DonorSee

You Guys Are Really the Best!

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This is Francis. We’ve known Francis since early 2010, when he was living at the children’s home run by some friends. We stayed there during all of our trips through 2015 — two a year — and got to know Francis really well.

He’s a WONDERFUL young man who has had a very difficult life. He was orphaned at the age of 8 when his village and the surrounding fields were consumed by fire. He wasn’t in the village at the time but saw the fire and rushed home to try to save his family. He couldn’t, and suffered significant burns in the rescue attempt.

He stayed at the home for about 8 years where he got an education and played football. Unfortunately, one of the other boys tried to stab him to death one night before fleeing, nearly killing Francis and causing significant injury. He spent a lot of time in hospital but made a full recovery.

Not long afterwards, the home closed down and the older kids were just left to fend for themselves. Most had some family somewhere in Uganda, but Francis did not. He had nowhere to go and no one to help.

Being smart and resourceful, he worked day labor and rented a small place. We were able to reconnect thanks to a messaging app in 2020, and Ten Eighteen has been helping him since then. And that’s where YOU come in!

We posted a project on Monday on DonorSee to pay for the certificate Francis had earned in computers. It was funded in a day! Yesterday he got the funds to the school, and should have the certificate in hand by the end of the week. We are working with him to finish his secondary education, find all the lost records from the children’s home, and figure out next steps.

We also had a project for windows at Wells of Hope Primary School in Rwakobo village funded this week. It’s the first of 5 that will be needed to get all the windows completed in the new building, so we’re really excited to be making progress there. The windows will be in by Saturday!

Most of our donations on DonorSee are between $10 and $25 – sometimes we have 20 donors involved in funding a project. And we LOVE that! We love that you all are coming together, giving what you can, and making a huge and immediate difference in people’s lives.

We are so grateful for your support, whether it’s a donation, a reply to an email, a Like on a social media post, or a text or call of encouragement. We don’t take any of it for granted, and really can’t thank you enough.

Webele nyo!

Jennings

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We’ve Had a Great First Year on DonorSee!

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Meet Jenifer and her daughter Victoria. Jenifer originally came to the Touch the Slum office when she was pregnant and homeless, and we were a small 2-room place in the slum.

We referred her to an organization we work with that helps pregnant teens called Amani, who had room to take her in. Jenifer gave birth and for a little while after lived with friends.

But about a year and a half ago she became homeless again. And she came back to Touch the Slum — only now we had a program just for girls like her: the Ross House.

Jenifer moved into the Ross House with Victoria, got medical treatment and a good diet, and she began to blossom. She started Skills for Life in Tailoring and it was apparent from the start that she was gifted.

After graduating, she moved into the Suubi House and on to Advanced Tailoring. She’s just finished with that and will graduate on October 1. In the meantime, she’s done so well that both tailoring teachers have been getting her side gigs. She’s saved up a good nest egg!

And now she’s ready to move out into her own place! To begin an independent life that doesn’t rely on a friend who can take her in or a man who will give her food in exchange for sex. And she’s ready!

We couldn’t be more proud of her.

We have a project up to fund her exit package. When our teen moms are ready for independent living, we don’t just show them the door. We make sure they’ve worked and saved enough for several months rent. That their job or own small business is established and stable. Then we gift them a mattress and bedding, household goods, food, and personal supplies.

And our door is always open – Victoria can come to daycare, and they can both get treatment from Nurse Sherry in the clinic. Mama Santa will be happy to serve them up some delicious plates of food, too.

This is the goal. This is the why.

You can’t make lasting, sustainable change without going deep. You can’t change a life without changing the way they see the world, without giving hope that’s based on a truly sustainable path.

Jenifer is a rock star, and I can’t wait to see how far she’ll go!

Blessings,

Jennings

PS We have a project up on DonorSee for Jenifer’s exit package. I put it up yesterday afternoon and it’s already 40% funded! We’d love for you to bless her in her new life — as you’ve blessed her during her whole time at Touch the Slum. Just click! Webele nyo!

Jenifer’s Exit Gift!

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Some New Features For Our Great Donors

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ackline is one of the teen moms living in the Suubi House with her daughter Jasmine. She’s just completed Skills for Life and will begin working and saving money towards moving out to independent living.

This is our goal: sustainable self-sufficiency.

But like most worthwhile things, it’s a process. Jackline came to us homeless and destitute. They were both sick. She had nothing and no one.

Over the past nearly-year, she has worked hard in her classes. She’s participated in counseling, mentoring, and peer groups. She’s learned to identify things that are worth working and fighting for, and also the things (and people!) to stay far away from.

During the course of that time, we’ve provided for all her needs. She and Jasmine have been housed, fed, clothed, their illnesses treated, school supplies provided. Our only expectation has been her commitment to her future.

Obviously, free to her isn’t free to us, and you have been amazingly generous and consistent in your support of Touch the Slum over the last 2 years.

Now DonorSee has 2 new features that have opened up to us to make it even easier for you to support us:

Sponsorship — we currently have 2 projects up that need monthly sponsors: the clinic and the residential program.

The clinic is 40% funded, so we need $300 per month more so that the basic costs of running the clinic are covered. You can click here to become a sponsor.

The residential program doesn’t have any sponsors yet, so you can be the first! We house up to 8 teen mothers and their children in the Ross and Suubi Houses plus 4 in the dorm, and provide them with all their needs during their stay. (We currently have 5 teen moms and one teen who will give birth in the coming month, and 5 previously homeless Skills for Life students in the dorm.) It costs us $1,000 per month to care for these children, and we’d love to have your support — in ANY amount! Click here to become a sponsor.

Monthly Donor — Many of you are monthly donors through DonorBox, and we still use DonorBox for unspecified monthly donations and for other campaigns. But now, you can also be a monthly donor on DonorSee! When you click to donate, you will be given the option of “monthly” or one time. If you choose monthly, your donation will go to the largest project we have on the platform at the time of your donation. (Currently, that is the farm!)

Becoming a monthly donor, through either DonorSee or DonorBox, really helps us have visibility for our budget. We love seeing projects funded and one-time donations come in (so please don’t stop!), but we also love knowing that we have a defined amount that will come in each and every month.

Whichever you choose, we are so humbled and grateful that you choose to give to Ten Eighteen and our Touch the Slum project. We can’t thank you enough!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS I’ve got several speaking engagements coming up in September and October. If you’d like to have me share about Uganda and our work at Touch the Slum at your group, just hit Reply and let me know!

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What’s Next for the Farm?

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When Ronald found this land, the most noticeable WOW was that it had a home already started. It’s a multi-room brick structure with a garage — the former owner had planned to move there before all the pandemic lockdowns and inflation. That’s a HUGE bonus, as we’d planned to have to build a house for our caretaker from scratch, and while it’s bigger than anything we would have built, we will be sure to maximize all the space.

With the cost of things right now, we won’t be able to finish out the whole building at one time, but our next project is finishing the garage area into a home, with a roof, windows, doors, and floor. We’ll also make another room into a store room for tools and supplies.

Moses, who has been helping us with everything out there, is getting the quote together, and hopefully we’ll be able to start this work next week! And that’s all thanks to YOU and your amazing generosity in funding this project. We’re at 63% now, and would love your help to get us over the finish line soon! There’s a button below.

Meanwhile, look at the cassava in the photo above! Once Moses cleared the weeds and invasive plants out (and sprayed for bugs!), we realized we had a LOT more stuff already growing than we thought. There is a lot of cassava (yuca in Central and South America), and Ronald and Fauza were able to bring some back to Touch the Slum for Mama Santa to cook up. Cassava is great, because you yank it up, harvest the big tubers, then replant it and let it keep going.

We also have mature matoke and mango trees and have planted bananas. Moses is getting us free beans for planting, as well as some small trees from a friend. We’re looking into moringa – we may be able to get some small trees free from the government!

This project already means so much to our team, and now we’ve brought home the first produce… It’s truly amazing, and we can’t thank you enough!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

DONATE: FARM PROJECT!

PS I did a one-hour interview with DonorSee for an upcoming Spotlight feature. I edited the footage I recorded on my phone, so if you’re interested in how Ten Eighteen was born and what we’re up to, you can check it out here!

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Bad Things Happen to Good People Too Often Sometimes

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People ask me all the time if I am scared about going to Uganda, especially when I go alone. My answer is always, “No, but…”

Just like when we lived in Nicaragua, when you visit a developing nation, especially as a “rich American,” you have to not be, well, stupid. You don’t leave your cell phone on the table when you get a drink refill. You don’t leave your purse in the shopping cart and turn your back to examine the cereal selection. You don’t walk alone in the dark. You don’t leave your laptop bag in your car.

Petty theft is 100% going to happen when half or more of the population is living in staggering poverty. It just is. But most of the time, violent crimes are perpetrated on their own people.

Early Monday morning, thugs, hopped up on moonshine or drugs, broke down the door to Monica’s house. They broke everything they could find, stole some of the mattresses and slashed the rest, and tried to rape one of the girls. Their 13-year-old brother fought back and is now in KCCA hospital.

Neighbors caught and beat one of the perpetrators severely — he’s at the police station but Ronald said, “The police won’t do much for now.” To be honest, that should read “for ever.” Because the police in the slum basically just manage crowd control, not actual crime. It’s just how it is.

Meanwhile, Monica’s family is left with virtually nothing and a brave boy in the hospital with a bill they will not be able to pay.

We love the dancing and happy success stories and smiling kids, of course. But this is also the reality of working in Uganda. And yes, it sucks.

We have an urgent project up on DonorSee for Monica and her family, to try to help them get back on their feet. We have purchased mattresses and bedding and some necessities in the meantime, which came out of our operating budget. We could really use your help on this one! Just click – it’s super fast and easy to donate, and 100% (minus processing fees of course) will go to the project.

HELP MONICA!

Webele nyo,

Jennings

PS We’d love for you to forward this link to anyone you know who might be interested in our work in Uganda! And if you’re looking for someone to speak at your club or event, please keep me in mind.

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Self-Sufficiency In All the Ways

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I’m kind of an old fashioned gal. I like to garden and can and use things in ways their creators didn’t intend to solve a problem. I love being self sufficient.

The girls in our program have been largely bypassed by their community. If there is lowest-rung on the social ladder in the slum, it’s teen girls.

But not at Touch the Slum!

We believe in self sufficiency, sustainability, and personal responsibility. They go hand-in-hand: if we teach a skill that allows a girl to make an income, they then have a sustainable way to continue to earn that income and can be responsible for their own lives.

In short, it’s HOPE.

This week we made liquid soap, thanks to a generous donor. It’s MUCH cheaper to make the soap than to buy it, and we get to do a mini-workshop for the girls on how to do it. Then they can make and sell it while they’re learning a bigger skill.

Win-win.

Every program we have and every program we think of having is within this context. We don’t want to create dependency, we want to create opportunity for IN-dependence. Always.

Thank you for always standing with us – we can’t tell you how much your support and encouragement mean, and how many lives you touch every day because of it!

Webele nyo,

Jennings

PS Teen Jackline was in the Literacy class last term, and will be starting hairdressing on the 15th. The project for her supplies is almost 65% funded – we just need $95. We’d love to have your support!

Jackline’s Supplies!

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Time To Buy Some Farm Land

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The way DonorSee works, we get the money for our projects as it comes in. For large projects that we need to gather all the funding for, I just put the proceeds into a savings account while we wait.

Because the farm project is now about 60% funded, we have the money in the bank for a piece of land! Ronald has been reaching out to all his contacts and visiting plots, and we *may* have found one yesterday! (More on this in a later email as it develops.)

I can’t thank you enough — you’ve been so generous with both your money and your encouragement. It’s definitely a leap of faith, but as we watch prices continue to rise we know it’s the right thing to do.

Obviously, we won’t be buying and improving the land and then gathering in crops the next week. I grew up in a citrus farming family and have done a lot of my own gardening; there’s no rushing nature. We can’t wait to get started!

I can’t believe we’re here — and it’s all thanks to YOU. I’m truly gobsmacked, and so so grateful!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS On DonorSee, we crossed the $30,000 raised mark on June 29. We are now (in 3 1/2 weeks!) close to crossing $50,000! (I can’t even wrap my head around that!) If you’d like to help us get over that amazing milestone, click the button!

Click Here for $50k!

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Sometimes It’s So Easy To Make Someone’s Day!

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I used to think it was hard to make a difference in the world. I mean, look around… there is so much going on, so many bad things and depressing news stories and pain.

Then I visited Uganda.

There was one family, a grandmother who was raising 5 grandchildren orphaned because all three of her own children had died from AIDS. One of the younger children was HIV+. They had nothing, and they had no hope.

The social worker from Ray of Hope had taken us around the Namuwongo slum and introduced us to the women in the program. This jaja though… They had no money for food or charcoal, but she was only concerned about not being able to send them to school.

My 13-year-old son, Zeke, turned to me and said, “I’ll do it. I’ll pay for them to go.”

And that was it. That was MAKING A DIFFERENCE. And really, it was so simple. Zeke dug into his little savings (and, of course, my husband and I chipped in), and those kids went to school.

That’s where Ten Eighteen Uganda really started, in that one-room home, with toothbrushes lined up so carefully on one wall’s little shelf, and a jaja who just wanted her grandkids to have a chance.

It really is that simple.

The work isn’t easy… but it’s simple. MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

True, sustainable, actionable change and growth is hard work, but it’s not complicated. It takes small actions and creates great and lasting change.

Simple.

Blessings,

Jennings

PS The photo at the top of this email is from a surprise food and mattress delivery to 16-year-old Shemim, who is in our Literacy program. She and her family became homeless and are living in an open-air church. You can watch the video here — it was pretty amazing!

To help with other DonorSee projects, click the button! We’ve had a huge outpouring of support over the last week and 7 projects funded, but are loading new projects each day. Check it out!

Click Here for Projects!

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Thank You For an Amazing June!

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June has been a big month — and it seems like it was both long and short simultaneously. It feels like a long time ago I was there (and I’m trying to block the travel from my mind!), but the month has also flown by with a handful of truly heartbreaking situations.

And yesterday, we crossed $30,000 in donations made to us through DonorSee! THANK YOU for your support and encouragement that have made this possible.

I hinted at a large project coming soon, and that’s still on deck. Due to the emergencies we handled over the last couple of weeks, we moved the launch date to July 11. You’ll be hearing more about that next week — it’s a GREAT project that will really change a lot of things at Touch the Slum.

Exams started for all our Skills for Life classes this week. All the students get to show their skills and their creativity, creating unique hairstyles and clothing designs to impress their teachers. Many of the girls will start internships when exams are over, which is an awesome way for them to get real life experience and hopefully set them up for outside employment.

Skills for Life will be taking a month off, from July 15 to August 15. The residential girls will continue in their computer class and our Neema Development entrepreneurship training will continue during this time, but otherwise we will be repairing and restocking, planning and tweaking the curriculums, and generally taking a rest from the crazy busy first half of 2022.

Of course, our clinic will remain open and the daycare will be operating for the residential girls and staff.

In short, the first half of 2022 has been AMAZING, and we couldn’t be more grateful to you for your support. If you know anyone who would be interested in our work, please feel free to forward this email and direct them to our social media (and DonorSee!). We’re working on some things for the 3rd quarter of the year, and are always looking for ways to grow our supporter base.

Blessings,

Jennings

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