Uganda Hope

Redeeming the Children of Africa

Redeeming the Children of Africa Orphans are a time bomb in the AIDS pandemic! AIDS is leaving a generation of orphans in the world, particularly in Africa. Orphans are the most ignored victims of the AIDS pandemic. This neglect could come back to haunt the world as the children grow up to become uneducated, antisocial adults, unless they get help. According to UNAIDS, of the 40 million people with HIV/AIDS worldwide as of December 2001, 70% or 23.3 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. The number of HIV/AIDS cases in North America increased by only 20,000 between 1999 and 2001. During the same period the increase in Sub-Saharan Africa was 4.8 million! There are 16 million AIDS orphans in the world and about three-quarter of them or 12 million live in Africa.

Before the AIDS pandemic, only about 2 percent of all African children were orphans � mostly caused by wars, floods, famine and drought. But by 1997, the figure increased to 11 percent. The figures have continued to rise since then. The situation is most severe in these sub-Saharan countries: Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc. Uganda has the highest proportion of AIDS orphans in the world. Half of Uganda's 16 million people are children. According to UN estimates, AIDS has orphaned 2 million children in the country. Government programs to halt the spread of AIDS have been somewhat effective in Uganda, but this have left little money to care for the children orphaned by the disease, as a result most of these helpless children have to rely on their over burdened extended families for care.

 As part of ACF mission trip to Uganda in July 2001, a team of four visited various homes with large number of orphans in Uganda. To our greatest surprise, we saw children as young as 12 years heading some of these homes. In every one of the homes, we saw hopelessness everywhere and this was a heart-breaking experience for us. Our hearts were torn as we saw the conditions under which these children live. We cried our heart out to God on their behalf. We supported them with clothes, medicine and financial support for their immediate needs.

During our visit we organized a seminar with pastors from different churches from the Kabarole District in eastern Uganda. We encouraged them to address the situation of these helpless children. Their spontaneous response was to provide a place of nurture that will meet the basic physical, as well as spiritual and educational needs of the most vulnerable children. Through the cooperative efforts of these pastors and funding from ACF, a 15 acres land has been acquired for this project, called Uganda Hope. We felt a sense of urgency to partner with them to take back the love of Christ and the message of hope to these helpless children.

Kampala Pentecostal Church, which is one of Uganda's largest and fastest growing churches, runs an excellent program in Kampala, Uganda's capital city to raise the future leaders for Uganda out of at risk children and orphans. Uganda Hope's Children Development Center to be located in the rural far eastern part of the country will follow this model. The Center will:

  • Cater for the most vulnerable orphans in a practical way as an expression of the love of Jesus.
  • Give hope to the hopeless through a well organized institutional training and caring.
  • Create an environment for the spiritual, emotional and physical development of the children to enable them fully attain their God-given potential.

Pray for wisdom as we plan for the Children Development Center. We invite you to invest in the health, education and spiritual nurture of these orphans. Your support for this project will give hope to Uganda's future leaders.

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