for sunshine and smiles everywhere

HEALS has always been a sort of refuge for me in Gulu. With brightly painted walls, a library, and smiling kids—lots of smiling kids, it has always been one of my favorite places to come. It’s the site of many of my favorite Ugandan memories—learning cultural dances, singing songs in Luo, rocking a baby to sleep—have happened within the tiny compound. Knowing what joy I always get when I visit, I decided to volunteer with some administrative needs the fledgling NGO has.
It’s been an eye opening experience. My first task was to type up some of the beneficiaries’ information, including their life story. It’s heartbreaking—stories of parents lost to AIDS, fathers killed by rebel activities, mothers working long hours to try and scrape up money for the family’s daily bread. To read children’s worries that they won’t be able to eat tomorrow, that their mother suffering from HIV won’t be there next year, that they’ll get kicked out of school again for not paying their school fees…
And that’s where my heart squeezes even tighter. Seeing receipts for school fee payments… The cost for one term of primary school runs anywhere from 3,000 to 15,000 Uganda Shillings—at the current rate of exchange (it was 1720 shillings to a dollar the last time I checked) that’s from $1.75 to just under $9. These children, ranging in ages 5-18, are worried about scraping together 2 dollars in order to get a basic education.
So, I’m trying to think of ways to help. Sustainable ways, more than a car wash or a can drive (both of which I may end up doing when I’m back in the states: heads up!). Joly, the country director of both Invisible Children and HEALS, wants to try and get some of the children’s stories on the internet, in hopes that people will read them and donate money. I know you can do a “cause” on Facebook, which will allow people to donate to an organization, and we’re hoping to sign up HEALS as one… I don’t have any web skills, really, but maybe someone knows how to set up a simple HTML one? There is also the fact that HEALS isn’t a registered non-profit in the U.S., so I don’t think donations made to the organization would be tax deductible…
It’s a lot to think about and figure out, but it’s worth it. Most definitely worth it.