December 2022
12th Annual Anywhere in the World Raffle
It’s that time of year again! Beginning in the end of November, PFP Directors and Members will be selling raffle tickets for $20 each with a chance to win two round trip tickets to ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, ON ANY AIRLINE. There are only 2,000 total tickets sold and tickets can be booked for up to TWO YEARS from the date of drawing! The drawing will be held March 29th, 2023 via Live Facebook video (you do not need to be present to win). This is one of two major fundraisers that we rely on in order to keep our programs running smoothly. We hope you will take part!
Christmas Giving
Tis the Season! As with every year, we are offering sponsors of the PFP children an opportunity to put together a care package for their child for Christmas. Each package will cost $75 and will include:
- One set of Christmas clothes
- One pair of shoes
- One set of casual clothing
- Blanket/bedsheets
- Backpack
- Special Gift
Annual Strategic Planning Session
The Board of Directors was gearing up to meet for it’s annual strategic planning session in December, but have had to postpone until January. Plans were in place for a good portion of the team to actually be in Uganda for the meeting, but an outbreak of ebola has forced the group to cancel.
The meeting will now happen via Zoom with board members joining from Uganda, Oregon, Utah, North Dakota and Canada. While it’s disappointing to not be able to meet in person, it’s even more of a let down to not be able to personally reconnect with the children and staff.
Despite the disappointment, the team is looking forward to the meeting. Always an amazing time to look back on the year, to regroup and to strategize going forward. We are incredibly grateful for the amazing support we have behind us. Especially as we walked through COVID and now this ebola outbreak. Thank you all!!
Ebola Outbreak in Uganda
We are devastated to report a recent outbreak of Ebola in Uganda. The strain is deadly and the survival rate is low. The outbreak is expected to continue and to peak in April. The government is downplaying the risk of spread as it will of course be horrible for their already struggling economy, but we are taking it seriously. We will see how things play out over the coming months and will do our best to keep you informed.
Every precaution is being taken to educate and protect the children. They have all returned home from school and are under our watch. We are also taking extra measures to help educate those living in our community.
Welcome to the PFP Family
We started the month with 11 children in need of sponsors, and our family has stepped up in a big way once again. In November, six have all found their sponsors. Additionally, two more students have gotten their sponsorship covered for an entire year through a Facebook fundraiser. So great!!
Sponsorships Needed
- Priscilla – PFP Junior $85
- Muyezi – PFP Junior $30
- Elvis – PFP Main $85
Sponsorship covers:
- Boarding school
- Medical including mental health/dental
- Food
- Clothing
- Housing during breaks/holidays
- An amazing Ugandan support system (All PFP employees are Ugandan)
Sponsorship, along with our fundraisers, also contributes to:
- Field trips
- Cultural exposure
- Sports/exercise programs
- Skills training programs
- Transportation
- Social work services to support any available healthy family ties
Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this opportunity: hope@peaceforpaulfoundation.org
Letters From Friends Across The World
Both sponsors and children continue to send love to one another from across the world. It warms our hearts to see the genuine connections that are being made Thank you to everyone who takes the time to get to know your sponsored child.
Priscilla, showing off her letter from Jackie to friends at school
Luke, reading his letter from Edu
Staff Corner
PFP relies on our amazing staff in Uganda to keep the organization running. Without our Ugandan team, we would not be able to do what we do for the many children in our care. We hope you enjoy the “Staff Corner” section we’ve added to the blog. Each month we’ll highlight one staff person with the hopes you’ll get a chance to understand the important work they do.
Afako Isaac- Love Home Caretaker and Social Worker
My name is Afako Isaac. I am 33 years old and as per now I work as a social worker with the Peace for Paul Foundation. I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in project planning and management, a Diploma in counseling and guidance, a Diploma in social work and social administration, and a certificate in Computer technology.
Due to the passion I had for children, I first joined PFP as a security guard and now I work as a social worker and activities coordinator at Love home.
Isaac, speaking to the girls at Love Home
My daily tasks include many things, some of which I will list below:
- Organizing parental home meetings with the children and other staff in the home in order to build unity, team work, behavior change, get viable ideas from different areas and also have effective communication which brings togetherness and unity among people.
- Designing working calendars for children and also for other programs assigned to me.
- Guiding children when doing different tasks in both PFP homes and the community reintegrated children’s homes like sponsor letters, holiday packages and among others in a timely manner.
- Making sure that children are engaged in different skills activities and play games such as tailoring, knitting, yoga dance, baking, netball, bicycle riding and indoor games when they are home in a planned way.
- Organizing and working on different reports and tasks in the home and also for the organization and sending them to the administration and the directors.
- Monitoring and evaluating the resettled children in their homes on a weekly basis and giving report about them to the administration and directors.
- Working hand in hand with the administration in monitoring, assessing and guiding the businesses of the community outreach women in order to make them have a self sustaining life through organizing business skills training sessions, organizing savings group for them.
I am so happy to be part in changing the lives of children and the community– and I whole heartedly appreciate the wonderful support given to me by the management of The Peace for Paul Foundation, it’s administration and the directors in ensuring that what I need to fulfill my duties is availed to me hence making me to play an important role in the organization and I surely love what I do and I love my work so much.
Isaac, working with a group of community women
Home For The Holidays
This month, the children finished their final term of the year and headed home. A nice long vacation break ahead for our students. Fun will be had!!
All Hands On Deck
It’s important to us to make sure all our children grow up with a great work ethic and understanding what it will take to run their own home one day. Chores are for EVERYONE! We asked one of the caretakers, Isaac, to provide a quick glimpse into what the house cleaning part of that puzzle looks like. This is what he shared:
“General regular cleaning and upkeep is one of the main chore activities done in Peace for Paul homes. In addition to that, there is scheduled deep cleaning consisting of sweeping the compound, mopping the rooms, scrubbing the kitchen area, dusting the windows and the walls, scrubbing the open spaces, scouring the toilets, and organizing the garage (which is used as a storage area.) The extra cleaning is done twice in a week during holidays when ALL the children are at home and once a week by the ones that are home and the Caretakers when the majority are away at boarding school. The homes are kept clean and tidy all the time. Special attention is paid to any area that could potentially be a breeding area for mosquitos in our ongoing fight against malaria.”
Of course the children grumble like every other child in the world when having to do chores, but they get the job done!
The “Littles” at Hope Home, washing clothes with their nanny, Amina
Julius and Eria picking up leaves
Team AHU (A Hand Up)
PFP is working hard to prepare our older students for the “real world” outside of PFP. When a student enters Senior 5 (usually at about 18 years of age), they are moved into the “A Hand Up” program. They still receive all of the benefits that all PFP children do, however now they are required to give back to their PFP family or community. Each AHU student volunteers 20 hours per week on school holidays and has the opportunity to showcase their specific skill set to better the lives of the PFP children or at risk community members.
All of the AHU students continue to step up, month after month. Everyone does what they can, where they can. Monthly meetings occur, with Tikol at the lead where students present ideas on how they can best utilize their skills. Students have been working with PFP as a sort of internship.
The AHU members continue to contribute where they can, and we love when they utilize their specific skill set to do something meaningful within PFP or in the community.
AHU Description- By Tikol
The AHU (A Hand Up) scholarship program involves all of the adult students in the tertiary institutions (universities and trade schools) who are pursuing different careers in their chosen fields of study. This group of our elder students do a number of activities to inspire the young ones, or to give back to the communities.
The students use the skills studied and the professions they are pursuing as a way of doing practice in their different fields to benefit everyone. However, they do other activities as well, for example maintaining sanitation in the communities, spending some time with the people in the communities to give guidance and counseling, and many more. All these activities are done voluntarily to benefit the community, give back to PFP and develop these students into agile workers.
These students show love in what they are doing and really create happiness for the young ones and the communities in which they live or go to give help.
In the end of each month, all of these students write the account of activities done in form of timesheets. One of these students (Tikol) compiles all the activities of the members of AHU program and sends them to the PFP directors after their monthly meetings. The directors use these monthly timesheets and meeting reports to evaluate the different areas to ease work for these students such as providing transport funds, buying equipment needed in their work areas and etc.
Every year, more students are promoted into AHU at the end of the year to pick up from those already in the program and we all work together as a team.
–Tikol Joseph, AHU Student Representative
School Visitation Days- By Simon Peter
My name is ICHUMAR SIMON PETER, a student at Uganda Christian University, pursuing the bachelor’s degree in social work and social administration, second year. Currently, Peace for Paul has got a transitional program in which every child who turns 18 years of age and above, he or she is put into A Hand Up (AHU). As per now a few of us who are at university and institution level are already there. Some of the responsibilities held by the AHU members includes, visiting PFP children in their various schools both secondary and primary level, conducting monthly meetings and doing voluntarily work. All these responsibilities were the initiative of the AHU members who are willing to nurture the littles who are still in primary and secondary levels of education into hard working and discipline students. Perhaps by doing so it’s one way the AHU students can offer back to the agency or PFP.In this particular case, my main point of interest is visiting PFP children in schools.
Initially, school visitations would only be made by PFP staff and this would be done on the official date as communicated by the respective schools. However as per our (AHU members) interactions with these children, we came to realize that there was a need at least for the big boys and girls who are in higher levels of education to pay visits to the children when they are at school. Grateful to PFP for endorsing this move. So as per now, the children are being visited twice in a particular month. One visit is made by the AHU boys and girls. The second visit is made by PFP staff. As per AHU members, we visit our little sisters and brothers in their schools, to mainly talk to and help to get focused into their studies because we have ever been and we know what happens when one is at this level, at this primary and secondary level there are a lot obstructors that pupils and students encounter. Usually, children do experience adolescence stage and therefore tend to over relax and forget their prime purpose of being at school, and so we levy our time out of the university to visit and talk to them with the friendliest language. Perhaps many of them know that we were once there and therefore we stand as role models and point of motivation to them. Usually as we visit them, we carry some snacks and refreshments for them. From there we also get to know some of their concerns and provide some guidance and counseling. The issues which are beyond our capacity, we present to the PFP administration here in Uganda. Basically, this is all about school visitation.
–Ichumar Simon Peter, AHU Student Representative
Facebook Birthday Fundraisers
We love when our supporters dedicate their birthdays to PFP! Such a fun and easy way to get involved and to allow others to get involved as well!! Facebook fundraisers take ZERO administrative fees! We hope you will consider including PFP for your next birthday!
Birthday Celebrations
We always do our best to make sure every child in our main program gets a chance to feel special on their birthday. Each child receives a gift and has a small celebration during their birthday week followed by a BIG birthday celebration all together at the swimming pool during school holidays. Many sponsors get involved by sending gifts to their child as well. All children deserve to feel special on their day and we always do our best to make it so!
Happy, happy birthday to our November birthday children! Thanks so much to all of the sponsors for stepping up to be sure that everyone could really enjoy their day!
Happy Birthday to Our Decemberr Birthday Girls and Boys- we wish you all THE BEST as we celebrate YOU this month!
If you are the sponsor of a birthday child this month, you are welcome to send us an email and we can work together to make their day even more special!
PFP Junior Birthday Celebrants
PFP Main Program Birthday Celebrants
The PFP Junior Program
The Juniors Program works with families in our community so parents may be able to send their children to school. These children live full time with their families but for them, poverty has prevented the children from attending school regularly. This program is a partnership between parents and PFP to supplement on what they are able to contribute so parents may take pride in being able to send their children to school through their own hard work. The ages of children in this program range from four years to eighteen years of age and we currently have 94 students who are benefiting from this partnership.
Moses with Isiko, Jackie and their mother at theyr home
Family Sponsorship Opportunities
We are always looking for general sponsors to help our family thrive. Essentially, as a general family sponsor, you are the sponsor of ALL of the children. We have opportunities for Medical Family Sponsor, Dental Family Sponsor as well as Mental Health Family Sponsor. A Family Sponsor commitment can be $25/$50/$100 per month.
Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this opportunity: hope@peaceforpaulfoundation.org
Director (on the Board) Needed
We are looking to add a new Director or two to our board and what better place to look than from within our team of awesome supporters. We are always looking for ways to improve and would love to find someone with a background in Microfinance, child development or child psychology. If you would like to support the work of PFP in a more meaningful way, we’d love to chat. Please reach out via the email below and we can go from there to determine if it might be a good fit. At the very least…. we’ll have a great conversation and a chance to connect.
Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this opportunity: hope@peaceforpaulfoundation.org
Bulungi Beads
Did you know that we have a shop on our website? The Bulungi Beads Shop features beautiful Ugandan jewelry, handmade by women working hard in the slums of Masese and by the young men and women learning the skill in the PFP program. The handcrafted paper beads are purchased from the women and PFP artisans to support their growing business and their families. All profits are sent back to the women and to the PFP program to help pay for food, clothing, school tuition and supplies. Click HERE to view our shop!
GuideStar Platinum Level Participant
The Peace for Paul Foundation has earned the Platinum GuideStar Nonprofit Profile participation level (the highest possible)! This leading symbol of nonprofit transparency and accountability is presented by GuideStar, the world’s largest source of nonprofit information.
In order to be awarded the Platinum Seal of Transparency, The Peace for Paul Foundation included contact information, financial information, our goals, strategies, capabilities, indicators, and progress, helping us more effectively share our story with the world.
Check out our GuideStar Nonprofit Profile and tell us what you think:The Peace for Paul Foundation GuideStar Profile
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