Think about how our current living conditions determine and benefit our overall welfare. We live in heated and cooled homes, have regular income, eat a variety of foods from well-stocked grocery stores, and have closets full of clothes we do not even wear. We sleep in comfortable beds with clean sheets and blankets, have access to running water in our homes on demand, and move about freely in our cars to meet our transportation needs.

In rural villages, poor living conditions put children’s welfare at risk. Parents and guardians are very often illiterate subsistence farmers living in small two-room homes made of clay bricks or wooden boards with thatched roofs, situated on small plots of inherited or rented land. For hours a day, if their health allows, they cultivate their gardens which provide the family’s primary source of food. Extra produce may be sold for a small income. If they are able, they may also earn some small income by cultivating other gardens in the village. What little cash they may earn is used for daily needs not provided by the garden, such as salt, oil, soap and charcoal for cooking fires.

Yet, old age and ill health of parents and guardians means they often cannot work, even on their own land. Many of these rural households are large and headed by single mothers or elderly grandmothers, caring for extended family and orphaned grandchildren. These conditions of surviving off their gardens with some small cash means there is simply not enough to also provide clothing, beddings or enough food for the children. Most children sleep on the ground, often without blankets, exposing them to insects, cold nights and, without a net, mosquitos and malaria. Clothing is often handed down even though it is too large or in poor condition. Access to water requires walking long distances and carrying heavy containers back to the home. The staple food, when it can be purchased, is posho (corn grits) which is boiled over a cooking fire into a drinking porridge or a thick hot cereal. 

Humanitarian care makes such a difference in a child’s life as well as that of their family. It’s good to know that you can help!  As a Humanitarian Sponsor, you will provide basic necessities to a vulnerable child in Uganda and ensure they have regular meals, proper clothing, and a good night’s sleep under a mosquito net. Your care will sustain a child’s academic success, energy for learning, ability to concentrate, and health (by preventing illness that takes them out of school).  Humanitarian sponsorship also ensures that children, who are at school and not earning income, are seen as active contributors in their large or needy families as care items also benefit the entire household.

TrueToAfrica aims to provide each sponsored child both an Education and Humanitarian Sponsorship. Yet, when some students do not have Humanitarian Sponsorship, they still need humanitarian care. For this reason, we provide two other humanitarian aid options, even without becoming a sponsor.    

You may choose to give to a specific child in immediate need or choose to give care items based on your humanitarian interests, including goats, to be delivered where they are most needed. Goats create income-producing projects for the children and their families while also providing  an opportunity for children to learn responsibility by caring for the goat. Providing humanitarian care is a great way to engage in service to others within a timing and scale that is right for you.

During the C2Y social worker’s visits with the children, they note the living conditions and the resources needed for the child and household. TrueToAfrica and C2Y work together to determine the appropriate type, amount and timing of care item deliveries. Social workers use humanitarian sponsorship funding to purchase all care items in local markets, and then they personally deliver the care items to each child. 

When you think of the schools you attended, you likely think of classrooms with a teacher, chalkboard, desks, books, paper and pens. Try to imagine learning in an outside classroom, sitting on a log under a tree without a desk, book, paper or pencil! Many small rural village schools, trying to serve their communities, start out this way due to very limited resources. Children in these undeveloped schools learn to write by drawing in the dirt. Teachers in these outside classrooms have no chalkboards or very few teaching supplies. They may tack up a poster to a tree or borrow a textbook from another school for day or two to write up lessons.

In the Ugandan education system, schools are dependent on student school fees.  They use these fees to pay teachers and develop their educational environments including providing textbooks and supplies for teachers and students, and even build the school structures. Rural village schools have the extra burden of not having enough paying students to pay and keep teachers or create a successful learning environment. Teachers may simply be adults in the village who have no teacher training but know how to read. Schools often require students to bring school supplies to attend class, such as brooms, chalk and paper. Yet, in rural villages, these are the very same students who do not have cash for school fees, let alone for school supplies. Thus, poorly resourced schools in rural villages find themselves in a real quandary as they don’t have resources to attract paying students, and yet without student school fees they cannot obtain needed educational resources. 

TrueToAfrica’s mission is to improve learning opportunities and conditions for vulnerable and orphaned children which includes improving their classroom experience. These children are found in rural villages that lack schools or have underdeveloped schools with poor learning environments. Even if these schools have teachers, the schools lack the ability to generate capital for building permanent classrooms (e.g. with bricks and cement) and improving the learning environment.

TrueToAfrica engages in school development projects specifically for community-owned, rural village schools in Uganda. Community-owned schools are owned by the members of the village or group of villages as opposed to private schools that are owned by individuals or organizations. Private ownership requires schools to be profitable, that is, to formally collect enough school fees, whereas community-owned schools have a broader goal of educating their own children, often relying on the village for teachers and other resources. However, this community school strategy usually results in many non-paying local students in very under-developed schools.

You can help support school development in these community-owned, rural village schools with projects that include building permanent structures for classrooms, student dormitories, teachers’ quarters, kitchens and latrines as well as providing passive water systems, doors, windows and cement floors.  We also provide classroom resources including desks, chalkboards, teacher supplies, textbooks, pencils, pens, and paper supplies. You can directly improve the education and learning environments in schools for vulnerable and orphaned children. 

These donor-funded school development projects are implemented using local labor and supplies from local vendors which, in turn, helps the local economy. You may provide some or all of the funding for a specific school building project or provide critically needed classroom and teacher resources. You may even design your own fundraisers to invite others to help support this needed school development. You will receive photos of your supported school development, such as building projects at various stages of completion, final building projects, children from the school, delivered school supplies and classrooms with new resources.  As you engage in school development for community-owned, rural village schools, you also leverage your support and expand your reach to serve all the children in the village for years to come!