Typhoid

Free Health Care Is Crucial To Our Girls

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Since we opened the Ross House in November 2020, providing health care and medical treatment for our girls has been a priority. It is a lot easier to get sick while living in Uganda’s largest slum than it is to stay well!

Up until February, we sent all our sick girls to Dr. Francis, who gave us a discounted rate and didn’t require up-front payment. Still, the cost of an exam, treatment, hospital visits for daily IV injections, and transportation added up. And the bigger we got, the more we spent. (Thank goodness for our partnership with DonorSee that started in September 2021!)

But one day in January along came the idea fairy, who dropped the idea of an on-site clinic in my head. After adding up what we’d averaged per month on medical treatment and comparing it to what we’d have to pay a full-time nurse plus medications and supplies, it was quite obvious that the better solution was to open an on-site clinic.

Lately, we’ve had a run of typhoid in our community, thanks to the rains and dirty, contaminated water that the girls drink at home. Malaria also surges when there are lots of puddles and congested drainage ditches for mosquitoes to breed in.

Because of the Haven Clinic and nurse Sherry, however, our costs are still below what we spent in an average month treating fewer girls. The girls and children are healthier and do better in class. And few are getting very sick now, since we can treat things when they start, not when they’re “bad enough to justify a doctor visit.” It’s been a big win-win!

As always, thank you so much for your support! Please forward this and all our emails to anyone you know who might be interested in our work. I’m available to speak to groups, too! Just use the Contact form!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

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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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FEBRUARY IS WATER MONTH!

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GIVE NOW

Turn on the tap. What happens?

Clean water comes pouring out, ready for drinking, washing your hands, filling a pot, doing the laundry.

We really don’t even think about it.

But for the villagers in Rwakobo, there is no tap. There are no pipes. No wells. No clean water.

This is a “seasonal well.” It, and the others used by the 2,700 villagers, are natural or man-made depressions in the ground, filled by rainwater. Trenches dug in red dirt send more water into the stagnant pond.

Animals that live inside the Lake Mburo National Park use these “wells” (shallow ponds) also. They drink from them, cool off in them, use them to sneak up on prey. They defecate in and around them, and along the trenches where the rainwater flows.

The wells aren’t even very close to the village, meaning that they walk — mostly children — a mile or more to fill one or two jerry cans with filthy water, then return to their homes. The water is used for everything we use water for: cooking, washing clothes, sponge bathing, drinking.

t’s no wonder that water and feces born diseases that cause diarrhea are rampant.

DIARRHEA IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH OF CHILDREN UNDER 5 IN UGANDA…

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO HELP?

While our ultimate goal is to be able to have deep water wells to serve the village, our first step is to install Eco-Brick tanks. We have been able to secure funds for a 7,000 liter tank for the Wells of Hope School (thanks to a generous donation!), which will allow the children to have clean water for washing and cooking, and drinking with purification techniques. The children are being taught basic hygiene at the same time, so that hand washing with soap becomes second nature.

WE WANT TO FUND AT LEAST ONE 10,000 LITER TANK FOR THE VILLAGE IN FEBRUARY!

We are partnering with Equal Aqua Uganda, a UK/UG partnership, to build these tanks. Equal Aqua has been working in Eastern Uganda since its founding last year, but have agreed to travel to Rwakobo Village for this project. We would love to take advantage of this by installing more than one tank!

Eco-bricks are made by recycling plastic drink bottles, packing them with sand, and re-capping them to form a solid brick. They are then cemented into the structure, creating a stable tank to hold much more water than a cement-only tank would hold. The tank is filled with rainwater from the roof, a top keeps the tank clean, and a spigot at the bottom allows for the water to be drawn off and used.

A 7,000 LITER TANK COSTS $735, AND A 10,000 LITER TANK COSTS $1150

WE CAN DO IT! With your help, we can raise the money to kick off the WASH project in Rwakobo Village.

WASH = WATER ACCESS, SANITATION, & HYGIENE

We can save lives, and IMPROVE the lives of these extremely impoverished people.

DONATE

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