims
  • provided opportunities for 150 teens in Skills for Life
  • and allowed us to serve over 25,000 meals!

That’s not even all of it, because your generosity pays for the $1.50 a month trash service, water bills, septic pump outs, salaries, certification renewals, community outreach programs, continuing education, and more. It’s all day, every day, 365 days of the year.

Tweyanzizza nnyo, tweyanzeege — we are so grateful, thank you very much!

We’re so excited to see what 2023 brings and so thankful that you’re on this journey with us.

Webele nyo,

Jennings

PS Becoming a monthly donor really helps us with budgeting and it’s very easy! Just click the button!

I want to be a monthly donor!

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Quick Update at Year End

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First, we JUST crossed $75,000 in total donations raised on DonorSee – in just 16 months! As a small nonprofit, that’s HUGE!!! (And that’s all YOU!)

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Second, we’re really close to fully funding the farm! And so much is going on out there right now – check out our Instagram page for more.

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And finally, we’re pretty close to our goal for year end fundraising at DonorSee – which was a stretch goal to begin with. We’ve had 6 projects funded in the last 24 hours! If you want to help today or tomorrow, you can go to this page and either make an unspecified donation or see all our project.

We SO appreciate all your support, encouragement, emails, and (of course) donations over this last year — you’re the best!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS What are you doing to celebrate the new year?

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Brenda Needs Your Help

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When 15-year-old Brenda’s baby was just one week old, her mother beat her severely and threw them both out into the street in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

Fortunately, the local LC lady knew about our program and brought her to us in the early morning hours. Brenda got shelter, clothing, food, and, in the morning, medical treatment from Nurse Sherry at our clinic.

Next term, Brenda will start in Skills for Life, and she’s taking part in the Literacy program, too. All at no cost to her!

We have had several dozen teen moms in our residential and vocational programs. Some come to us homeless, desperate, and ill, like Brenda. Some live with a parent, an auntie, or a friend and have a somewhat stable (if challenging) home life.

All have little hope of a future outside of a cycle of sex work and unplanned babies, probably with HIV/AIDS thrown in at some point.

Until Touch the Slum!

We are the only organization in Namuwongo — home to over 30,000 people — working with teen moms. We are the only organization in the slum that offers free vocational and literacy training. And we are the only organization that has a free residential program for both teen moms and for Skills for Life students who become homeless while enrolled.

How do we do it? YOU!

Your generosity impacts the lives of these destitute teen moms every single day. It creates a safe harbor, opportunity, stability, education, medical care, food, and hope.

Every dollar you give to Ten Eighteen — 100% — goes to teen moms like Brenda who just need a hand up so they can create a sustainable life for themselves.

Your year end donation will enable us to keep saving lives and offering opportunity — not with handouts, but with hand-ups.

Will you give today?

YES! I’LL GIVE TODAY!

Thank you so much!

Webele nyo,

Jennings

PS Please share this email with your family and friends and let them know why you support Ten Eighteen. Word of mouth is a precious gift that keeps on giving!

PSS As I wrote in the Subject line, last night we had our 200th project on DonorSee funded! The farm project is 85% funded and we have a donor who has said if we can “get closer” he’ll close it out by year end. Can you give a little extra to help us have a fully funded farm going into 2023?

FUND THE FARM!

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Rainy Season in Uganda

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I’ve spent a lot of time with my Ugandan friends trying to explain the concept of seasons. (I haven’t been that successful!)

In Uganda, there are just rainy and dry seasons – two of each per year. We are coming to the last few weeks (we hope!) of this fall’s rainy season, which has been brutal.

  • At least 24 were killed in flooding in Eastern Uganda in August
  • Thousands were displaced by flooding and landslides in Western Uganda in September

Our own programs have been affected, as you can see from the picture above of Hopeland Primary School in Mbarara. Wells of Hope and the surrounding village in Rwakobo have had even more significant flooding. The work on the farmhouse was delayed significantly by rains.

You may not know it, but Kampala is about 3000 feet above sea level. I’ve only had one trip in 14 where I was hot — often I’m wearing jeans and a sweatshirt! And few windows have glass in them so the damp cold is hard to get away from when it never seems to stop raining.

We’ve had several girls struggle to control their asthma during this time, and about three times the usual number of respiratory illnesses. We’ve even had some cases of dysentery due to all the contaminated water girls have to walk through to get to class.

So… Did you know that you can sign up as a monthly sponsor of our Haven Clinic? It’s true! We are at 40% right now. There’s no minimum to be a sponsor, and it really helps us keep all our teen moms and teen girls healthy by paying Sherry’s salary and restocking the medications we use daily.

SPONSOR THE CLINIC!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS Bonus picture of Sylvia with her new baby boy (no name as of yet) coming home from the hospital to lots of love yesterday!

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