Safe and secure despite Corona: Slum children need a new home.

The Ugandan government handles the corona pandemic successfully with many regulations. Until now only 15.000 Corona cases have been registered. But the people face a lot of restrictions. Social distancing by law and night curfew. Meanwhile the restrictions have been relaxed: some shops were allowed to reopen for example although most are still closed. This also applies for schools. Only the graduating classes are allowed to go to boarding schools, but the students are not allowed to leave the school premises. The regulations are massive since children are considered to be a cause of the rapid spread of the virus. 

These restrictions apply not only for the school but also for children facilities and aid projects. One of the rules is a limited number of children per living quarters and dormitories. This is aggravated by the fact that the government changes the restrictions each week. Mostly local projects had to close because of the financial costs that are added concerning the regulations. Only large projects can deal with such difficulties. 

The Sosolya Undugu Dance Academy is a local aid project for children. It was found by the Ugandan Mark Mugwanya 28 years ago and is a shelter for vulnerable and homeless children in one of the slums in the capital of Uganda. At the beginning of the year the project cared about 200 fosterlings. They lived together in the “Centre”. Sadly, the Centre had to close in March because of the Corona restrictions. Most of the children had to return to their parental home, from which the children were initially rescued from. There the children mostly cannot access enough food or clean water and are exposed to violence and abuse. Only children without biological parents and children who already faced violence or abuse by their parents could be accommodated by volunteering caretakers. This is intolerable! The children must return to Sosolya – to safety, to their home.

Since months Mr. Mugwanya has tried to find a way to finally bring back the children. Now there is hope: due to a donation a property on the edge of town could be leased. 80 vulnerable children could come back to a safe place with their Sosolya family. But the place still needs to be completed: The property is enclosed; water and sanitary equipment is accessible. But the dormitories are missing windows, floors and electricity. These essentials need to be installed before the children can move there. 

Please help us to raise the money to complete the dormitories, because the children need the Sosolya family’s support. They need to be with their brothers and sisters especially in these hard times.