The Sanctuary MenuSee more pictures
Since the completion of The Sanctuary Church building in 2003, it has served as a meeting point for the local community. A local church, led by local leadership, has been established there since 2003 and is a life spring for the community of Layibi'. Several community initiatives have been held, including literacy and sewing presentation days, health training and community treatment events as outlined below. It is also the location for the sewing classes, literacy programmes and our administrative base in Uganda. Within the grounds is the borehole, football pitch and several agricultural initiatives.
Agape Child Support
There are approximately 1.6 million orphans living in Uganda. HIV/AIDS and disease have left many children without parents in Northern Uganda. We currently have over 30 children that we are sponsoring through their education, at present we are not planning to take on any more. These children are often taken care of within the extended family, but the lack of money often means they cannot go to school. All the children we sponsor do not have a mother or father and many have never been to school even though some are in their teens. Primary school education is supposed to be free in Uganda, but many don't have access and can't afford to pay for essential requirements such as books and uniforms. Secondary school education can be very expensive too. For many people it can be more than their income. Despite living in the midst of war and difficulties the majority of the children in the programme want to be teachers, doctors and lawyers.
Porridge feeding programme As part of the sponsorship programme we have established a porridge feeding programme. This consists of a nutritious porridge made with millet flour. The children can take it at either breakfast or in their lunch break. As the schools currently do not provide a feeding programme the porridge therefore gives the children a nourishing meal to sustain them throughout their school day. If you are interested in child sponsorship, or would like to support the administration of caring for our children, please visit our contact page or donations. Any support is greatly appreciated.
Agape Gardening Club During his visit to The Sanctuary in September Duncan set up a new programme for TEAMS – a Gardening Club for some of our oldest Agape orphans.
Fuelled by the idea of offering life-time skills to our protégées, Duncan had it placed on his heart to take out vegetable seeds to grow at the Sanctuary. There are 5 acres of good land at the Sanctuary and whilst some of land is divided into allotments for employees to use pending future development there was also a small unused and overgrown plot close to our apiary. The idea was discussed with the on-site management and it was quickly agreed that it would be ideal for intensive market gardening! Martin, our night watchman and temporary Pastor willingly agreed to lead a small club. It transpired that he had been to college and taken various horticultural courses. Praise the Lord! Not only do we have a keen leader, but we have an expert too! Sam, another of our loyal work employees agreed to assist with some of the initial clearing work. Pastor Daniel, who is responsible for the Agape children’s welfare, was consulted as to who should be selected to join the new club; 6 children were identified. The students were measured and wellington boots acquired for them to use whilst in the garden. The newly established SEAMS sewing enterprise was commissioned to make overalls for each student – another way of TEAMS activities helping the community. Gardening tools, note books, pens and other equipment were bought and then the final ingredient, many packets of seeds, were given to Martin for the students to sow. By the time we left Layibi to return to the UK, the first clearance session was underway. As an incentive, the students were advised that they could retain 1/3rd of the harvest for themselves and their foster families, Martin and Sam could share 1/3rd of the harvest for their services, and TEAMS would retain the final 1/3rd as rent for its land. If successful we hope to expand the idea and perhaps offer more formal horticultural training in the future. If you are interested in child sponsorship, or would like to support the administration of caring for our children, please visit our contact page or donations. Any support is greatly appreciated.
Literacy ProjectMenu
Recent studies have shown that 1 in 5 female youth have received no education and that as few as 1 in 3 are functionally literate. Further figures reveal that 43% of women have indicated a complete inability to read or write - alarming figures that point to the critical need to invest in functional literacy for women and youth.(source: The state of female youth in Northern Uganda, www.sway-uganda.org, April 2008). We started our first literacy class in 2005 at the Sanctuary building with 20 women and a couple of men. The oldest student, aged 76 years, learnt to write her name for the very first time. Since then we have seen more than 130 students, mainly women, complete level 1 and 2 functional adult literacy classes, and to date we have held two graduation days. The natural development of the classes has seen the addition of a third level that pays particular emphasis to English. We are improving adult literacy within the community, enabling people to become active players in income generation, enable personal reading and betterment and help their children with home work. Due to the overwhelming response to our classes, we subsequently opened a subsidiary class in an area of Gulu called Agwee (2008), and have on average, 20 students attend the Saturday class.
UpdateEducation - something we take for granted in the Western world - is considered a privilege in Uganda. Half of the female adult population and a quarter of males cannot read and write.* Over recent years TEAMS has been chipping away at this startling statistic by offering adult literacy classes for free in the district of Gulu in northern Uganda. The latest development of this project was equipping each adult literacy class with a blackboard for teachers to use - a team of volunteers from the UK and Australia constructed and painted the blackboards. They were presented to the teachers and transported to their respective classes via boda bodas (local motorbike taxis, a site that really had to be seen to be believed). *(Source: CIA World Factbook, 2010)
Literacy Classes, November 2011
Sewing SchoolMenu
Another pressing need is the lack of opportunities for women to gain a vocational skill. It was this sad truth that led to the establishment of a tailoring school that not only offers women a chance to gain a skill, but also self esteem and a sense of being able to contribute to their society. All our students who enter into the sewing school class are drawn primarily from the literacy classes, thereby ensuring that our projects adopt an integrated approach to development. The initiative has now entered into its third year, and currently offers a level 1 and level 2 programmes.
Progress Report from Duncan & Rosalind WattThe "Stitches" sewing school established by Rosalind and Duncan Watt in partnership with TEAMS at the Sanctuary is now 3 years old. During this time, both the Ugandan and parts of the GNVQ (UK) syllabus has been taught to over 30 students. 12 of our final year students will be entered for Uganda’s National exams in November. Wish them luck! We pray that we will have some good results to announce in our next bulletin.
Since April 2010, John Boscoe has been the school’s teacher and we are blessed that he is both experienced and very popular. He is also trained in machine maintenance which means that all of our equipment is kept in good working order – vital in such a dusty environment!
The school was started with enthusiastic students from the TEAMS on site adult literacy classes. Given the success of the school and the appointment of an assistant teacher, Christine (a former, outstanding, student) we are now able to admit other categories of applicants, and during the Watt’s recent visit, 2 prison wardens from the Gulu woman’s prison have been added to our student list. The Prison governor has given them time off to learn this skill so that they can assist some of the woman prisoners with sewing when they have passed their exams!
The school’s success is due, in part to the equipment it is able to offer. We have been blessed by the generosity of a number of people who have donated machines, fabrics and money to get "Stitches" up and running. There are too many individuals to single out anyone, but we are grateful to the congregation of St Martin’s Church Chavey Down in Berkshire and the Yateley Sewing and Craft clubs whose support during this period has been so beneficial. The school costs over £1,000 a year to run so if you can help in any way, please do contact TEAMS or the school’s founder, Rosalind Watt (Rosalind@teamsonline.org).
Agriculture Menu
Goat Project A key issue is the subsistence mentality that exists in rural communities. By providing training, materials, tools, crops and livestock, we want to give disenfranchised individuals and families the chance to gain knowledge and resources to provide both food and funds to look after their families. We have been running a small goat project since 2006 with local East African goats. Our plan was to eventually breed with exotic goats to improve upon the local goats. With that aim in mind, we acquired two female and one exotic boer goat in 2008 and are pleased to report that one female recently produced twins!
UpdateThe cross breeding programme that was initiated two years ago has seen encouraging results. We purchased two female and one male Boer goat in April 2008 and since that time we have had a number of kids that have been sired by Boy, the male Boer goat.
We have recently had another birth. Pumkin (the last of the three original goats that we acquired in 2008), has delivered two healthy male kids. They both have a 56% Boer blood, having 75% blood from their mother, and 36% from their father, making an excellent addition to the program. We hope that they will continue to grow strong, and healthy, and one day father kids of their own.
Bee keeping project 2008 was a busy year for our organisation in that we also started a small bee keeping project with 12 hives. We anticipate being able to harvest again in early 2010. It will provide a source of nutrition for the orphan children and their families in the Agape Support Programme. Bees are vital to pollination and sustainable horticulture and the honey will provide a source of income generation for the community
UpdateFollowing up on our last update, where our staff had received training in beekeeping, it was pleasing to see the local staff putting their new skills into practice in the apiary. During a recent visit from UK and Australian volunteers a small amount of honey was extracted - a vast improvement in flavour since the early days! We also checked all our 10 hives. Additionally, we constructed two Kenyan top-bar hives which will be put into the apiary very soon.
Community health work Menu
Over the years we have looked to develop a health work that is both effective and sustainable, the formative stages including the identification of some of the health needs of our orphan children. In recent years we have built strong links with the local hospitals and medical school, the fruit of which is the launch of a hospital visitation ministry team comprised of 33 people from local churches, community health outreach events, and training initiatives.
Community health training Our development in Layibi provides a room that serves as a basic health assessment clinic. We have conducted basic health assessments on employees, local inhabitants and children enrolled in the Agape child support initiative. Affordable access to quality health care and education at grass root level are critical in the community, especially for women and children. With this dilemma in mind, we sought to provide rural communities with a greater knowledge of basic health concerns through our community based training programmes. This will equip lay persons with a greater understanding of fundamental health concerns that affect their communities and the knowledge base to tackle such issues without an over-reliance on hospitals and clinics that are often hard to access. In 2009 we trained and graduated 49 people to be Village Health Workers based upon government training material. This allows them to be designated level 1 Community Health Workers at a household level and have been assessed by local government officials. We then completed Community Based Training, which equips them to carry out community health assessments, build health teams, delegate, evaluate and monitor programmes. These will then be involved in vaccination and malaria programmes in 2010.
Future Plans Our development in Layibi provides a room that serves as a basic health assessment clinic, and over the month's staff have conducted basic health assessments on employees, local inhabitants and children enrolled in the Agape child support initiative. This pilot scheme is intended to serve as the foundation for a Health Clinic 2 to be situated on the grounds. The clinic will be comprised of 2-3 rooms with a doctor/medical officer, receptionist and nurse practitioner and will operate on an outpatient basis and is a natural progression from the VHW1 training. Once this is established, training of nurses and doctors in the community can be undertaken and the facility can potentially offer placements for undergraduate and/or postgraduate doctors. This will be a tremendous testimony as many doctors upon qualifying either go to the cities or leave the country and we can help to envision them in rural and community care.
