Little Praise was found abandoned in Mulago, a Kampala suburb in February 2015, at one-and-a-half months and placed into emergency care. After our social workers tried in vain to trace her family, she was approved for adoption in August. Luckily for Praise, there was a loving heart waiting to receive her. Her adoptive mother had been undergoing assessment and was approved to adopt by the Government Adoption Panel on the same day! After a successful bonding arrangement with her new family, it was all joy and excitement as the sweet angel finally went home in December 2015! We found a loving family for little Praise and we will for many more, with your help!
Can you provide a loving home for an abandoned child? Contact us today. call +256 (0)776110304 or email us via [email protected]. We believe Ugandan children deserve Ugandan families.
Pastor Peter Kasisrivu of Gaba Community Church preaching.
GABA COMMUNITY CHURCH ANSWERS THE CALL TO PLACE CHILDREN IN FAMILIES.
Why we place children in Families.
We’ve always known that children thrive in a loving family, be that with their own relatives, traced, resettled and supported by our social workers, or with a new adoptive family. At Ugandans Adopt , we’re ambitious, and we believe family care is all a child should ever know. Through the love of a parent, a child learns to form bonds and healthy attachments. The amazing thing is that if a child learns this with a foster carer, this bond can be passed on to a mother or father when reunited, or to an adoptive parent. What’s important is that the child hasn’t missed out on learning this, which can happen as the result of time spend in institutional care during the formative months and years.
Gaba Community Church
We’ve just launched an exciting partnership with Gaba Community Church in Uganda. This partnership is a result of the Pastors’ Conference that we co-organised with Gaba Community Church, CARNAC , and Lifeline Children’s Service on February 19th 2015.
As a result the church community have made a commitment to foster abandoned children while we trace for their families. The children will experience the love of a family, as well as the community support of the extended family of the church.
“Some of you are the fathers these children need, some of you are the mothers these children need. Are you willing to open your home to life?”, Pastor Peter Kasirivu, Gaba Community Church
On Sunday 28th June , the church organised a Children’s Sunday themed ‘Children in families’ to encourage the congregation to open their hearts and their homes. Pastor Peter Kasirivu the Senior pastor at Gaba Community Church, a part of African Renewal Ministries and a strong advocate of children in loving families asked his congregation: “Some of you are the fathers these children need, some of you are the mothers these children need. Are you willing to open your home to life?”
He later explained his commitment to family care for children:
“As a Christian, I know I was adopted by God. Because I was helped, I want to help. Institutions cannot provide what a family can. There are thousands of children who need help, so I hope that my congregation open up. But I also hope that other churches see what we have done, that they may also up. I believe what we have done here can be done by many churches. I feel like we can be an example, a catalyst for what can be done amongst other church bodies in the country of Uganda. I really believe that with the families we have in this country, there is no reason why a child should be on the street.”
One lady in the congregation was very moved by the call to action and said that she often cares for
Congregation of Gaba Community Church
children within the church community on an ad hoc basis, and sees fostering as an extension of the way that the church community already works: “The children I have been looking after have parents who can afford to care for them, I am definitely happy to foster a child who has no family”.
At the end of the service, the congregation was encouraged to visit the information point which they did in big numbers. A number of families and individuals filled out Expressions of interest forms to either foster or adopt the children from Loving Hearts’ Babies Home, a home run by the church.
We are proud of the great start to our pilot partnership with Gaba Community Church. We look forward to partnering with more Ugandan churches. If you or your church is interested in having us present or partnering with us on a similar project please call us on 0776110304 or email us at [email protected] . We look forward to hearing from you.
Rukh-shana serves Twinkle toes cake on her third birthday
We asked Rukh-Shana, adoptive mother and Ugandans Adopt heroine, to give us an update on her adoption journey. In her own words, she tells us how Twinkletoes is keeping her on her toes:
KEEPING UP WITH MY TWINKLETOES-RUKH-SHANA
Rukh-Shana serves Twinkletoes cake on her third birthday at the Babies Home where her birthday was celebrated. .Photo courtsey of Ugandans Adopt
The date is 30th March 2015. It’s 10:30am and I should be dashing for my morning cup of tea but I am stuck at my desk neck deep in routine stuff attempting to pull together a report that should have been submitted the night before. Even as I am propped up behind my desk, my mind racing a mile a minute with all the things I need to get done before the new month, my mind wanders off to a happy place. It is my little girl’s birthday today and we had a tantrum-free morning, can’t quite recall what that felt like, so I am delighted with her. My mind wanders further off to what seems like a distant time. A time when I prided myself in being nimble and swift on my feet, a busy body with never a dull moment in my life, always colliding with time…then came Twinkletoes, and in the blink of an eye I was a snail dragging my shell on the race track of life alongside this toddler who was suddenly in an insane rush to go places; to see the big beautiful world through her twinkling eyes. I have since then been trying to keep up with my Twinkletoes.
And speaking of the world, my rather controlled world has never been the same since she flung the doors wide open and came waltzing in. Twinkletoes was just four months when we met on that beautiful Monday evening. Well I think it was a Monday because on a Friday I dressed up for my big day with the adoption panel-all butterflies in my belly and with knees of jelly. My prayer was simple that morning, “Lord may Your will be done!” I still muse at just how our plans can take a twist for the better. Now, when I set on out on my adoption journey in 2012, I had it all figured out. She had to be between 8 and 12months old – young enough to bond quite easily and old enough to fit it into my crazy work schedule. My life needed to maintain a semblance of sane balance as I knew it…I suppose I was simply being ME – in control. But in came Twinkletoes, a sparkly sunshine, a voluble wind turning my structured world sweetly topsy-turvy. One moment I was grounded and the next, I was knocked off- balance falling flat on my face in a fit of joy with outbursts of tears and the momentary tittering on the brink of insanity.
Twinkletoes with Mum. Photo courtesy of Rukh-Shana Namuyimba.
Three years on, ours has been a beautiful journey of watching her grow from this shy, thumb- sucking child to a very persuasive, independent and absolutely crazy thumb-sucking toddler who decided at the age of two that she mostly preferred to wear little dresses instead of the shorts and tees her over bearing mother had filled her closet with. Yes, I was a tom boy after all and I didn’t quite have the luxury of defiantly pouting at my mother if she suggested I wear some hand-me-down boyish shorts. So I was quite taken aback when my Twinkletoes proved to be tenacious in getting what she wanted. My mother says I may not have been a tenacious tot but I most definitely turned out to be as tenacious as they come later in life so I should cut Twinkle some slack. So for the most part I have cut her some slack, perhaps too much, and as a result she does mostly get what she wants. I suppose she has found a soft spot and is quite intent on milking it for what it’s worth.
Speaking of soft spots Ma Petite, as I sometimes refer to her has a soft spot for hurting people. I have watched as she has, through the years, blossomed into an expressive and caring little girl especially around other children; quick to offer hugs if that is what it takes to make someone else feel better.
On motherhood Rukh-Shana says,”And speaking of the world, my rather controlled world has never been the same since she flung the doors wide open and came waltzing in”. Photo courtesy of Rukh-Shana NamuyimbaT
This morning, as I reflect on the year gone by, my heart swells with pride at the little milestones of awesomeness we have reached together. The day we went shopping for nursery schools and when we finally settled for her current school she was a fit of delight. Every day till the first day of term we fought over her insistence that she wear her uniform at home and carry her little rucksack to the door as I left for work. This would almost always end with a tantrum that quietened down with me promising she would start school the next day (yes I lied but what do you do with a tenacious 2 plus year old who will not take ‘wait a little longer’ for an answer?) …and when we finally showed up on the first day of school, I was a weeping mess and she was only too delighted to mix and mingle with the other little kids. Then came the first time she randomly said, “I love you mummy”. We had just had a ‘fight’ so that totally threw me off balance and I could not hold back the tears, her response was a shocker: “Mummy you’re kwaying (read crying) for nothing.” That was the beginning of my transformation into a crying mummy.
I have since shed a tear or two during her first swimming lesson; her first mumbled prayer with a resounding AMEN; her first Sunday school session; her first attempt at brushing her own teeth; her first bicycle ride. But the most treasured of our milestones is her learning my full name, probably from watching TV and her daddy’s name. She still cannot say her daddy’s without almost biting her tongue but whenever she does it is with such a sweetness like nothing else really matters in her little world. And perhaps nothing really does to my Twinkletoes and many like her. Nothing really matters but that they have unconditional love and a family to call their own.
The end.
To wrap up this heart warming story, Rukh-Shana talks about her adoption experience and why more Ugandans should consider opening their hearts and homes to Ugandan children in the video below:
Could you be the next Rukh-shana? We would love to hear from yo. Call us on 0776110304/0776110316 or send us an email @ [email protected]
On Wednesday the 15th May 2013, the children and Staff of Malaika Babies Home celebrated their third birthday with an open day. Malaika Babies Home in Mengo has provided emergency short-term care to over 130 babies. Over the past three years they have successfully found families in Uganda for 100 of these children through resettlement and domestic adoption. Their Social Work team put a lot of time and resources into tracing families and as a result 66% of these children have been resettled with their extended families.
Birthday Cake
The open day which was crowned with the cutting of the cake by the children at Malaika Babies Home was attended by many guests including staff from other babies’ homes around Kampala, the Police Child Protection Unit, Probation officers, Social workers and adoptive parents who bought their children along to the celebration.
Nandi Ketti (carrying the baby) a Police Officer, Zainah a senior probation Officer and a guest at the Open day
Among the well-wishers was Barbie, Bobi Wine’s wife who donated an assortment of items to Malaika Babies Home. “It has been a wonderful day and we are very grateful for all the support of our supporters, the Probation, Police and other children’s homes” says Immaculate Atwine, the Manager of the Babies Home “Only by working together we can find families in Uganda for abandoned children
Barbie at Malaika Babies Home.
To see The New Vision’s article on the above, click on the link below:
Together with VIVA Crane and The Ministry of Gender,Labor and social development,Child’s i Foundation held a two day Conference at Namirembe Resource Center on 28th -29th March 2013.
The conference that was themed “Working together for vulnerable children” drew various Ugandan key stake holders working in child protection .
This is what the Ugandan leading daily,The New Vision had to say about this conference.
Last week the Adoption Panel met to vet prospective Ugandan adoptive families. The panel comprises of Nandi Ketty from the Ugandan Police Child Protection Unit, Caroline Bankusha, consultant, Rogers Mbazira from Families For Children, Christine Sempebwa , an adoptive parent, Ruth Matoya, a child psychologist from Healing Talk, Stella Ogwang and Mark Riley from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and Sue Allan from Child’s i Foundation. Jenette Davies, an experienced adoption panelist from Cumbria, UK came to observe the session.
Currently at Malaika Babies Home we have 21 children in our care out of which one baby boy is available for adoption . The social work team are in the process of working with families to resettle or find permanent foster care families for the rest of the children.
We are reaching out to other childcare institutions in Uganda to invite them to attend Panel if they have children who are available for adoption so the Panel can match them with our waiting list of Ugandan adoptive parents. Please contact [email protected]if you would like further information.
Together we can place more children into loving families in Uganda.
Although adoption is slowly becoming more common in Uganda, there is still a great need for new foster and adoptive parents, especially for older children and boys.
The aim of 2012 media campaign was to increase our number of potential adoptive parents, as well as introducing the concept of short and long term foster care to Ugandans with the hope that we would be able to recruit 2 long term foster carers for children who have outgrown Malaika Babies Home.
I came out from the UK for 6 weeks to produce this campaign, and started negotiating with companies as soon as I landed, trying to ensure that we could agree advertising deals as soon as possible.
We were lucky enough to have the amazing Limehouse Creative team on board for this campaign. They designed both of our billboards free of charge, and did a great job. We organised a photo shoot with Kampala based photographer Anne Ackermann, and spent a stressful few hours on the roof of a local shopping centre trying to capture images that would work for our campaign.
Joey, the first child to be adopted from Malaika was our billboard star, appearing on both billboards, and we have had lots of comments from people who’ve seen his face looking down at them whilst they are stuck in traffic on Jinja Rd telling us how powerful his image is.Ad Concepts kindly gave us 2 months advertising space for free, and the 8 metre by 10 metre billboard is in a great location.
For the first time we decided to advertise on digital billboard screens – one at the large Oasis shopping mall, and one in one of Kampala’s busiest taxi parks.
We also produced a television advert to run on NTV, featuring family support worker Lydia and her family. Lydia has adopted her two youngest children, and the whole family got involved in the filming of our advert, with the youngest two boys fascinated by our camera equipment!
Although most of the content for our media campaign was produced in English, we decided to run a series of adverts in the local Luganda language on Radio Simba. We’re grateful to Rogers Mugerwa and his team for their continued support of the work that we’re doing.
We produced a Talk Show to run on national tv station NTV, and our amazing panel of guests, James Kaboggoza the Assistant Commissioner for Children, social worker Barbra and adoptive parent Christina Sempebwa debated issues connected to foster care and adoption as well as taking viewers calls. Presenter Ben Mwine did a great job, and the whole team felt extremely proud once the programme came off air.
Early in this trip I was asked to produce a documentary for the Ugandan government exploring Alternative Care. Myself and media volunteer Emma Hegarty spent a week working flat out on this projec
t and the finished documentary aired immediately after the Talk Show.
The first media campaign that we ran in 2011 resulted in over 150 potential adoptive parents contacting us, and to date 30 of our children have now been adopted. They are enjoying the chance to grow up in loving supportive families and we very much hope that this year’s campaign will result in similar outcomes for more of the children currently resident at Malaika Babies Home.
Families for Children hold regular coffee mornings and training session for adoptive and prospective adoptive parents. This is usually a moment where parents who are adopting or thinking about adoption, meet together for a cup of coffee to share experiences, challenges, common issues on adoption and gain support from each other.
Adoptive and prospective adoptive parents listen to the main speaker of the day during the last coffee morning get together.
A big number of Adoptive and prospective adoptive parents showed up at the last Coffee Morning that was held on 23rd March 2013 s at CRANE/VIVA Offices in Namirembe.We had a great time getting to know each other, sharing experiences and laughing over our cups of coffee.
Please mark 20th April 2013 on your calendars. It will be the day when a one day adoptive and prospective adoptive parents training will be conducted from 9:00am to 3:30pm .A contribution by each parent attending of 20,000 shillings only goes towards their break tea, Lunch and certificates at the end of the training.
You are also encouraged to inform other prospective and adoptive parents and fostering parents about these events or forward these dates to them and encourage them to attend as well.
We also produced a television advert to run on NTV, featuring family support worker Lydia and her family. Lydia has adopted her two youngest children, and the whole family got involved in the filming of our advert, with the youngest two boys fascinated by our camera equipment!
