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.

BoreHole We established our first community borehole in 2008 that provides a source of clean and safe drinking water. Members of the community manage the running of the borehole and training has been provided to ensure proper and healthy usage.

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.

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.

UpdateThe demand for literacy instruction has necessitated the addition of another class, and in late 2009, we launched our third literacy programme for adult learners. there has always been a pressing need to provide access to the wider community, and with that in mind we commenced with level one training for another 45 literacy instructors in January who have now successfully completed the course. These new instructors will be teaching in 15 local church communities; six classes have already started with the remaining classes gearing up to start in the coming weeks.

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 WattWith peace now firmly on the agenda in Northern Uganda, the fight for individual survival has mercifully receded and the region is coming alive again. Praise the Lord! But, it is not all good news... Many major Aid Agencies are scaling back and closing their Ugandan operations. Their withdrawal, whilst understandable, is hurting the poorest sectors of the community badly.

Many people in the region missed out on their education because of the war or extreme poverty. TEAMS have responded to this problem and for the past 3 years have been running Adult Literacy courses in Layibi. Rosalind, a former textiles teacher and Duncan decided that teaching adults to read and write was just the start. Having established 3 sewing schools in Rwanda, they proposed setting up a sewing school at the Sanctuary. TEAMS agreed to provide the accommodation and on-site facilities. Rosalind and Duncan purchased the equipment and meet the running costs of the school. To date, a total of 22 students have been taught here. The graduation of the 2nd year students took place on 25th February.

A new teacher was needed to take over running the school, so during our visit interviews were held and the position filled! Our new teacher is a bright young man, John-Bosco who not only teaches but is also a trained machine mechanic. Since the end of 2008, we have been trying to get Government recognition for this school. During our visit in February, we managed to arrange meetings in Kampala with the Government Director for Industrial Training, and also with senior representatives of UGAPRIVI (the Ugandan Association of Private Vocational Institutes). We are now full members of both. If our students pass they will receive a certificate which is fully accredited and recognised throughout Uganda.

If all goes well, next year we hope to equip another room at the Sanctuary to provide a sewing Enterprise facility for 3 or 4 graduating 2nd year students. This should allow them to put their newly learned skills into commercial practice.

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.

Sadly, two of the three Boer goats have died, Pretoria in October 2009; the most recent death being that of Boy in early April 2010. Nonetheless he has produced five 75% Boer cross kids, four of which are female; the two most recent editions arrived in February and are growing strong. In addition, Boy also fathered two 37.5% cross males and two 37.5% females during his two years at the farm. The local number of goats is six, comprised of five female and one male.

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

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.