- John Mugabi
- Jul 2, 2020
- 11 min read
Updated: Jul 6, 2020
Warm greetings from everyone at Youth With A Vision!
We hope you and your family are safe and well. We thank you for supporting YOUTH WITH A VISION during these hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic! And we are glad to bring to you what we have been up to. In the month of June 2020 alone, you helped us to raise £715 ($919) (€8)
70) (UGX: 3, 217, 500) and in-kind donations of 520 KG of maize flour, through our C0VID-19 Appeal and monthly donations! We appreciate and thank you so much for everyone who donated to make our vital work possible!
You provided food and hygiene items
We were able to provide food and liquid soap for a sanitiser to over 450 people - children, youth and adults staying in 75 local families who had no one to help them!
However, the demand for food is increasing day by day and we are planning to support an additional 100 families during the months of July through September 2020. Please we need your contribution to continue providing food and essentials to the vulnerable families.
If you or anyone you know is able to donate, this is how your contribution can help.
£6 ($8) (€8) will buy ingredients to make 10 litres of proven effective liquid soap to sanitise one family for two months.
£20 ($25) (€22) will provide a food kit containing (10 kg of maize flour, 5 kg of rice, 1.5 KG of sugar, 5 kg of beans) for one family of five members for two weeks. https://www.youthwithavision.info/donate
You supported youth who lost their jobs due to the pandemic
Uganda is one of the nations with high numbers of unemployed youth. And the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has made it worse - doubling numbers of unemployed youth. When youth are unemployed, they pose a big threat to the local community as some resort to stealing and other antisocial behaviours a way of surviving.  Our Youth Finance Scheme which empowers young people to become financially independent, by starting their own enterprises has been greatly battered by the COVID -19 pandemic. The Youth whom we had empowered to start enterprises in hairdressing, tailoring, second-hand items, chicken farming, stationery shops, motorcycle transport (Boda boda), essential commodities shops, and crop farming have seen all their enterprises collapsing. Youth are now shattered and needing affirmative actions in terms of business recapitalisation and stimulus interest-free loans to enable them to get back on their feet. Some of the youth who have families relying on them are no longer able to provide even basic needs like food to their families.  Poverty due to Covid-19 has resulted into misunderstandings and domestic violence among young couples in Uganda. Some young people have found themselves at crossroads and been forced to borrow money from different sources to buy food and essentials for their families. However, due to lack of a stable income, most youth fail to pay back these loans and instead run away leaving their spouses and children on their own. The stress from lack of an income and demand for food for the family builds up and ends up in a family fight. And given that youth enterprises have collapsed and previous beneficiaries are no longer paying back, the Youth Finance Scheme requires funding to be able to support existing and also enroll additional youth. In the past month of June, we have supported 13 youth to re-design their enterprises, and 5 have already carried out alternative income-generating activities. We have also provided 71 youth with food and essentials through the pandemic. And this number is among the total number of people we have provided food relief. We are planning to boost previous enterprises with a stimulus interest-free loan of £115 ($145) (€140) (UGX: 500, 000) each, for 20 youth to start with. And when they pay back we will stimulate other enterprises. We are also planning to enroll 20 new beneficiaries with interest-free loans worth £350 ($450) (€425) (UGX: 1, 575, 000) each. But we can’t do this without your support.
We are appealing to you if you can please contribute to the Youth Finance Scheme and you help to lift youth back on their feet. youthwithavision.info/youth-finance-scheme
You helped students to study from home
Although the government of Uganda has eased the lockdown for some sectors, schools are yet to be opened and students are only encouraged to access education through television, radio, and self-study materials from the internet. Sadly the majority of these students come from very poor financial backgrounds without access to a radio or television and have never worked on a computer and without knowledge of the internet. They have no finances to pay for the internet to make regular print outs of the study materials. So they can't access education without your support. In fact, hope for vulnerable students to go back to school this year is deferred, and keeping them at home without an alternative education affects their mental health. Making matters worse, recently the government backtracked its initial announcement of providing radios to families and said it has no funds to do so. Thanks to all your generous donations - a one-off, monthly, and child sponsorship despite the hard times! All your vital donations pool up and have helped us to establish and facilitate home schooling program for some of the vulnerable students through the lockdown. Under the home schooling program, we provide television classes to students who are finalists at different levels of education, radio classes, and self-study materials from the internet and newspapers to continuing students. We have provided self -study materials to 50 students, 20 students have received television classes while 50 students accessed radio classes. We have also empowered 20 parents and guardians to support their children's home schooling. So far 410 students and guardians are benefiting from this program. In addition to those we are already serving, there are still many more vulnerable students in need of our home schooling program through the lockdown. We are committed to continuing facilitating their access to available learning channels, and all we need is your support to empower more parents and guardians to support the program, provide additional television sets, download study materials from the internet, print, sort out enough copies for each student and deliver to their homes every week. Please support our Home Schooling Program for vulnerable students. This is how your donation can help.
£5 ($6 ) (€6 ) will provide self-study materials for 2 children over one week
£15 ($18) (€17) will provide a radio for one familyÂ
£200 ($257) (€250) will provide a Television set to provide televised classes to students currently missing out on classes.
£1,100 (€1,320) ($1,400) UGX: (4,950,000) will help to buy a motorcycle for delivering study materials and other essentials. youthwithavision.info/donate
Our sponsored child is on the front line of fighting Covid-19
Uganda is one of the nations with fewer health personnel and the Covid-19 pandemic has overstretched the health sector creating a vacuum for health workers. Â
The demand for health workers motivated Ingabire Doreen to voluntarily join the health team who are on the front line of fighting against Covid-19 at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital.
Doreen is a first year student nurse on our child sponsorship programme. She had dropped out of her nursing career due to poverty.
When we presented her before you, our benefactor Andrew Hince sympathised and started raising funds for her nursing career.
We thank Doreen for the brevity and pray for her and all other health workers on the front line of fighting the pandemic around the world.
Thank you, Andrew Hince, and everyone who contributed to Doreen's education.
Our child sponsorship programme not only helps children to achieve their educational ambitions but also empowers them to become community leaders and helps to transform communities.Â
If you can please sponsor or encourage your network to sponsor a child with us.
Our Child sponsorship costs are as follows.Â
£20 / $25 / €22 a month per child in primary school.
£40 / $50 / €44 a month per child in secondary school.
£515 /$692 / €637 a semester per student in University.
Click here https://www.youthwithavision.info/sponsor-a-child for child sponsorship programme details, photos, and details of children in need of a sponsor.Â
You have supported expectant and teenage mothers
We are all living under difficult times but the hard times have devastated many helpless expectant and teenage mothers in Uganda. Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, majority of teen mothers here were unemployed primary school drop outs lacking employable skills, single parents, always isolated and with insufficient knowledge on parenting and childcare, and already traumatised by early and unwanted pregnancy, they find it so difficult to cope up through the pandemic. Study has shown that most of the expectant and teenage mothers are girls from poor financial backgrounds, who are not cared for early, and they not only constitute to a cycle of generations of elders, having not properly cared for as children, are themselves unable to bring up their own offspring but also adults who fail to offer the right example to their children who, in turn, become infant adults.
Children born to teen mothers are always malnourished, suffering and die from infections, parasitic and malnutrition diseases including kwashiorkor.
All of this is associated with ignorance, lack of employable skills, income, resources, and stereotype support.Â
Thanks to your contributions, through our Healthy Teen Mums Healthy babies Program which supports expectant and teen mothers, to cope up with their new role as a parent, we have provided food and essentials to 5 expectant and teenage mothers.
Currently, we are in need of clothes for babies and teenage mothers, nutritional food supplements for teenage mothers and their babies. We also need materials to provide vocational skills to empower teenage mothers to start their own income-generating activities so that they improve their condition of life.
Today we present before you; Latifa Nanyondo already orphaned, got pregnant at 17, abandoned by her unemployed spouse, alienated by her relatives, and struggling to bring up her 6 months baby.Â
Latifa has something to say about how COVID-19 has changed her way of living.
''When the sun draws down I start thinking of where to sleep with my baby and when it rises in the morning I start thinking of where to get food and essentials for myself and my child''
Latifa is among the teenage mothers on our program whose dream after lockdown wants to turn her life around by pursuing a career in hairdressing.
Can you or anyone you know help her, please? We would like to hear from you if you can.
Please help us to own this motorcycle so that we have a breakthrough with pressing daily transport demands.Â
Now than ever before, we need our own motorcycle which has been a big hindrance to our food and essentials emergency distribution to vulnerable populations here at Masaka Uganda. Lack of own transport means has always been a major barrier to reaching hard to reach and distant places. However, this time around it has greatly affected our food and essentials emergency distribution. Each time we have to do door to door distribution of food and essentials we have to hire and this takes a toll on our meager resources.
Buying our own motorcycle will not only help to minimize or offset transport costs but will also help to relocate transport hire expenses to food and effectively transport sick children and pregnant women in emergency situations to health centres, food, and sanitisers to vulnerable families and self-study materials for students to access education during the lockdown, through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
However, we can't achieve this without your help. If you can please donate to enable us to have a breakthrough with a motorcycle.
We have already spotted this nice motorcycle at £1,100 (€1,320) ($1,400) UGX: (4,950,000). If you or your friends are able to contribute please make donations on www.youthwithavision.info/donate and comment "motorcycle"
Here are the other ways you can help
Please consider telling your friends and family about our project and the work we are doing to support the vulnerable communities through COVID-19 - you can share this link to our web-page on social media, or just bring us in conversation https://www.youthwithavision.info
Sharing with your community why you chose to support our organization will help us increase the work we can do in our community as it will continue to grow our community of supporters like you! If you are willing to share the story of our work with your network, we would be incredibly grateful.
EID AL-ADHA
At Youth With A Vision work with children of all denominations and faith, and among them, we work with over 50 Muslim children and youth through our child sponsorship, teenage mums, and youth finance scheme programs. We are concerned that we have been watching events where less fortunate Muslim young people in our community have not been considered for Eid al - Adha celebrations. Before COVID-19 draining our resources, we have been providing a goat for them to slaughter on previous Eid al – Adha celebrations.
This year 2020, we are organizing a special Eid al – Adha to allow over 50 less fortunate Muslim children, youth and their guardians we work with to have a chance to commemorate Eid al - Adha, by providing them a cow to slaughter and fulfill their obligations. We have a Sheik Muhammad Kalanzi who teaches Islam to the Muslim children and youth under our care and is available to lead the 31st July 2020 Eid al – Adha celebrations. But now the pandemic has taken a toll on our resources and much of our funding has been diverted towards food for the vulnerable families. We can’t continue doing this without your help. We are seeking to raise £444 ($570) (€533) (UGX: 2,000,000) to buy a cow of 180kg where at least each of the 50 children and youth will get at least 3.5kg of meat for their families. A contribution of any amount is very much appreciated and will be used to provide a cow for the Muslim children, youth, and their families under the care of Youth With A Vision to slaughter on the Eid al – Adha this 31 July 2020. In case you would like please donate to support this causeÂ
Please support us through GlobalGiving Accelerator Programme
We have been accepted for the September 2020 GlobalGiving Accelerator Program, where we seek to raise donations globally for “Building 2 Classrooms to support quality and affordable education for over 700 vulnerable children at our partner schools – ST. Catherine Nursery and Primary School Kisaalizi in Kyotera District and Aunt Sarah Junior School in Rakai District in Uganda. The GlobalGiving Accelerator Programme is a virtual training program and crowdfunding campaign that helps organizations like ours (Youth With A Vision) to connect with donors, nonprofits and companies in nearly every country around the world. Organizations that raise over $5,000 from at least 40 donors during the September 2020 Accelerator Crowdfunding Campaign will earn: Permanent fundraising spot on the GlobalGiving platform, with the ability to crowdfund several other projects.
Inclusion in a GlobalGiving press release Additional promotion opportunities through GlobalGiving's donor newsletter and social media
A custom media kit to help promote accomplishments
A certificate of completion from GlobalGiving
A share of $20,000+ in bonus prizes and incentive funds.
A bonus prize for most funds raised and most unique donors granted to projects raising at least $5,000 from 40 unique donors.
We want to graduate from the Accelerator Programme and win that permanent spot as well as the bonus prizes which will enable us to enrich our capacity to plan and carry out online crowdfunding and other marketing and fundraising campaigns. This is the Major Challenge ahead of us To graduate, we have to raise at least $5,000 total from a minimum of 40 different donors. So when this campaign comes out, we want to appeal to you and everyone to help us out. No amount is too small! The more the merrier!
Dine So They Can Day On Saturday 3rd October
It is an annual fundraising day where friends and supporters around the world help to host a meal or do something in their community or donate or ask their networks to donate to raise funds for the work of Youth With A Vision. All funds raised on this day add up and supplement our budget and also help to fund our non-sponsored projects targeting disadvantaged children and youth we work with.
We warmly invite you to participate - the more the number of participants, the merrier it becomes! Please click https://www.youthwithavision.info/dinesotheycan for details, past participants and to participate.
Our Online Shop youthwithavision.info/shop and Gift Catalog https://www.youthwithavision.info/gift-catalogare great places to pick up lots of great gift merchandise for you, your friends and family, all of which are just another way that you can make our vital work with the vulnerable children, youth and families possible. Most of these merchandises are made by children and youth on the program!
In gratitude and solidarity,
John Mugabi Founder & Director Youth With A Vision Leandrew Muleme Project Manager Children and Education Juliet Nampanja Kizza Project Manager Youth Finance Scheme Youth With A Vision
