Skills for Life

THE LITERACY PROGRAM HAS LAUNCHED!

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For two years now, LITERACY has been on our minds. I started using the phrase “holistic literacy” last year as a way to describe a literacy that encompassed the whole of life.

  • We provide several forms of literacy to our residential teen moms:
  • they learn a skill in Skills for Life
  • they learn parenting skills
  • they learn household skills like cooking and budgeting
  • they learn coping skills to recover from past trauma and deal with life in the slum

Skills for Life has been providing vocational skills – 40 girls learned a skill/trade in 2021.

But most of our girls have never been to school, or were only able to go for a couple of years. They can’t read, write, or do basic math.

Many of them don’t speak English at all, which excludes them from a lot of public life and job opportunities since it is the “1st language” of Uganda.

Girls who can read are computer illiterate because they have no access to the digital world. With more and more things going online, including government services, they are excluded, too.

That’s why we are SO excited that THIS WEEK our Basic Literacy Program has launched!

20 girls have started on a journey that will open up the world to them in ways they could never have imagined.

We are so grateful to Expat Money for raising the funds for this project and so proud and excited at what these girls will achieve.

Our computer lab project is up on DonorSee — it’s a big, ambitious project, but we believe it’s a vital part of our holistic literacy campaign. We won’t get shown to the wider DonorSee audience until we’ve reached 10% of our goal, so if you’d like to help us just click the button below.

THANK YOU for your continued support!

THE LITERACY PROGRAM HAS LAUNCHED! Read More »

Lots Happening in the First 3 Months of 2022!

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We’ve got a LOT in the works right now, Friend!

To be honest, 2021 had a lot happening. And much of it happened on the fly — I’m proud of us for our rapid problem-solving super powers!

HERE’S WHAT’S COMING UP IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2022 — LOOK, A PLAN!

  • Literacy Program starts next week with 20 girls
  • Bob Ditty, international award winning photographer, is doing a photo/video shoot for us on January 31
  • Skills for Life started this week with 20 girls
  • The daycare will be opening January 29
  • A staffed, on-site clinic will open on February 14
  • The first Advanced Tailoring course will start March 7
  • We will begin our first round of Entrepreneurship Education by the end of March

WOW!

THIS IS ALL POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF YOU, AND WE ARE SO THANKFUL FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT!

Lots Happening in the First 3 Months of 2022! Read More »

SKILLS FOR LIFE IN 2022

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School’s in session!

While some of the girls from Term 2, 2021 are finishing up their exam projects, another twenty are ready to take advantage of an opportunity they never expected: learning a trade.

Term 1 will begin with our third round of Hairdressing and Tailoring, with ten girls in each skill. In the next few weeks, we will be adding

  • Advanced Tailoring for a handful of talented Basic Tailoring graduates;
  • Basic Literacy for girls in our programs who want to learn to read and write in English and learn basic math;
  • Neema Development Basic Entrepreneurship to teach basic business principles to our girls;
  • and Videography.

Girls like 17 year old Jameoh, who have had little education and even less HOPE are being given OPPORTUNITY.

We can’t thank you enough for your commitment to these young women — and to changing their lives.

We have several projects up on DonorSee for class supplies – we’d love your help!

BUY SUPPLIES!

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GRADUATION DAY!

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Graduation Day!

Imagine… you grew up in your country’s largest slum, desperately poor, unable to go to school more than just a few terms.

Imagine… you’re a teen girl with a single mother, living with 6 siblings in one room.

Imagine… your country has a complete lockdown and there is no… nothing. There is especially NO HOPE.

Now imagine that you’ve gone through free vocational training to learn a skill that can allow you to get a job or start a small business. The 2021 lockdown delayed your graduation by 6 months…

BUT THE DAY IS FINALLY HERE!

IT WAS AMAZING!

The current Skills for Life tailoring class made the caps and tassels. (The gowns were a last-minute borrow!) The hairdressing class did everyone’s hair so they looked gorgeous. Families and friends came, speakers encouraged and praised them, they danced and ate and had cake — and couldn’t get those grins off of their faces.

THANK YOU!

Your ongoing support and graduation-specific donations made this day possible!

GRADUATION DAY! Read More »

BRINGING TECH TO THE SLUM

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Bringing the 21st century to the slum!

Friend, can you imagine life without a computer or the internet? Sure, a lot of us are old enough to remember way back when to the dark ages… but can we imagine going back to that time?

Uganda has used the pandemic lockdowns to drive a lot of in-person activity online: registration for national ID, school services, job applications, and even some health service information.

The problem is, most of Uganda doesn’t have

  • power
  • internet
  • computers
  • computer literacy

Our goal at Ten Eighteen’s Touch the Slum Namuwongo project is to educate the teen moms and girls in our programs so that they can create a sustainable income and improve their quality of life. We feel that becoming computer literate is a key for all the girls as they grow into self-sufficiency.

This project is now up on DonorSee! Check it out — remember, you can give “in honor of” another person, so it makes a perfect holiday gift!

DONATE TO THE COMPUTER LAB

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SHARON’S STORY AND OUR 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

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I can’t believe it’s been a year. Or maybe that it’s “only” been a year — we’ve done SO much more than we expected, and have so many great things already in the works for 2022.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

This is Sharon’s story. She is one of the 6 girls who has come into the Ross House program for teen moms in crisis in 2021. Because of YOU, she has hope and opportunity!

SHARON’S STORY AND OUR 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY Read More »

HOW WE CHANGE LIVES IN UGANDA

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We’ve been working in Uganda almost 13 years now, and while our programs and focus have evolved, one thing remains the same: we want to create meaningful opportunity and skills so our participants can be self-sufficient.

SKILLS FOR LIFE –

Mildred is 12, the youngest girl in our Skills for Life Vocational School. She is learning tailoring, so that she will have a skill on which to build a life outside of desperate poverty. She has never been to school before.

We have 20 teen girls like Mildred enrolled in Skills for Life, and a waiting list for the next term. Twenty girls completed Term 1 last year, just before the lockdown happened (which cancelled Term 2). When girls like Mildred learn a skill like tailoring, they can get an actual job, or they can have their own business. SKILL + HOPE = OPPORTUNITY.

RESIDENTIAL PROGRAMS –

During the 2020 lockdown, we realized quickly how many girls were using sex work to survive. That resulted in skyrocketing teenage pregnancies all over the country.

To respond to the need, we opened the Ross House for teenage moms like Gloria, who are in crisis. This halfway house provides medical care, food, clothing, shelter, vocational training, sexual trauma counseling, psycho-social counseling, and childcare education.

As the first moms were finishing the Ross House program, we realized that now we needed a transition house, to prepare them to live in the community and be self-sufficient. We opened the Suubi House to provide oversight through a live-in social worker, financial and business training, and continuing medical care, food, clothing, and shelter as they learn and grow.

When Term 2 of Skills for Life opened after the 2021 lockdown, Cecilia became homeless. We opened a dormitory to house any students in the current term who are faced with the same situation, and provide medical care, food, and shelter for them during their training.

FOOD FOR CHILDREN –

We began providing food for children at Hopeland and Wells of Hope Primary Schools and the Arise Africa Babies Home in May, 2019. The 2020 and 2021 lockdowns have created a lot of disruption, but we continue to provide monthly food to about 75 children even while schools are (still) shut down.

Mama Mary has had 5 foster children for 19 months now! (It was supposed to be 4…) Forty orphaned children from Hopeland School are currently living with 9 foster families. Schools are supposed to begin a phased re-opening in January 2022.

We have two ways you can join us in our work — we’d love to have you in the Ten Eighteen family!

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR OR MAKE A ONE TIME DONATION – we use Donorbox for our monthly subscribers and to allow you to make one-time donations for our General Fund. 100% of your donations go to the work!

FUND SPECIFIC PROJECTS ON DONORSEE – we have 8-10 specific projects on Donorsee at all times. Donorsee allows us to post videos of the projects, updates, and follow-ups, so you can see exactly what your money has done for the project’s recipient. It’s a great way to really feel involved in Ten Eighteen’s work and in our Ugandan community!

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RETURNING TO NORMAL – AND GROWING!

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First, let me apologize for not blogging in so long! I honestly had no idea it had been 6 weeks… I have sent out a good number of short email updates during that time (less than one per week), so please feel free to subscribe there to not miss anything!

Jenifer and daughter Liz at the Ross House

WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE LOCKDOWN?

While schools are still closed for at least another 2 weeks, the country has been gradually opening in a “partial” lockdown scenario. There are still a 7:00pm curfew, capacity limits, and other SOPs in place, but life in the slum (where few authorities wanted to go even during the most strict part of the lockdown) is getting back to normal.

Skills for Life Term 2 is in week three, with the classes having been divided between Advanced and Regular on Monday to better facilitate everyone’s learning. We have 20 girls working very hard to take advantage of this opportunity!

On the dark side, mass evictions – halted for a short time during the lockdown – have begun again. Of course people in the informal economy can’t pay… they used their business capital for food, and have no way to earn back that capital to restart a business, nor to pay the landlord. Landlords are businesspeople too, I know, but it would be easier to have sympathy if slum landlords weren’t (as a general but not universal rule) well, the epitome of slum landlords. There was also a tax increase on landlords on July 1 from 10% to 30%, and of course they must pass that on. The end result is that we are seeing a huge number of homeless and pregnant girls.

WHAT WE’RE DOING

Our landlord – who is actually really great! – has been working on the buildings at the back of our compound during the lockdown. We spoke to him, and were able to secure not only a lot more space for our programs, but also a promise that he would only rent to women who he has thoroughly vetted. We didn’t want to move, but also didn’t want to expose girls who had undergone sexual trauma to strange me. (Men aren’t allowed in the Ross House at all.)

What that means:

  • We are moving the Ross House to a large apartment, which will allow us to double our capacity for teen moms. The apartment has a bathroom and kitchen.
  • We are taking the whole lower section of the new building, which adds 5 rooms plus a kitchen and bathroom. We will convert one room into a dormitory for S4L girls who have become homeless and have no family; one room will be the new Advanced Tailoring class; and one room will be a classroom where the S4L girls can learn basic reading and math. We’ll see how we grow with the other two!

We were able to secure this space for not-quite-double our existing rent, which is amazing given the increased tax the landlord is paying to the government. We are so thankful!

MORE TO COME!

We are so excited how far we’ve come in the last 10 months, and excited to see where we are in 2022. If you’d like to partner with us to give teen girls and moms the skills to be self-sufficient, we’d love to have you join the Ten Eighteen family!

YES, I WANT T HELP!

RETURNING TO NORMAL – AND GROWING! Read More »

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED – WEEK 1 OF THE NEW SHUT DOWN IN UGANDA

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WHAT WE’VE DONE IN WEEK 1

Prices have jumped on pretty much everything, including food. Fortunately, we bought at least 6 weeks’ worth of dry goods and charcoal last Monday! We had a friend bring matoke and bread by today, which will help so much!

Uganda is mostly looking at cases, not hospitalizations and deaths. Because they’re doing more testing, cases are going up. And yes, Uganda has a terrible medical system in general. (I can say that since my son was in a Ugandan hospital with pneumonia for 4 days!) But the president will be speaking again Thursday, and everyone is worried he will announce stricter lockdown measures since they are using the “cases” measurement. This would be REALLY bad.

Because of that scheduled announcement, we are waiting to start the new Skills for Life term. Meanwhile, the teachers are using the time to finalize their teaching manuals, and the tailoring class has presented their final design projects today.

The Suubi House landlord is stuck at Mulago hospital with his daughter, who has been diagnosed with COVID so now he can’t leave until the 14 day quarantine period is over. That means we don’t yet have the key! But we have ordered the furniture items that have to be built so we’ll be ready to get it done quickly once we can access the home.

We now have 8 girls from this last Skills for Life term working!! This is HUGE! (Youth unemployment is Uganda’s biggest problem.)

YOU GUYS ROCK!

Thank you to all who have donated to help in this crisis! We will keep you updated here but joining our newsletter and following us on Instagram and Facebook are the best ways to get up-to-date info!

I’LL HELP NOW!

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UGANDA SHUTS DOWN AGAIN… WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR US?

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BLINDSIDED.

That’s the best word for it. The president had addressed the nation several days before about rising cases of COVID19, but said they were not locking down. Then, Sunday night after 8pm, he announced that a 42 day partial shut down would begin on MONDAY.

To say there was shock, dismay, anger, and chaos would be an understatement!

Chaos in Kampala as people try to leave the city before the deadline

After a REALLY good week last week in our programs, with graduation for our first term students from Skills for Life just a couple of weeks away, new water filters for Wells of Hope School, students reporting in stages back to the two primary schools, and two of the hairdressing girls hired by salons, we were very… UPSET.

Here’s what we know so far:

  • Schools are CLOSED. They just started reopening in March, and several grades hadn’t even come back yet, so we are now at about 15 months without school for many students. Since our schools service extremely poor children, this also means they lose the food and supervision they get at school. In the case of Wells of Hope, they lose the only clean water they have access to.
  • Churches, mosques, and other houses of worship are CLOSED.
  • Important gatherings, such as burials and weddings, are limited to 20 people.
  • Inter-district travel is restricted starting the 10th. (He did allow a few days for people to get home, at least.)
  • The informal economy has effectively been killed again — the only markets allowed are government sanctioned ones.

WHAT WE ARE DOING:

The primary schools are closed, which left about 10 children who are true orphans once again homeless. The foster families who took them in last year graciously agreed to receive them again, so they have been relocated to those families. We will be providing them food as we did in 2020, and they all were given Wonderbags so that will help with charcoal costs.

The girls from Term 1 of Skills for Life are finishing up their final projects. We can distance them, and make sure to stay under the “3 people” limit so that they can complete the term. Our graduation ceremony will be held once the restrictions are lifted.

Term 2 of Skills for Life is on the drawing board. I should have some updates for that by the end of the week, as the staff meets to discuss our options.

Two of the girls at the Ross House have been there for four months, and are ready to move on once the S4L term ends. We have located a place for the Suubi House, and should have access to that by the end of the week. We have to furnish it, but we will have the girls and social worker eat at the Ross House to keep extra expenses down for now. (It’s very close by.)

We are brainstorming ideas to keep the kids in the various programs ENGAGED and BUSY during the coming 6 weeks. During the lockdown of 2020, teen pregnancies skyrocketed, child bride practices escalated, and drug and alcohol use increased. While we can’t have our Saturday Turning Point, we can continue counseling sessions and small gatherings, and we are working on ways that the teens can get involved in the community to keep them busy and out of trouble.

MORE TO COME LATER THIS WEEK!

TO HELP CLICK HERE!

100% of donations go to the programs and

WE NEED YOUR HELP!


Prices have already gone up significantly on food and charcoal, because of the inter-district travel restrictions. We are cutting expenses where we can to prepare for emergency situations. Please consider setting up a monthly donation of ANY size ($3/mo is the minimum and even that is so helpful!), or a one time donation.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS!

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