Holyoke’s Tricia Michael is seated next to Margaret, pictured at right, who was one of 15 youth in the CARE Uganda program to graduate this year. Tricia and her husband, Jeff, have sponsored Margaret since 2009 when she was a fourth grader. Margaret is now a second grade teacher in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala.
A village transformed
A well doesn’t just provide a drink for a thirsty individual.
Letters aren’t simply a means to exchange information.
Medical clinics don’t just heal the immediately afflicted.
And sponsorships do more than feed hungry children.
In the village of Kayango in Uganda, the impact from these things is far greater than the sum of the parts.
A well dug in 2010 led to cleaner water, fewer sick kids and an overall healthier population.
Letters mailed between children and their sponsors over the past decade have been the basis of relationships that may very well be lifelong.
Medical clinics brought awareness to parents and caregivers, helping them identify, prevent and address future health concerns.
And the $40-per-month sponsorships, on their most basic level, do keep children from starving. But those fed children go on to have a better education, growing up and making a difference in their own village.
That’s the way things seem to have worked in Kayango for the past 10 years. Missions help meet basic needs, and the impact radiates throughout the community.
Where it all began
In 2007, three men from Kayango spent three days on top of a mountain without food or water, praying that God would send help for their village.
Across the world, in a village in Nebraska, one man read a book that made him realize he had to do something to help the orphans.
The result was two churches in Grant, Nebraska, partnering with Children’s HopeChest.
In 2010, with five acres purchased and cleared, the work began. A care point was constructed as well as a latrine and a water well. Sponsors from the Grant area were paired with 104 kids in Kayango.
Among the missionaries who traveled to Kayango in 2010 were Jeff and Tricia Michael of Holyoke. They saw the village and got to know some of the kids before the ministry had a chance to transform the area.
10 years later
This February, Jeff and Tricia returned to Kayango with five others from the area for two weeks. It was the fourth time they’ve visited the village, and the impact over the past 10 years has been vast.
“It literally has changed not just the kids’ lives but the entire little village,” Tricia marveled.
Today the ministry is under CARE Uganda, which was established in 2013 when it became clear that the village needed more help than Children’s HopeChest could provide. The name serves as a reminder that “Children Are Really Everything.”
In the last decade, an additional 10 acres were purchased and extensive construction done.
In 2016, the ground floor of CARE Uganda Education Center was completed in two phases, and 50 students began P1 and P2 classes there. The top floor, which includes dormitories, was completed in 2018. Each year, a new class of 25 students is added as the students move up a grade level. Today, 183 students are enrolled, and 97 live in the dorms.
Other building projects included a goat shed, bathrooms, shower houses, a guard house and security gate, a playground, a library, a new solar well, and a church that is nearing completion.
Today there are 247 children actively being sponsored through CARE Uganda. Another 24 are currently waiting to be sponsored. Next year, the goal is to reach 400 sponsorships.
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