The Hostel Opening Programme

Enos Kyibibi, the Hostel Director, has sent us the Programme for Saturday March 24th.

It is a six-hour programme, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m, with an hour's break for lunch.

Guess which bit of the day will appeal most to the 50 or so street children who will be there!

But important though the food is, there are other parts of the programme which are significant:

* The role of local authorities in support of children: a talk by the vice-chairman of the local authority - Kasese Municipality, central division.

*Child Foster Care placements: by a UNICEF field officer.

* The role of families in putting up children: by KADD-Net (I don't know what that stands for!)

* Care and Protection of children: a Kasese Probation Officer.

* Suitable Care Centres for children: Save The Children, Kasese.

* The role of CSO in supporting children: ANPPCAN - the African Network for Prevention and Protection of Child Abuse and Neglect.

* Children charged with offences: The Police Child Protection Unit.

This full programme of seminars has been put together by the Committee, to help people to think seriously about the complex issues surrounding the care of street children. Opening a Hostel is just the beginning!

In addition to all these talks and seminars, there will be addresses by:-

@ The organizing committee chairperson

@ A leading local councillor (LC1), Murongote Kirembe ward.

@ The Executive Director - a brief report from Enos.

@ Me! And perhaps a few words from Mary, Alan Parrett, and Sue Fallon of Emmanuel International.

@ The Guest of Honour

@ Retired Bishop Masereka - "The Way Forward".

Quite a programme, eh?

And in addition there will be entertainment from choirs, singers and dancers. We will need that as lighter relief from the heavy bits!

chriscjenkin@aol.com

A busy schedule taking shape

We are only going to be in Uganda for ten days - arrive on the evening of the 20th, leave on the morning of the 30th.
Then our time in the country includes almost two full days travelling between Entebbe and Kasese (8 hours' drive each way).
So we will have a total of three days in or around Kampala, and four days in and around Kasese!
Here is a list of engagements taking shape:
* Visiting the TWAM Warehouse in Nabulagale Road, Kampala: TWAM is Tools With A Mission (www.twam.co.uk/) They do wonderful work collecting unwanted tools in UK, refurbishing them, and sending them out to countries like Uganda. We hope that they will be able to supply tools of various kinds for our Street Kids to learn to use - woodwork, mechanics, etc.
* SKILL Hostel Opening, 24th March - 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.: We are really excited about this - seeing the progress on the building, and meeting the street kids again, and seeing them move in. 100 local community leaders are invited to the event, and they expect up to 50 street kids to be there. There will be singing and dancing, food, and lots of speeches - one of them by me! I am particularly wanting to say that we are now "passing on the torch" for the work to the Kasese local community (and I am taking an inflateable Olympic torch as a visual aid!).
* Preaching at All Saints' Church, Kasese: this is at the 7 a.m. English language service on Sunday 25th.
* Preaching at Rev. Nelson's church among the nomadic tribespeople near Nyakatonzi, about 50 km from Kasese. This is at 10.30 a.m. Mary will also speak to the women there - she is very nervous about that!
* Staying night with Rev. Nelson. (The other nights in Kasese we will stay with Mr Emmanuel Maate and family.)
* Visiting Busunga Primary School to form Link with Orton C of E Primary School, Cumbria, on Monday 26th, 9 a.m. (We are busy taking photographs, still and movie, of life in Orton School, so that we can show the staff and children at Busunga. We will do the same the other way round!)
* Meeting with Enos and the Executive Committee of SKILL: to discuss the future plans for the Hostel project.
* Visiting the Town Mayor of Kasese Municipality, in order to encourage the local authority to support SKILL in the future.
* Meeting the Bishop of South Rwenzori Diocese, the Rt. Revd. Jackson Nzerebende.
* Possibly visiting Women's Learning Centre where Mary gave instruction in needlework and various crafts in 2008 and 2010; and there are other people we would like to meet including two Facebook friends we have never met!
After returning to Kampala by bus on Wednesday 28th, we hope on Thursday 29th to visit the Chimpanzee Sanctuary on Ngamba Island in Lake Victoria - the one "holiday" activity we will have.
So it looks like being a busy and exhausting time for a pair of pensioners!
chriscjenkin@aol.com

What the builders are doing right now

In case readers of the Blog are interested in the details of this last, major, phase of the Hostel building work, going on at this moment (we hope!), here are some of the details, with costs:
19 internal doors, supplied and fitted: 5,125,000 Uganda shillings (UGX): £1,350
Boys' bedroom floor and plastering: 1,970,000 UGX: £540
Girls' bedroom " " : The same.
Sitting room " " : 1,630,000 UGX: £430
Dining room " " : 2,090,000 UGX: £550
Kitchen " " : 1,755,000 UGX: £460
Store " " : 1,860,000 UGX: £490
And so on! Matron's room, Patron's room (I think these are for what we might call house-parents), corridors, showers and toilets, and external rendering and cladding, and what the budget calls an "apron", which we would call a veranda.
It all comes to just about £20,000.
(The exchange rate changes, of course, from day to day; the figures I quote I got today from an online site.)
So if you were one of our many hundreds of donors, and gave £5 or £5,000, this is where your money is going! And remember - this is not just getting the Hostel built, but providing useful employment to local builders and giving them a wage to feed their families and send their children to school.
Donations are still coming in: in the last few days, cheques for £100 and £125, and an envelope with £20 cash.
Thank you, all!
chriscjenkin@aol.com

Another £10,300 sent to Kasese

Emmanuel International, our parent Mission (www.eiuk.org.uk/cms), has sent out £10,300 for the current phase of building. This brings the total sent out this month to £20,000.

The funds that Emmanuel International was holding was money donated to Kasese Street Kids, using Gift Aid. (To get the tax refund, cheques have to be made payable to Emmanuel International, with "Kasese Street Kids" on the back; and of course the donor has to fill in a little form as well. Ask us for details!)

A reminder of the little children living on the streets in Kasese! Not for much longer, we hope.

Plans for our visit to Uganda are moving ahead.

* We collected our Malarone anti-malarial tablets from Morrison's Pharmacy this morning.

* We are planning to contact a CMS Missionary construction expert in Kampala, Garry Ion, who comes from Cumbria; we visited his parents in Penrith, to collect something to deliver to him.
* We are planning to set up a School to School Link between our Cumbria village C. of E. Primary School and a Church Primary School in Kasese; so we did an Assembly in school this morning, and not only took photographs of the school, of the Assembly, and of the children going about their business, but also borrowed the school's camcorder. I have to learn how to use this, so took the Instructions too, and will study them carefully and experiment. But we are delighted to have that; in 2010 we longed to be able to record the Ugandan children singing and dancing - this time, we can! And we will show the Ugandan school children a glimpse of school life in cool and drizzly Cumbria, UK.

* We have contacted TWAM ("Tools With A Mission", www.twam.co.uk ) who we hope will in due course be able to supply tools of all kinds for the older street kids to learn a trade - woodwork, mechanics, dress-making, etc. We plan to visit the TWAM warehouse in Kampala.

chriscjenkin@aol.com

£9,700 sent out to Kasese

This was how we last saw the Hostel in March 2010 - just the foundations and the start of building the walls.

Now it is structurally complete, the final budgets have been agreed and nauthorised, and we are sending out the funds which have been sitting in UK banks.

Yesterday I sent £7,000; today a further £2,700. (I couldn't send it all at once - apparently it exceeded my permitted daily limit.)

A reminder of stages of building:

May 2010

July 2010

August 2010 - it looks complete, but only half the roof was covered.
This was what the other side looked like!

But the work has gone on, outside and inside, and now they are starting to put in the floors, and plaster all the walls inside and out.

We can't wait to see it!

Two more bits of news:

1. We have been told that when we visit Kasese in March, we will be staying in the home of Emmanuel Maate, the chairman of the local SKILL Committee. That will be a great joy and privilege!

2. Kind friends and family members have sent us donations specifically to help with travel expenses. That is so kind and so very much appreciated!
chriscjenkin@aol.com

The final budget at last!

After many weeks of discussions, negotiations, amendments, and corrections, at last the final and largest building budget for the Hostel has been agreed by Enos, Alfonse and our Emmanuel International missionary contact, Alan Parrett.
The work being quoted for is the fitting of 19 interior doors, the concrete floors of all the rooms and corridors, the interior plastering of all the rooms and corridors, wall and floor tiles for the toilets and showers, and the external rendering and cladding of the whole building.

This all adds up to 59,750,500 Ugandan shillings, or about £17,000.

Enos with two street boys outside the Hostel

In addition there is the cost of administration from January to April (about £750 for salaries, office rental and supplies), and all the costs of laying on a celebration and training day for the Hostel Opening on 24th March (about £1,000, for food for 50 street children and 100 invited guests, transport, hire of marquee and seating, public address, musicians and drama groups. You can't stint on such a day as this!).

Money in the UK Banks

We have got about £19,000 sitting in UK banks - the fruit of many months of generous giving by our donors - and we have been impatient to send it out and set it to work. The "OK!" from Alan only came late on Friday afternoon, but the bank's international money transfer system only works Monday to Friday, 10 till 3.30. So we can't send the money out till Monday!

But it is good that we have just about all we need to finish the building, with the exception of the verandas.

In June we expect to receive the tax repaid on Gift-Aided donations (I'm not sure yet how much that will be), so that will help towards any final jobs, and the furnishing.

But to get the place fully equipped will still need more money, so fund-raising continues.

chriscjenkin@aol.com

The Hostel Opening

The SKILL Hostel for the street kids of Kasese, Uganda, is to be open for business on Saturday 24th March! The children are going to be invited in.
This is a very exciting and rewarding climax of four years of fund-raising.
My wife, Mary, and I will be flying out to Uganda to attend this great event.
That is of course an expensive operation. The flights cost £1,151; the necessary health injections and medications (Rabies, Meningitis, Malaria) a further £250. Thankfully other inocculations are up to date - Yellow Fever, Hepatitis A and B, Typhoid, Tetanus. A hotel will also be needed for our time in Kasese as we will not have a missionary home to stay in as on previous visits.
I want to assure donors that these expenses are paid out of our own pocket, not out of money donated to the Kasese Street Kids! (A very generous friend has sent us a cheque designated specifically as a contribution towards our travel expenses: that is very much appreciated!)

The building is not totally finished, nor furnished. We hope that a lot of the interior plastering will be completed by the date of the opening; but even if it is unfinshed, it will be a better place for children to be living than on the streets.

We are praying that the right people may be found to be house-parents - men and women with the strength, wisdom and love to give these damaged children the care they need.

When we come back, we will hopefully have a lot of new photographs - watch this space!

chriscjenkin@aol.com