Friday 29 October 2010

The roof really is finished!















Here are the two most recent pictures of the Hostel roof, front and back. Very encouraging!
However there is still a great deal more work to do on the building: all the plumbing, all the electrics, and all the rendering; all the doors and all the windows.
That is still thousands of pounds needed! (If you would like to help, you could go on http://www.justgiving.com/kasesestreetkids -all donations, large or small, very welcome!)

Multi-vehicle challenge: here is another vehicle Mary has driven, to raise sponsorship funds (a Volvo Road Grader):

Sunday 24 October 2010

Money matters

Because we seem to be going back again and again to our small local village community to solicit funds - and many of them have been wonderfully generous - we wanted to reach out a little further.



So we have had two street collections - in Penrith a few weeks ago, and in The Lanes, Carlisle, on Friday (pictured) .



Penrith was very encouraging - we collected £125. Carlisle slightly less so - only £110, for which we are still of course grateful - especially to one lady who gave us a £20 note!

And then when we got home, a neighbour who has already given us money thrust another envelope into my hand - which proved to be £100, Gift-Aided! What an encouragement!

Street Children Bank: I heard this week from the Butterfly "Children's Development Bank" in Delhi. I had emailed them to ask for hints and suggestions about starting up a bank for street children as I had heard about their work in India. http://www.ayokaproductions.org/content/childrens-development-bank-india.
Sashi, their Programme Officer, sent a very helpful and informative email with excellent ideas, and was very encouraging about teaching Kasese street kids to save money. I forwarded the email to Mimi in Kasese.
Whether the programme which has worked so well in India will work as well in the different culture of Africa remains to be seen.

Thursday 21 October 2010

Finishing the roof

The back side of the Centre's roof is nearly finished, which is great.




The street boys who came out to the site to help slash the ground were rewarded with food, and new shirts!







Tuesday 19 October 2010

The boys go to slash the growth at the site

See http://www.basecampngo.org/oct-update.html for Mimi's latest report and pictures.

She writes:

"With a fresh infusion of money, we were able to purchase additional iron sheets to complete the roof and on 19 Occtober, 2010, the sheets were delivered.
Additionally, about a dozen of the street children were agreeable to working at the site to cut the grass - which as you can see from the photos below, was quite tall. Instead of paying wages to others in the community, we thought to employ these children. They were asked if they wanted to do this, and they said, "Yes!"
Several of them walked to the site (a distance of about 3 kilometers) and several were picked up at the local dump site. The older boys were asked to go and work, but they said that if we didn't take the smaller children, they wouldn't go, so they all piled into the Toyota and away we went. The car is definitely not designed for driving in the bush - but we made it there and back - two times! We returned in early afternoon to take them back to town to purchase food.
They said that they preferred to be paid with food, as if they had money the older boys would beat them and steal the money - so we agreed to this arrangement. When we took them back to town we gave them enough money to purchase a good meal for themselves, plus we gave enough extra so they could have a soda! "



One question we are wondering about is this: "Is it best to pay youngsters in money, or in food?" As noted above, if the younger ones get money the older ones are likely to steal it from them. Another issue is that sometimes they spend money on ganja (marihuana) or drink.
(This picture shows Mimi Burbank and Sebeya Peter discussing payment with some of the older boys.)

We are starting to explore the possibilities of setting up a street children bank, so that their money can be safe, and they can save it up. This is successfully done with street children in Delhi - see http://videosift.com/video/Banking-on-the-Future-Helping-Indias-Street-Children .


Remember, if you would like to help, visit www.justgiving.com/kasesestreetkids - all contributions, large or small, are gratefully received!

Monday 18 October 2010

The roof should be finished this week!

News from Kasese: Mimi emailed to say that they drew out 5,327,000 Ugandan shillings (worth £1,485 in UK money) from Barclays Bank, and this was used to buy the remaining 130 iron sheets needed to finish the roof. A truck is being hired tomorrow to take the sheets and nails out to the site. Hopefully the work will be done by the end of this week! It will be wonderful to know the roof is complete, safe from any storms.



Mary's fund-raising driving challenge: She has now driven 49 vehicles! Today she was driving a stone-crusher and a bulldozer! Here are pictures of some earlier vehicles:



Friday 8 October 2010

The roof is still unfinished

Ian from our village visited Kasese in late September, and took this photo. The view of the new building from the other side (see post of Monday 2nd August) makes it look as if it was finished but it is not.


Mimi, our contact in Kasese, wrote recently:


"There is serious concern over the possibility of October storms tearing off the roof that is there, unless the whole thing is finished. They have already installed 250 iron sheets on the roof, but they still need 130 iron sheets to complete it. There is enough money in the bank to purchase the iron sheets for the remaining roof, but we need an additional 1.8 million shillings (about £510) for "labour" and of course we don't have that."


However today we have just arranged for £1000 to be transferred to the Uganda account, so we hope the roof can be rapidly completed, with money left over for work on the latrines and perhaps finish them.


Some of this new money is sponsorship for Mary's driving challenge - so here are a couple more pictures of that!