Touch the Slum

So Many Updates, So Little Space

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I don’t usually do bullet-list updates, because I love to tell stories. But sometimes we just have so much going on that you should know about… Today is that day, so here we go!

  • Ronald is doing training with Plan International and one of their partner organizations, and has repeatedly been told that they can’t believe there isn’t a “hidden mzungu” somewhere funding everything because we get SO MUCH DONE on such a small budget. Y’all can take a bow, because that’s all YOU!
  • Ronald has also been asked to do a guest lecture at Mkerere University on our work with teen girls and children in the slum! Way to go, Ronald!
  • We had two sewing machine projects funded this week on DonorSee, one for resident teen mom Harriet for her new life in the village, and one for Husinah so she can support her family in the slum. It was all done in one day and both girls were so excited! Harriet is holding the sign, in the black and white strips. We’ll sure miss her!
  • On Sunday, Betty boarded a bus for a week-long intensive training with Neema Development, the provider of our Entrepreneur Training Course. This is going to enable us to expand this course to more girls, and also add the second half of it. Because you all have supported our Literacy program, we can move deeper into the training. Mwebele nnyo!
  • Our new nurse, Brenda, completed her time learning our compound Haven Clinic with Nurse Sherry and is now our full time nurse. We will miss Sherry so much, but we’re excited to welcome Nurse Brenda to the TTS family.
  • And last but definitely not least, we have now had 275 projects funded on DonorSee! That’s over $113,400! If you haven’t checked out our page there, just click here. We always have 10-12 projects up, and we have a new large project in the works which is super exciting. (Yep, that was a teaser… more to come!)

You all are the lifeblood of Ten Eighteen Uganda and Touch the Slum, and the only reason we can do so much to change lives and culture in the Namuwongo slum. We honestly can’t thank you enough for your generosity and support. (Really, take that bow!)

Mwebele nnyo!

Jennings

PS Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram where we have daily video of all that’s happening. When you get 100 people in a small compound every day, there’s always a LOT going on! We also have a YouTube channel with some fun video.

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A Tale of Two Girls and Two Machines

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What do you think of when you hear the word “entrepreneur?”

For most of us, it’s tech startups and Elon Musk and a new coffee food truck in your town. Things that have a pretty hefty start up cost, and are reserved for the rarified few who are brave enough to enter “nothing ventured, nothing gained” territory.

According to the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs, Uganda is the 2nd most entrepreneurial country for women in the world. And I’m sure you’ve gathered from these newsletters that these women aren’t getting multi-million dollar venture capital investments and renting entire floors of office space in Austin and Raleigh.

But the extremely high unemployment (over 60% when you only count “jobs” with the government or businesses) and very low number of available paid jobs (many do multi-year free internships before ever getting paid!) means that women (and girls) are forced by default to become self-employed entrepreneurs.

Today, I sent the funds for two such young ladies in our program.

Harriet is a teen mom who has been with us for a year and a half. Her mother has decided to move back to their village, and she needs Harriet to go with them because Harriet is the only one with any skill to make money. In short, 16 year old Harriet is about to be the sole breadwinner for her family of 6.

Husinah, also 16, was in our first Literacy class, where she learned incredibly fast. She moved on to Basic and then Advanced Tailoring, where she was a shining star. She graduated when my mom and I were there in April and, as always, her smile was 1000 watts. Her single mother has been sick and unable to make any money for some time, and the family has really struggled.

Harriet is getting an exit package with a manual sewing machine, the supplies she needs to start a small tailoring business in the village, and money for transportation. We are also working with her to make sure she always has a working phone — we want to make sure that if she gets sick, she has a way to contact us. (We are all still grieving Kalunji’s death…)

Husinah is getting a semi-industrial electric machine which she will use at our compound. Our former in-house tailor, Vivian, has gotten a job elsewhere, so Husinah will take her place to fill special orders for items such as aprons and bags that come in. She will receive a small salary for that, and also be able to take special orders of her own for income. Additionally, being at the compound every day means regular food and a safety net for her.

Culture change is slow and requires flexibility and out of the box thinking. It’s very easy to look out at the sea of humanity walking around in bright gomesi dresses and American knockoff shirts and feel that it’s just too big of a job.

When I worked with Hospice Jinja at the very beginning, they had a motto:

Do what you can, where you can, for as long as you can.

We don’t have to do everything. We don’t have to solve Uganda’s problems (thank goodness!). We don’t have to shift from our go-deep philosophy. We just have to do what we can, where we are, for as long as we can.

And we CAN do that because of YOU!

Mwebele nnyo,

Jennings

PS Harriet’s project still has $25 left to be fully funded, although we are getting the items today. Her mom wants to leave for the village this weekend, so we went ahead and funded it and trust the remaining balance will come in soon. If you want to help, just click the button!

Last $25 here!

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Explaining Hurricanes to Ugandans

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Well, it’s Friday, and Hurricane Idalia has wobbled off to sea. We had the “perfect storm” of king tides (full moon) and storm surge, but thankfully the water didn’t get too high. Eighteen hours of 50mph wind gusts was exhausting, but we now have sunshine, a morning temperature in the sixties, and no damage. We’re thankful!

So yesterday, I was trying to explain a hurricane to friends in Uganda. As a lifelong resident of hurricane alley, I’d never really had to explain one before.

It’s a big storm going around in a circle with an eye.

Well, the eye is hole.

Okay, not a HOLE hole, but a… hole.

I’m sure I cleared it right up!

There are a lot of things like this that come up when you work in a vastly different culture that’s on the Equator. Etiquette and witch doctors and fried ant balls and seasons and why our sunset is at 5:00pm sometimes and 9:00pm others. How people here actually drive in their own lane and stop for stop lights.

But some things are universal, like the wide grin of a girl whose family are refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who is learning English and having fun and changing the trajectory of her life.

Skills for Life and all of our programs at Touch the Slum are deep dives. Girls are with us for a year or more, learning skills and healing from past trauma. We believe that changing lives in ways that will trickle down to the culture is vastly more important than being able to say that we “served” a very large number. Changing lives, changing culture is slow and hard and sometimes frustrating.

But it’s lasting, and that’s what we’re doing, every single day.

Thank you for being part of this work with us — we couldn’t do it without you!

Mwebele nnyo!

Jennings

PS We have three projects that are over 70% funded on Donorsee: the water tank at the farm, the food budget gap at Hopeland Primary School, and 14 year old Neema’s project for food and supplies. $15 will go a long way for any of these projects, and we have more to choose from, too! Check them out here

ALL OUR PROJECTS

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Community Cleanup (By Coercion)

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This year was our third “invitation” to join a community clean up by the local government. They do it by zone, so this year’s event was in a neighboring one. Our team spent from 8am to 2pm doing what Sarah is doing above – raking out muck from ditches (you REALLY don’t want to know what’s in there!), hauling and dumping wheelbarrows full of filth and trash, and trying not to breathe.

The first year, when we were newbies to this endeavor, the LC asked us to chip in shillings the buy the equipment and supplies, then show up to help. It was obvious that the amount of money given was… under represented in the amount of stuff bought. This is called “facilitation” (otherwise known as a bribe).

We got wise after that, and now buy our own supplies and equipment — which we are “asked” to “donate” to the “community” after the event. In short, we pay 350,000 shillings a year, spend a day in filth, and add the bonus points to our “making people in government happy” tally.

TIA. (This Is Africa.)

In spite of the various levels of government and bureaucracy, Touch the Slum continues to thrive. As I reported a month or so ago, we are the #1 Youth Led Organization in the city of Kampala. Because Ronald and the team are from the slum community, they know how to play the game(s) and make friends that matter and — most importantly — make a difference.

Because that’s what Touching the Slum means… making a difference, within the system that exists for both us and for the vulnerable teens girls in our program. We can not like the system (we don’t) while still being able to work within to create personal and cultural change.

I’m so grateful for Ronald and the team, and their willingness to ALWAYS go the extra mile. Touching the slum means touching the lives of those within it, and I couldn’t ask for a more dedicated group to carry out that mission.

Blessings,

Jennings

PS We currently have 5 projects that are between 20-50% funded, including the new water tank for Mikisa Farm, a food budget gap project for Hopeland Primary school, 14 year old Neema’s project for food and household supplies, art supplies for the Literacy class, and the August sanitary pad project. Even $10 makes a big impact – to choose one today, just click the button!

Choose a project today!

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Uganda Welcomes All Refugees. But…

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Meet Neema, a 14-year-old in our Literacy class. She and her family are refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been war-torn for some time.

Uganda has a long standing policy of accepting refugees from neighboring countries, which has led to permanent refugee camps and UN offices in Western Uganda. Rwakobo Village, where we just put the well, was founded by Rwandan refugees that the government resettled there — and promptly forgot about.

Neema, her mother, and her 8 siblings live in a mud and stick house in the Namuwongo slum. Her mother has a hard time getting work because she speaks French but very little English, and none of the Ugandan languages but a little Swahili. None of the children have ever been to school.

You can see the problem…

So people are welcomed in, but to unspeakably hard lives. Less hard, perhaps, than their native lands in war, but desperate nonetheless.

Thanks to you all, Neema is learning to read, write, and speak English. This will not just help her, but it will held her mother learn English and be able to get more work. Neema is learning basic math, which will allow her mother to understand Ugandan shillings and know she isn’t being ripped off. When Neema moves to a vocational skill, she will have the ability to help her family buy food and pay rent and all the other things a family of 10 needs every day.

That is life changing for the whole family!

Every day, we can face challenges like Neema’s because we know that you all have our backs. You’re donating, encouraging, giving suggestions, sending people our way… You’re making the difference in entire families, which leads to change in an entire culture.

In short, you’re doing an amazing thing! We can’t thank you enough!

To help Neema’s family with some household items, food, and toiletries, you can donate to her project on DonorSee. Just click the button!

Help Neema’s Family!

Mweble nnyo!

Jennings

PS I am opening up my January trip to Uganda to 3-5 people. If you are someone with a skill or talent that wants to go to Touch the Slum and help teach kids, teach our staff, work with Nurse Sherry, or do social work in the slum, just reply to this newsletter and we can chat further!

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300 kg of Maize! What a Harvest at Mikisa Farm!

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Most have you have followed us since we started fundraising for what is now Mikisa Farm over a year ago. You saw the shell of a brick house, the weeds, and two acres of land with nothing else. You gave, you cheered when we bought the land in August 2022, you’ve supported our projects since then, and have sent many comments here and on Instagram.

Now you can celebrate a huge milestone: our first maize harvest!

Ronald went to the farm on Friday with 3 others from the Touch the Slum team. They were joined by four of our teachers on Sunday. And this is what they did: pulled dry maize off the stalks, bundled the hundreds of cobs into bags, hauled them to the farmhouse, then helped bag the 300 kilograms (that’s 660 pounds!) of maize kernels as they came out of the thresher.

WOW!

This maize will be milled to posho, and will feed our girls (and cut our grocery budget!) for many weeks. We could not be more excited, grateful, and (speaking for the team) tired!

All of us make up the Ten Eighteen Uganda team — you, me, our Board, our staff, our students, their parents and guardians, and the community in Namuwongo who has come alongside our mission to change the culture for teen girls in the slum.

We did good, y’all!

Mwebele nnyo!

Jennings

PS We still need funds for the second irrigation tank at the farm. We’re 25% there, and just need $960 to get it purchased and installed, with the solar and piping. It’s dry season now — that’s why we could dry the maize on the stalks — so it would really help Derrick to have more irrigation to help him every day. Just click below!

FOR WATER!

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Why Kampala City Authority Wanted Us for a Last Minute Meeting…

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Yesterday, Ronald was all set to go to the farm with three other members of our team to help Derrick process the dried maize when Sarah called from a meeting with KCCA and an organization called Plan International saying they needed HIM at the meeting, too.

So the farm trip was postponed and off Ronald went on a boda.

When he got there, he found THIS out – we’re the #1 Youth Led Organization in the city!

Plan International is conducting an initiative to make Kampala better and bring more equality for “the girl child”, so they’ve been doing a lot of research into Youth Led Organizations in all the city’s slums. (There are 5, Namuwongo being the largest.)

The next step is to go back today for another meeting (Ugandan’s LOVE long meetings!) to meet different stakeholders and see how we can fit in to this initiative.

I’ve long told you all that our team in Uganda is AMAZING, and it’s true! I’m so proud of them and the work they put in day after day — as well as the love and enthusiasm.

And I’m proud of YOU, because your support and donations are what has allowed us to grow, to deeply impact lives, and to bring culture change for the “girl child” in Kampala.

You’re making a difference!

Mwebele nnyo!

Jennings

PS If you want to join us as a monthly donor (or make a one time donation), we’d love to have you on board! Just click below – it’s easy and quick, and 100% goes to the programs.

DONATE NOW!

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Bringing Joy Never Gets Old

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This picture may be our Photo of the Year for 2023 – Monica captured the unadulterated, absolute joy in this family when we surprised them with food, mattresses, household goods, and shoes.

14-year-old Rachelle, one of the students in our Literacy program, lives with her aunt and 7 cousins in a pretty bad part of the slum. (Yes, there are bad parts even in the slum!) While it’s nicer in dry season because they have a little bit of space, it floods in rainy season, and the house is mud-and-stick and not secure or made to last.

The family has virtually nothing to their name. (You can see some videos on Instagram – click the icon below.)

But thanks to a quickly-funded project on DonorSee, we were able to get them things they need – NEED, not just want – and able to surprise them after Rachelle got home from Touch the Slum.

This project was only $375 – to bring food, mattresses, household goods, and shoes for 9 people.

And to bring JOY.

Tears. Running to the team with open arms, shouting thanksgiving, children dancing and crying and laughing all at the same time.

This is what you all do. I know you can’t feel it like my team, or see or smell or experience it. (I so wish you could!) But this is the WHY that you share with us, the simple yet profound ways we can join together to change lives.

Mwebele nnyo,

Jennings

PS We have a large project up for another irrigation tank at the farm. With large projects, they have to be 10% funded to show to the wider DonorSee platform. We’re at 5% — the project total is only $1274 total, so small for a “large” project! Can you help? $65 will get us full exposure so we can get the tank in to help with this dry season.

Bring the water!

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When the Ladder Has No Rungs

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14-year-old Rachelle, on the left, lives with her aunt and five other children in a bad part of the Namuwongo slum. (Yes, even in the slum there are bad parts!)

Earlier this month, Rachelle started in our Literacy program, the first time she has ever attended any kind of school. As you can see, she is now beginning to read simple books out loud! Hesitantly, with a little embarrassment, but still — she’s READING.OUT.LOUD. in less than a month!

When we were planning our Literacy program, we knew that most of the girls who came through would have never attended school before, and even those that had would have had only a few terms under their belts. Teen girls are not known for their ability (or desire!) to sit still and be serious — as my mom, Susan, said on our trip a few months ago, “They are JUST like giggling teenage girls everywhere!”

But they are consumed with a desire to learn, to speak English, to read and write and know how to use money (and not be cheated). To be MORE.

Without Touch the Slum, the girls in our program will always only be less-than. They are less than the boys in their family, who get to go to school if there’s the money for it. They are less than the younger children, who get food first because the teens should be able to “go out and get money” (meaning from sex work) if they need incidentals like food and sanitary pads.

They know they are at the bottom of the social ladder — and that, without basic literacy and a skill, that ladder has no rungs.

But YOU believe in them, and so they believe in themselves!

And that’s enough.

Mwebele nnyo!

Jennings

PS Our monthly sanitary pad project for June is 87% funded – we just need $44 to get sanitary pads to 250 girls. If you want to help, click the button!

JUNE SANITARY PADS

PSS The well contractors have still not shown up. (Don’t worry, we haven’t paid them anything except for the surveyor who came twice.) Apparently, they’ve been trying to line up multiple jobs in the region to do back-to-back, but didn’t tell Gideon that until Friday. Our Touch the Slum team took the overnight bus back to Kampala Sunday night, and will return once the trucks are ON SITE! This is Africa…

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