Childrens’ Rehabilitation and Education Project

Aus welchem Anlass warst Du vor Ort und wann?

Ich habe von September 2011 bis September 2012 einen Freiwilligendienst im CRO Mbale geleistet.

Wie ist Deine Verbindung zum Träger bzw. zum Projekt?

Ich habe ein Jahr lang als Freiwilliger das Projekt CRO in Mbale unterstützt.

Dein positiver Bericht aus Mbale Town:

Das CRO Mbale ist ein tolles Projekt. Ich weiß, dass es 2012 den Preis als bestes Straßenkinderprojekt in Uganda verliehen bekommen hat. Die Arbeit der Sozialarbeiter, Lehrer und natürlich auch der Köchinnen ist elementar für die vielen Kinder, die in Mbale auf der Straße gelandet sind. Dem Projekt geht es darum, jene Kinder wieder in die Gesellschaft zu integrieren. Im Projekt selber bekommen sie zu essen und pädagogischen Aufbau. Schließlich wird versucht, den Kindern ein Zuhause zu geben, auch damit sie wieder in die Schule gehen können. Dafür bezahlt das CRO die teuren Schulgebühren in Uganda.Das CRO ist das einzige Straßenkinderprojekt in Mbale, einer Stadt von etwas 100 000 Einwohnern, davon viele relativ viele Straßenkinder. Für diese Kinder stellt das CRO die einzige Chance auf ein besseres Leben dar!

Ich bin seit August letzten Jahres Freiwillige im CRO und sehe jeden Tag wieder, welch fantastische Arbeit hier geleistet wird. Das CRO versucht nicht nur durch die Rehabilitation von Strassenkindern deren Leben zu verbessern, sondern bekaempft durch den Aufbau von Selbsthilfegruppen und die Unterstuetzung der Slum-Gemeinschaften gleichzeitig die Ursachen des Problems. So wird bei den Bewohnern der Gebiete Bewusstsein fuer das Problem geschaffen und schrittweise Verantwortung an sie uebergeben, sodass sie die Kinder und das CRO unterstuetzen koennen. Dabei werden immer neue Programme entwickelt. Das neueste besteht darin, jugendlichen Maedchen durch das Erlernen verschiedener Taetigkeiten wie schneidern und kochen eine Ausbildung zu ermoeglichen, die ihnen fuer die Zukunft ein kleines Einkommen sichert.
Ich bitte weiter um fleissige Unterstuetzung! Vielen Dank!

Wir waren im Juli 2009 im Projekt. Es hat bei uns einen strukturierten Eindruck hinterlassen. Kinder, die sonst auf der Straße leben müssen, kommen tagsüber in die in Mbale zentral gelegene Einrichtung, werden verpflegt, unterrichtet und ganztägig betreut. Sie können sogar unter Aufsicht an einigen PC´s ins Internet. Wir haben einigen (auch ausländischen Freiwilligen Betreuer gesprochen) die mit großem Engagement vor Ort ihre Arbeit leisten. Eine empfehlenswerte Einrichtung. Schade fanden wir, dass die Kinder nicht über Nacht bleiben können, da nicht ausreichend Kapazitäten vorhanden sind.

My name is Jan and I am from Germany. I came to CRO Mbale in July 2008 to work as a volounteer. Right now I have stayed here for more than one year and I can say: "The projekt is doing really good work!" The Children get picked up right from the street and CRO provides them with food and education. CRO doesn't only help the children alone, but also supports the parents/guardians after reuniting the families with counceling, microfinance or selfhelp groups to strengthen the communities sustainibly. In 2008, 280 children were found on the streets of Mbale and went through the rehabilitation process of Child Restoration Outreach. 90% of these children successfully completed the rehabilitation class and joined governmental schools in 2009.
After more than one year I am sure about the fact that this project is free of corruption and all the money is used to feed the children, give them education and a future.
The work of Child Restoration Outreach, to rebuilt and improve lives of street children, is very important and necessary!

I am a teacher in the Berlin-International-School in Germany. Since more than 10 years I am coming to Uganda, the green beautiful pearl of Africa. It is now the third time that I do voluntary work with the street-children-project Child Restoration Outreach in Mbale town at the Mount Elgon and I enjoy being here with the children and the staff so much. I love this project and in my eyes it is a meaningful, wonderful and important project to give support to. Without this project many of these children and young people wouldn’t have been healthy or wouldn’t even have survived, wouldn’t have felt joy and happiness, and wouldn’t have a future. What I like about CRO is that they do a lot of networking, bringing people together from different areas and reflect their work carefully. They run professional, important workshops for the community and specific groups of people, like for teachers, guardians, volunteers in the community, to talk about issues that are related to the lives of the children, to change the lives for the children in the community to a better. The CRO children and youth describe the project as their family, their father and mother as they help them to deal with their situation and give parental love. This welcoming and warm atmosphere is felt throughout at the drop-in-centre. You can see it in the smiling faces of the CRO children and youth who show open-mindness, interest in learning, curiosity about the world, a caring attitude and happiness. To make friends, to learn how to play, to become young people with future plans and a future in general that are important steps on the life journey for the CRO children. The project offers them food, medical treatment and education – some basic things we take for granted in many parts of the world, like in Germany, but they are not, not for the street children in Uganda. When you talk with many of the older and former CRO street”children”, who are now between 20 and 24 years old, you can imagine how far they came. Several of them are already studying in university and quite a few are hoping to get a place in university or other tertiary institutes. The children find open ears and hearts to talk about their experiences on the streets. The CRO staff treats them with respect and love. Especially the older youth are very caring towards the young ones as they know how it is to be on the streets. Further more, the project gives opportunities for the street children to relax, to enjoy and to recover from their hard street life. They have a fantastic choir that impressed me so often with their beautiful voices and performances. In sports they offer many different activities, like football, but also badminton and table tennis. The different football teams became famous in the country and one of them even went up to super league recently. It was a wonderful experience to see what it means for the street children to be a champion in an area and respected for their talents. Financial support is needed to help this wonderful project to keep on going as they currently look after 1150 street children and their families in different areas, on different places. These children are dependent on donors to develop in a child friendly way. I hope and pray that they will find donors who are willing and able to support one of these needed items.