It was really funny for me to read Brian’s blog yesterday – I hadn’t realised he’d hoped I’d “go away” when we first met! As you can imagine, I was (very!) persistent, though, and it’s wonderful to know that he’s gone from being our biggest critic to one of our greatest supporters over the past six months.
CiF Team
Building a ‘Home’ isn’t in line with today’s modern thinking on social or child welfare, but as I’ve said on numerous occasions, we are not building an orphanage – ours will be a place of safety and care that ultimately aims to place children back into families. I think it has really helped that Brian is out here now, witnessing first-hand the need for the Foundation. After 4 years of me talking (and talking, and talking) about it, he – and all our supporters – can really see for themselves just how much we can do to create change here.
Meanwhile, our plan is really beginning to take shape and I’m so excited that, as well as building a centre that will provide the best possible care and set up a social work department to find families for every one of our children, we are now also committing to tackle the root cause of abandonment. We’ll be working with the mothers to try and support them, so they don’t feel that abandoning their baby is their only course of action.
Today, we visited Waakisa Ministries, who provide care for pregnant teenage girls. The project really gave me hope – they have set up in just two years, and we could see that it’s very well run and making such a huge difference. I think when you come across projects that truly work, it’s very good to learn from them, so I would really like to keep in touch with Damilie and her team to share our experiences – and get as much of their advice as we can!
Tomorrow is a big day for us, as we are visiting Mulago hospital. 64 babies are abandoned there every year and we hope to work with Mulago and Home Start International in the future – so wish us luck!
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April 21, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Kirsty Stephenson
Hey Lucy,
It is fascinating to watch and listen to you and Brian starting to answer some of these crucial questions about the model, purpose and structure of this charity.
I have been with some friends today, taking them through your journey and discussing the issues that Child’s i is confronting.
One of the key concerns raised is why Child’s i is not simply fundraising to invest in these other well established enterprises in Uganda and help them evolve into the type of foundation Child’s i is aiming to become. I feel I can answer this to a certain degree and this blog post and your recent findings have confirmed the requirement, but it would be interesting to get direct clarification from you and Brian on this.
Thanks
Kirsty xx