KELAH in Mbale
UGANDAN
AIDS ORPHANS
In July 2017 I was asked to leave Kenya to visit Uganda where another friend had identified twelve young boys living in the sewers under the City of Mbale during daylight hours. They were all AIDS orphans and were addicted to glue sniffing. They hid from the Police to avoid daily beatings and slept on the pavements at night.
I was asked to assess and treat their many medical problems, and once we’d gained their confidence and improved their health, we calculated what the cost of providing ongoing support for these twelve lads would be until they were old enough to be independent. Eventually we committed to establishing a Charity (KELAH) in Mbale to accommodate, clothe, feed and educate these young men until the age of eighteen.
This program commenced in October 2017, and within five years the boys became almost unrecognisable. They are healthier and happier, and live in a large house which we’ve bought for our Kelah House Charity which also supports 6 adults (and their families) who look after them. This costs about £700 a month in total and presently I am able to raise some of this from regular donations from generous sponsors. However, the costs of both food and rent have risen lately so we have decided to purchase some land around where we can grow our own food.
LEAH
Leah also sends me detailed accounts of all the money she spends. We have now bought the house and land on which it stands, in order to become more independent into the future. Raising the requisite funds is proving challenging but nothing is impossible to those who believe although we face constant challenges. Most recently, thieves broke into Kelah and stole the boys school uniforms and school shoes. They have nothing left to wear to school now and are heartbroken. The back gate is broken and the House is no longer secure. We face a constant struggle for repair and maintenance costs. Each month sees extra expenses and unexpected bills to meet in order to stay fully functional.
In August 2022 we went to visit Kelah House, along with Leah, the boys and the rest of the staff there. Karen,Carolyn and Jake came with me for the first time. Covid prevented us from returning for the last couple of years but we’ve continued to invest in the future of the boys and their education. We’ve also been able to help provide food for those people who were most affected by the famine that continues to affect rural Uganda due to the conflict in Ukraine. Most of the original boys have been able to return to their extended families nearby although we continue to fund their education or help them gain employment locally. A few who have no family or whose placements broke down again, remain at Kelah. We visited their relatives to discuss future plans for them. Two have the potential to become social workers and teachers themselves. This could allow them to use their own early life experiences as street children to help and support other children who are at risk of being abandoned too. That would be a great way of ‘paying it forward!’
In the meantime, we have replaced those who have ‘graduated’ from Kelah with new young arrivals. After a lot of discussion, Leah has now decided to take in girls as well as boys. There is a growing problem of girls being abandoned with the attendant risks of rape and unwanted pregnancy and disease. Now girls account for about 25% of our intake, and we have bought sewing machines and material for them to work with in the hope that we may be able to raise funds for them to attend school. This is a struggle financially because they need uniforms as well as ordinary clothes and there are specific issues relating to girls that we are learning to address. Thank goodness for the input of Sara and Rita, along with Leah, who are able to advise and support the newer arrivals in this way.