News Updates

At Jordan House
Re-painting the Brick fence we built in 2009
Painting the church building
Painting Pastor Michael's house
Health Clinic set up
Brick wall construction to secure the grounds
Garden beds x 4
HIV testing of Jordan House children and families from the community totalling 310.
Craft activities
Sunday School activities
Community Lunch for more than 600 people
Dental hygiene supplies
Health Clinic supplies
Baby measuring mats and head circumference tape measures

At Kasubi Church of Uganda Primary School
Professional Development in Numeracy for Teachers
External painting of the P5 (grade 4) classroom block
Internal plastering, painting and electric lighting to the P5 classroom block
Building of a rubbish pit
Grading, top soiling and fencing of the school oval/open space

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO GAVE SO GENEROUSLY

A full set of photos will be uploaded to this site when the team returns to Australia in early May!

With our projects completed we looked forward to a day of market shopping, touring the Kampala City streets and saying our farewells. The local Easter market was on and our team certainly spent up, with many a fine purchase made!

We then headed for the inner city streets of Kampala, facing the pot hole ridden streets, congestion, sights and smells of the Kampala CBD. Despite the number of taxi vans, bodas, bicycles and pedestrians and what appears to be chaos, traffic really does move at a steady pace here.

We headed for Jordan House to say our farewells. We arrived to many hugs and handshakes from the children and staff. We gave the national staff gifts of Austrlaian souvenirs and the children sang to us to say farewell.

We bid Louise a safe journey who was heading to the airport for her Kenyan extension and a visit to her Compassion sponsor child and the rest of us with tear filled eyes said farewell to the children and waved goodbye for the last time.

Our time here has been fruitful with many projects completed and some yet to be completed by the local staff and labourer's using our funds.

School Painting...

Tonight we had a lovely team dinner together with Russell and Matt, shared our high's and low's of the trip and enjoyed our last evening in Kampala.

Tomorrow the team members head off in different directions. Colin and Winsome head to South Africa to holiday. Libby, Karen and Sarah Hill head to Phuket to enjoy some R & R. Rex and Liane, Julie, Karen and Alex head to Mbale in the far East of Uganda for further work at Bushikori Christian Centre.

Today the team headed back to Jordan House to finalise the projects we had started and complete the painting project at the school. The health team completed the HIV testing of the Jordan House children and the final few families from the community. Louise, Rex, Karen and others got stuck into the garden beds despite a 'brief' Ugandan rain shower the work continued and all the plants that had been purchased were planted, improving the grounds of Jordan House.

Today the team was back to project work. We headed to Kasubi Christian Primary School where the team got stuck into painting the exterior of a school block.

Colin and Liane started their Professional Development in Numeracy with the national teachers, they did two sessions for the day and also spent time with children playing maths games. The sessions were challenging and highlighted the desperate need of the education system here, with class sizes of 60-100, class session times of 80 minutes per lesson and the teaching method of chalk & talk and rote learning by students.

Some further projects at the school will be completed after we leave and these include the building of a rubbish pit and fencing & grading of the school oval/open space.

Today the team set off for Jordan House and the morning church service.  Rex bought a Bible reading and short message to the congregation, some of the team stayed in the service and were asked to pray for people, while the majority of the team headed outside to participate in Sunday School. Today's craft activity was a stained glass windows that the children had to make using black paper and cellophane. We provided lunch today for the staff and children of Jordan House which included chicken and a soda each (a real treat for the children). 

After lunch the painting team worked on the mural, we took photos of the children for our many financial donors and gave out gifts of stationery packs and chocolate Easter Eggs to each of the children before heading back to Emmaus Guest House. 

The night was spent at Ndere Cultural Centre where we were privileged to see Ugandan cultural dancers from each of the regions of Uganda. We enjoyed a BBQ of either chicken, goat or pork!

We headed back to Jordan House today to continue project work and to do activities with the children along with Dental education. Painting works have been completed at Jordan House with the mural on the fence to be completed. 

HIV testing continues with 89 tests completed in 2.5 hours today. Many activities with the children today and these included finger knitting, braiding, Noah's ark rainbow drawings with glitter and cotton wool decorations. The children love the glitter and ended up putting it through their hair, doing dots of glue on their faces and glittering their cheeks. Very funny! 

Karen Hill did a great job with Dental Education today, with her large model teeth and toothy tiger! She was also able to look at some of the children who had dental problems and advise treatments and further checks at the local dentist.

An early start today, leaving Emmaus Guest House at 5am to begin our Safari journey. 8 hours later we arrived at Queen Elizabeth National Park and to the amazing Mweya Safari Lodge. We were priviledge to see a Pride of Lions on our afternoon safari which is very rare and even surprised the local Park Guide. 

We also saw Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Water Buck, Ugandan Cob, Warthogs and many variety of birds. The following morning we did a sunrise safari and saw many animals again. Later that afternoon we did a Lake George cruise and witnessed many Hippos, Buffalo, Crocodile and birdlife.

As the evening approached the fishermen left the shores and headed for Lake Edward - they stay out all night and return in the mornings. Friday morning we headed home and stopped at Lake Mburo National Park to see Zebra, Impala on the roadside before heading 'home' to Kampala.

Today the team headed to Jordan House for more project work. The painting team have been doing an amazing job. The fence had it's second coat and is ready for a mural. The church building has had a facelift that is almost complete and Pastor Michael's house has been started for which is wife, Annette is most grateful. Some brick work has also been completed at the rear of the property to make the site more secure. 

Today was the beginning of our projects.  The men started on the reed ceiling in the church, while the painting team got stuck into cleaning the rendered walls in preparation for painting and the health team were getting set up for HIV testing and de-worming.  By lunch time the reed ceiling was complete and already making a difference to the temperature of the church hall area.

The painting of the rendered wall was well underway with ideas budding as to how it would be decorated and the health team had completed 75 HIV tests.  Alex had a great day entertaining the children who were waiting for their test results with bubble blowing, colorful stickers and many games of follow the leader and 'Alex says'.  

By the end of the day the rendered wall painting was complete and ready for the artists to take over, painting of the outside of the church had begun with undercoat and the health team had provided 105 HIV tests and de-worming for people of the local community.  All in all a great day's work!!

Today we headed back to Jordan House, but for church this time.  After 2 hours of singing, dancing, clapping and prayers the team was introduced to the congregation.  We each introduced ourselves and received clapping ovations.

We made a presentation of the hand print wall hanging that we we made on our last visit to Pastor Michael on behalf of the team.  The team then headed outside to take Sunday School, where Louise and her bunch of budding actors delivered the story of Noah and the Ark to more than 300 children.

By 12.15pm it was time for Community Lunch.  Some of our fundraising money had been used to fund the lunch to more than 600 people.  Our team took turns in serving lunch and the queue seemed never ending but 2 and half hours later the final person had been served.

At 3pm some of the team headed out into the community to visit homes of local people and to get an understanding of how people live in this area.