A Christmas message for the Street Kids

I have just received an email from Robert Zziwa, Lay Reader of All Saints' Church, Kasese, where some of the street kids have been taken to worship from time to time. (It is the church linked with our home church, All Saints, Orton in Cumbria, UK.)
He wrote: 
Am informing you that this morning we have been talking to some of our fellow brothers that's the street kids from around 10:00am up to 12:00pm a message of Christmas and am the one who preached to them a message from Matthew 6:30-end, (Do not worry, saying "What shall we eat? What shall we drink?", or "what shall we wear?" Your heavenly Father knows that you need them.) to first know God and the good plans he has for us all especially sending us his begotten Son Jesus Christ to save from all our sins so that we be saved from all worrying situations and stick to him for eternity and providence. 
As we were sharing , some narrated a story of one of their brother called ''Goodluck'' who died 2 months ago and who died not in a good state of having lost hope, and by doing that, some recommitted their lives to Jesus and promised to attend tomorrow's service. Hallelujah! This is their list the ones I talked to:- 
1.John Mutagambwa Sadam 
2.Sunday Robert 
3.Mwesige John 
4.Kamaa Mustafu 
5.Toto Roggers 
6.Ndona Issa
7.Mugenyi Joshua 
8.Baluku Robert 
9.Bwambale Morris 
10.Masereka Longino 
11.John Yahalidi 
12.Bwambale Timothy 
13.Muhindo Zalmon 
14.Aliganyira Muzamiru 
15.Asimwe Benon Joshua 
16.Friday Hamisi 
17.Mucunguzi Moses 
18.Masanyu Emmanuel 
19.Kabagambe Wilson 
20.Bwambale Chris 
21.Matovu Martin----Team leader. 
They felt happy when my fellow brothers from Hope for Uganda Office gave each one of them his own Christmas package of small money that will help them during this festive celebrations, and I also donated a few of my clothes to some of them who lacking what to put on and come for prayers and amazingly they promised me to attend tomorrow since they have got what to put on.
I was delighted to hear that there was this contact; let's pray for these youngsters, that they may indeed attend the church and find a loving welcome there, not only on Christmas Day but in the future.
chriscjenkin@aol.com   

The Tools Have Arrived

We have been waiting for months for the tools, sent out from UK via the splendid organization, Tools With  A Mission (TWAM); they arrived in Kampala in about May 2013, but various negotiations and arrangements had to be made before they could be delivered the 350 kilometers to Kasese. But they have at last arrived! Here is the truck delivering them to the SKILL Hostel.

And here is a lad carrying a toolbox, obviously heavy with the tools it contains - no doubt going into the store room just now; but hopefully it will not be long before this boy and others will be learning how to use them, and acquiring basic mechanical and carpentry skills.

Another bit of good news - the new road!
Back in March 2012 when Mary went to see the Mayor of Kasese (I was meant to go too but had a tummy upset!), he promised that a new road would be built to connect the SKILL Hostel to the main highway. Months went by and nothing happened - but at last work is being done, and Enos tells us that it has reached within a half km of the Hostel site.
It looks a bit like a dirt track, you say? Well, you didn't expect tarmac, did you? It has been buldozed level and will be surfaced with marram.
Those crops
The last post mentioned (and showed) the crops being grown on the land around the Hostel; Enos tells me they are not for sale, but for food for the Hostel, to save expenses. As well as maize I expect there will be cassava - a root crop widely used in Africa  as a major source of carbohydrates, which when we were there we were served alongside other food (chappatti, meat, vegetables, rice) to bulk it out. We didn't like it much! But it is part of their staple diet; it makes a heavy kind of dough. 
chriscjenkin@aol.com

Crops being planted in Hostel land

We have been sent a few photographs by Enos, the Director, to show how well they are getting on with growing crops on the land around the SKILL Hostel. The picture above shows a good crop of maize - I can recognise that one!

 But I am afraid I do not know what these plants are, but we are glad to see one of the boys working hard at planting or weeding. It has always been one of Enos's intentions to grow crops on the land we bought in 2009 - partly to help to grow food for feeding the children, and partly as a cash crop.

 Above you can see the nursery beds under a shelter, being watered by another young man.

And here you can see part of the new wall which has been built all around the compound; this was a requirement of the local authority before a license to operate could be given, but it also has the vital function of protecting the crops from marauding animals. (Two or three years ago an earlier nursery bed which Enos started was devasted by goats, when the fence proved inadequate to keep them out!)
You can also see the water tower, vital for both crops and people.

Another part of the wall. We are glad to see that completed - it was quite an expensive item.
chriscjenkin@aol.com 

A Generous Gift

We have a Bank Account with HSBC solely for the Kasese Street Kids; when people give us money for the cause, that is where it goes - it is completely separate from our personal account (which is in a different bank anyway).
Recently we noticed a monthly charge of £6 going out of the Street Kids account, and were puzzled; so next time we were in the bank we asked them what it was for. It turned out that if you have a business account (which is what this charity or community account is classed as) with the facility to send money abroad, there is a £6 a month charge. We had had no idea of this; we only have sent money out to Uganda two or three times a year at the most, which anyway has substantial charges; a further £72 a year going out was a blow! The bank clerk said that if we cancelled it, whenever we wanted to send money out we could transfer it to an ordinary account first, and then do it from there. So we cancelled the "overseas transfer" facility straight away.
But we were upset that - purely by our own inefficiency - all this money, generously given by so many people, had been going out of the account. I mentioned this to an acquaintance, who was asking about progress with the SKILL Hostel; and he suggested asking HSBC for a donation from their Charities Fund to replace the money which has gone out in charges! A bit cheeky, I thought - but why not try?
Later that day, a cheque for £72 from that friend was posted through our door, "which will retrospectively cover 12 months bank charges." This was so kind and encouraging!
But - just in case - I phoned HSBC, and after the usual palaver of being passed from department to department, and a LONG wait, I explained the situation to a lady. She asked me to hang on, and went away; another LONG wait, and then she came back, and said the money paid out for that charge would be reimbursed in full! I was absolutely delighted and very grateful and told her so.
But I felt I must return the kind cheque to the generous neighbour - but they flatly refused to take it back! "It all goes to a good cause!" they said.
So two bits of good news to encourage us that day!

News from Kasese
We are sorry that there have been no posts on this Blog for a long time - we have been awaiting news from Kasese.
Several things have happened in recent months:

1. Rev. Nelson Isebagheen, a Church of Uganda clergyman whom we have met each time we went to Kasese, is a member of the SKILL Board, and has taken over all financial responsibilities. (He is a man whom we like and respect enormously.) This will release Enos Kibibi, the Director of SKILL, to do what he is gifted at - working directly with the street children - rather than administrative tasks.
2. Accommodation for the electical tools: an earlier post mentioned that the Thuthu Woodworking Company would accommodate a lot of the electrical tools which TWAM (Tools With A Mission
   - http://www.twam.co.uk/) are holding for us in Kampala. A further development now is that the Mothers' Union Women's Learning Centre, where Mary did needlework and craft seminars on our first two visits to Uganda, will likewise accommodate sewing machines and knitting machines, and let girls from the Street Children's hostel have instruction there.
3. This means that we are now in a position to arrange for all the TWAM tools to be sent from the Kampala TWAM warehouse to Kasese; TWAM have been asked to make arrangements for this transport, and to send the bill to us.
4. TWAM also told us that the tax duty levied by the Uganda government for all this equipment would be almost £1,000; and we have said we will cover that too.

So we await news, and hopefully photographs, that the tools have arrived in Kasese, and are being used!
chriscjenkin@aol.com

Profits from Book go towards KSK

I have recently published a Memoir, called "I Believe - I Think...". I do not expect it to be a best seller with many thousands of copies flying off the shelves! (I wish...) But at least 50% of any profit that does come to me will go to Kasese Street Kids funds.

The book is self-published by www.lulu.com which means that I pay them to print and send me copies; so far I have placed two orders for 60 copies each, and a further consignment of 30 copies. (The more copies I order at a time the cheaper per copy it is.)

Kind friends in various churches where I have served have taken orders from parishioners; and a number of small bookshops in towns around south Cumbria have agreed to stock a few copies. Two such shops have already sold out and asked for more!
You can get one off www.Amazon.co.uk  (including a Kindle version) - or from Lulu, including an ebook for a Nook reader.
Or you can ask me for one and - when I have received your money - I will send it to you.

Read "I Believe - I Think..."   "Very readable... Lots of humour... Honest... Inspiring..."  

chriscjenkin@aol.com 

Tools and Electricity

Sorry - it is two months since my last post!
In an earlier post  (25th January) I wrote about all the marvellous supply of tools that were on their way to Kampala, supplied by TWAM (Tools With A Mission) -www.twam.co.uk. But I had not realised till recently that there is still no electricity at the SKILL Hostel, apart from three small solar panels. The local authority promised an electricity supply to the site months ago, but this has never happened.
So things like circular saws and electric drills and lathes will not be much use! The hand tools will of course be valuable.
But we have just heard that a joinery firm in Kilembe Quarters in the Kasese Industrial Area on the other side of Kasese, Thuthu Carpentry and Joinery, have agreed to accommodate these tools, and offer a one-year training course for the boys from SKILL.

 

Here are two members of the SKILL Board, Rev. Nelson Isebagheen and Mr Emmanuel Maate, with Enos Kibibi, and the director of Thuthu, Mr Siriru (in the hat). They were confirming the arrangements for this scheme.

 

What is particularly good is that Thuthu will not charge SKILL any rent for the room they will use.

The hand tools will remain at the SKILL Centre where the youngsters will learn the basics of carpentry, before they progress to learning to use the power tools.

chriscjenkin@aol.com

More about the Kasese Floods

The last report from Emmanuel, our chairman of the Skill Board at Kasese, said this:

Kasese Floods:

I have travelled all the way to Kilembe where the river flooded; it was a real devastation. Many houses were destroyed and will take a lot of government commitment if they are to be rebuilt; some though have no hopes of ever being rebuilt. An estimated 700 people lost all their property and are now homeless and living in refugee camps. 10 are now confirmed dead.

The magnitude is very great especially because this is the first of this kind of calamity to befall the people of the Ruwenzori’s and since the rivers burst their banks on the 1^st of May to this day, the floods are still washing away homes,  buildings, roads, bridges and crops.

Enos is in the danger zone; a flood plain and may be relocated to a safer ground.

I visited him this morning at the skills training centre. He was with 10 children, weeding crops. They don’t have safe water to drink or for domestic use especially cooking as the supply system has been affected. They also lacked food.

Many people have been relocated by government to schools and Red Cross is supplying some food, tents, mosquito nets and safe water.

We anticipate an increased number of stranded children, but so far are handling the old cases.

Any assistance would be most welcome. Enos and his financial committee would look into areas deemed as priority.

chriscjenkin@aol.com

A Rewarding Evening

Last night Mary and I did a Presentation for the Kasese Street Kids to more than fifty ladies of the Mothers' Union of Penrith Deanery.
They were very appreciative, and asked some interesting questions afterwards - ranging from "do the children ever play?" (answer - they have no toys, but love football, even if the "ball" is just a bundle of plastic bags tied up with string!), to "Is it true that the President of Uganda has been converted?" (answer- last year, at a united Christian gathering called in connection with the country's 50th Anniversary of Independence, President Yoweri Musaveni publicly repented of his sins!).
At the end of the meeting, they gave generously to the Kasese Street Kids - a total of £190. And one lady said she had no money with her but would send us a cheque. Praise the Lord for their generosity!
Container of Tools
As I write, the container sent out by TWAM (Tools with a Mission -
http://www.twam.co.uk/) is on the high seas on the way to Africa; and it contains a large quantity of tools destined for the SKILL Hostel in Kasese. 
But when it gets to Kampala, the Uganda government will require a substantial payment of tax duty - we do not yet know how much. But it is for costs like this that we need the gifts from our kind donors!
chriscjenkin@aol.com  

Self-Financing Schemes

Mary and I made it clear to the Board in Kasese that while we would be happy to help with furnishing and equipping the Hostel as long as we still have funds, we could not undertake to finance the day to day running costs. So they have various ways to raise money locally.

One of these is their tree nursery. These photos show this, when visited by Cheryl Parrett recently. They sow the seeds, and look after them as they grow; and then they can sell on the little trees when they are big enough. I don't know whether the boys help with the work for this! It would be good if they did - but teenagers are not generally keen on gardening...

Another project has been brick-making. That is something boys enjoy! The soil at the Hostel site is suitable for bricks; they make them in a mold, and let them dry in the sun; then they are stacked up in a kiln as shown. The hole in the bottom is for the fire; and usually banana leaves are spread over the top. The fire burns slowly for two or three days; when the banana leaves catch fire the bricks are cooked! When they have cooled off, they are stacked, and sold.
Generous donors
Mary and I had an encouraging visit to a Mothers' Union group near Carlisle this week; we gave them our usual presentation, updated with one or two of the photos received from Alan and Cheryl a fortnight ago; and we were given generous gifts from the group as a whole and some of the individual members too.
I also received a cheque for £100 for the Street Kids from a kind lady in a nearby village, and a day or two later a cheque for £50 from a relation who has supported us before. Thanks so much, everyone!
chriscjenkin@aol.com

Building the store room

The builder is plastering the ceiling of the store room, so that all will be ready when the tools and equipment arrive in a few weeks.
Alan and Cheryl, whose help and support have been so invaluable from the start of this project, are shortly to leave Uganda for good, and recently travelled from Kampala to Kasese to visit various projects they have been involved with, and to say farewell to friends there. They went to see how the SKILL Hostel was getting on, and sent us some photographs.

 

Cheryl said hello to some of the boys who are now living in the Hostel.

 

And she looked in to the boys' bedroom and saw the bunks, with some of their clothes draped over the ends.

Further costs expected

David from TWAM (http://www.twam.co.uk/)  warned us that the tax duty charged by the Ugandan government on goods sent out in their containers has recently gone up - a few weeks ago they had to pay £30 duty on a sewing machine! So it is likely that there will be a substantial bill for all the items being sent out in the March container (which actually leaves on 2nd April). 

 

Secure storage

One issue that arose when considering the arrival of all the tools and equipment mentioned in the last post was storage. Where will they all be kept? Will the storage facility be secure against break-ins and pilfering?
It would be so disastrous if after all the trouble and expense of getting these tools - not to mention all the faithful people in UK who have donated them, and all the TWAM volunteers who have spent many hours refurbishing them, - if shortly after arrival in Kasese they all started disappearing!
So Enos Kyibibi has got a builder to do important work on making the storage room in the Hostel totally secure.
The bill for this work was over £400, and we have been able to send the money out to Kasese for this.
TWAM's assurance: TWAM has told us that the shipping money has arrived in their Kampala bank account, so the tools for SKILL will definitely be in the March container going out to Uganda.

Tools for SKILL

We have now been sent the list of the tools that TWAM expect to be able to send out to Uganda in their March container.
Here is the list:

6	CARPENTERS' KITS TRADESMEN
5	SEWING MACHINES TABLE TOP ELECTRIC
5	SEWING MACHINES TABLE TOP ELECTRIC ZIG ZAG
2	KNITTING MACHINES + WOOL
10	TYPEWRITERS ELECTRIC
6	MOTOR MECHANICS' KITS
2	GARDENING KITS
2	GARAGE KIT
3	WELDING MACHINES
5	PLUMBERS' KITS
5	BUILDERS' KITS (x2)
1	CIRCULAR SAW
1	WOOD LATHE
1	METAL LATHE
1	SANDING MACHINE
5	ELECTRIC DRILLS + ACCESSORIES
2	STRIMMERS
4	SCHOLAR PACKS

This is a marvellous supply! It will be a tremendous asset to the SKILL Training Programme.
We have now arranged for the shipping costs (£891.00) to be sent out to the TWAM Bank Account in Kampala.
 chriscjenkin@aol.com   

Supplies from TWAM

On an earlier post on this Blog, in summer 2012, I mentioned the splendid organization Tools With A Mission (TWAM) (http://www.twam.co.uk ) which invites its supporters all over the UK to donate tools of all kinds -  whether hand tools or electrical, carpentry or gardening, etc etc. They then pass these to their team of volunteers - mostly men like retired engineers - who  refurbish the tools, and these are then sent out to many projects in Africa. Mary and I visited  the TWAM warehouse in Kampala, and saw great stacks of goods awaiting collection.
Shortly after we returned from Uganda, Enos Kyibibi, the Executive Director of the SKILL Hostel, put in an ambitious application to TWAM to supply large quantities of tools for use in SKILL's training programme for the older street kids, to equip them for the workplace.
We were told at that time: 

1. TWAM could not guarantee to supply all items requested, but only things they had been donated and that they had in their UK warehouse. "We don't very often get given welding machines!"
2. It would be some months before they could send the items that were available.
3. There would be expenses for which SKILL would be responsible: 
• Shipping costs
•  Customs duty exacted by the Ugandan government
• Transport arrangements from Kampala to Kasese.

 This week we asked TWAM if they were yet clearer about what they could supply and when. We have now been told that the goods cannot be supplied till March at the earliest; and that shipping costs would be about £900. We have funds in UK to use for supporting SKILL in such matters. 
We do not yet have a list of what they can supply; neither do we know what Customs charges will be - "A lottery", admitted the TWAM man.
But at least it looks as if within a few months there will be a useful supply of tools available for use by the youngsters at SKILL. 
 chriscjenkin@aol.com