Your First Luganda Lessons

In honor of the marriage of two homegrown organizations teaming up this summer / i.hug with spring street sessions / to raise money for a good cause and bring local music to the masses / we'd like to give you a little English to Luganda translation.

Compliments of Paddy Luzige (shown here).

>music for the masses ENYMBA Z'ABONNA
>music comes from the heart ENYIMBA EZIVA KUMUTIMA
>people helping people ABANTU NGA BAYAMBA ABANTU
>community KUMULILWANO
>no man is an island TEWALI MUNTU ABERA YEKKA
>collaborate, integrate OKUKOLAGANIRA EWAMU FFENA
>write because you have to WANDIKA KUBANGA OLINA OKUWANDIKA
>a perfect harmony AMALOBOOZI AMALUNGI
>defying gravity OKUSOMOZA OBUTONDE
>from the dirt, beauty arises EKIRUNGI EKIVA MUNFUFU

Create Connection

Back in 2004, when I just began reporting on AIDS in Uganda, I became fascinated with one question:

How do you get AIDS drugs from companies to patients?

Though I spent eight months researching the answer, to this day, I'm not really sure if I covered all the steps--between the pricing schemes and the different channels of distribution, it became quite convoluted.

But there's a similar sort of issue, though it may take even longer to figure out, for i.HUG: How do you get donors from the US, UK, etc, to connect with disadvantaged children in Kabalagala? How do you translate a set of circumstances there, for here, so that people understand the need, and really understand how their money is being used? I'm posting this picture because, at least for me, it provides that visual of time and place, and helps me to focus on what we're trying to do.

In any case, we are on our way to making that happen--at least, the first part about spreading awareness. This past week, i.HUG attended a dinner/salon to speak about our work (with all sorts of fascinating people doing work in Africa), turned around on a dime to put together a proposal for our first potential corporate donor (keep your fingers crossed), and held a successful fundraising event (bash on the rooftop with delicious food donated by Chip, Anika, Stephen, and Alexis, soundscapes provided by Ollie, Sinton, and Adam).

It felt like a complete whirlwind, but at the end of it, aside from many hours of cleaning the floor yesterday, is a stack of cash and a lot of contacts. It feels like it's happening so fast, and the main challenge is to keep pulling, pulling, pulling Paddy and Ronald, our Ugandan partners who also sit on the board of directors, into everything we do so that we really are working together, and toward a super-efficient model that people in Kabalagala will eventually call their own.

So, I suppose it's okay that I'm a bit sleepy this Tuesday morning going back to work....

Plant a Seed

OK--so were you really curious about the other surprise? In the off-chance you were, I didn't want to keep you waiting.

Most of you know how Jane and I and Paddy came to form i.HUG—if you don't, you can read abou it here. http://hugfoundation.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_hugfoundation_archive.html

As i.HUG newcomer and nonprofit guru Niki pointed out to me at our meeting on Saturday, there was so much inertia to setting up our group. One big challenge was coming up with a name. After much brainstorming (and a shout-out to Erica and her mom, who without them and the seven hour trip to Erica's graduation in upstate New York, it never would have happened), we came up with the concept of HUG and helping Uganda grow.

But before we were i.HUG, we were contemplating the name The Seeds Project. We liked what SEED stood for: Sustainable Education, Ethical Development. Ultimately, another organization had taken that name, but we decided to keep it as a name for our school project.

When Jane came to NYC in March, she brought me a tiny little cactus, as well as a slightly bigger pot, to symbolize the idea of Seed--and of planting something and watching it grow. But for the longest time, the cactus was doing fine--it didn't need to be transplanted.

But recently, I started to get the feeling that it was ready. So at the meeting yesterday, we (okay, Lynn) replanted it. And it is kind of a visual reminder to show how i.HUG is now ready for our next stage of growth.

Second Chapter

Jane and I are just concocting a little surprise for the group tomorrow. Well, actually, two little surprises. I'm so excited.
Its our second i.HUG meeting.

I was a little nervous. But now I'm really excited. When I think about the last two months since our last meeting, it's been such a blur. Something out of nothing. Our 501c3 submitted. Yay! Three of our mini-fundraisers are planned for the next month, courtesy of spring street sessions. And now everyone is coming over to talk about it, and then repeat cycle.

But for now, just 2 am, and assembling my thoughts.

Well, mostly I'm just trying to get my printer to well, print. We put together (shhhh!!!) a packet of the bios we've been collecting. Of the volunteers. I keep reading them again and again, because it's the most honest document I've read in awhile. We just asked people to write a few words about themselves --no guidelines at all. And we're throwing in a bunch of the pictures. You begin to realize, when taken together, that you can get bigger than just the sum of your parts.

I'll figure out how to blog it one of these day.s

And so now, I'm leaving tonight's night of work behind, and going to zzz... But I'm leaving this gem of a picture Jane sent me of her in Kabalagala.

I so love it, I had to share it immediately.

A Moment

Sponsor a Child

I was recounting with Mark about the first time I went to Africa. Actually, we were talking more about when I got home. How depressed I was. In Uganda, I had missed my running water, my bright lights on demand, my wireless connection.

But somehow, when I got home, that all seemed very empty. And the showcase of pastries at the diner down the block, the glass windows glossy on 5th Avenue, and everything else seemed very put on. Instead, I started to think about my time in Kabalagala.

Walking with Paddy through Kabalagala, you can hardly move. The children in that community come running up to him, and to me. They wore these huge smiles, but little else. Rags of clothes, barely. And the tell-tale signs of poverty: the protruding stomach, the no where much to go, and really the most shocking...small children as heads of households.

Back home in Queens, I couldn't sleep. So I got in touch with Paddy, and asked him what I could do.

I suppose that was the very beginning of our sponsorship program. Faridha was i.HUG's first sponsored child. Faridha was living with a relative who had taken her in, after both of her parents died. She lived in a house that was only a little wider than a king-size double bed, made out of ad hock pieces of wood. The house was lodged between a small winding river of sewage and a drinking den. But when Jane went to go visit her, she was at school. Proudly wearing her uniform. She just wrote me a letter, saying how she came in fourth in her examinations.

Today, she is joined by 14 brothers and sisters...and counting.

i.HUG's sponsorship program is intended to provide a safety net to the children like Faridha, who cannot afford to go to school. Sponsors donate $360 a year, which covers a child’s school fees, school uniform, books and basic healthcare. Sponsors are matched with a needy child, and they receive a photo and profile, as well as some correspondence from the child throughout the year. If you're also interested in sponsoring a child, send us an e-mail and let us know: hugfoundation@gmail.com

Mission Statement and Goals

The International HUG Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to reach out to disadvantaged and orphaned children in Uganda. We seek to provide them with education, access to healthcare, and an environment that fosters their physical, social, and emotional development. i.HUG’s use of local resources will ensure the sustainability of the mission, and will enable us to leverage successes to benefit the entire community.


i.HUG aims to:
• raise sponsorships for poor children so that they might go to school
• establish a school of excellent quality
• institute a training program for teachers and volunteers
• increase access to medical treatment
• form income-generating projects which contribute to the sustainability of the program
• benefit the larger community by creating a healthier and safer place to live.

First Fundraiser

There's a certain amount of infrastructure necessary even with the smallest of organizations. Take i.HUG. In order to launch our very first but very tiny fundraising effort, materials need to be written, pamphlets designed, ideas set in stone.

But sometimes, when explaining why we want to build a school, I feel at a loss for words.

There is no government-run school in Kabalagala. So many of the 3,000 kids there just don't get an education. Of course we want to build a school so these beautiful kids can learn, break out of the prison of poverty, become valuable and contributing members of society. But there's a more immediate reason, too. And I was so at a loss for how to express that reason before Jane read me UNICEF's definition of childhood:

Childhood is more than just the time before a person is considered an adult. Meaning much more than just the space between birth and the attainment of adulthood, childhood refers to the state and condition of a child's life: to the quality of those years. Children living in abject poverty without adequate food, access to education, safe water, sanitation facilities and shelter are denied their childhood.

So with that definition in mind, I feel amazing about putting out our first fundraising project. I'm including a .jpg of the leaflet, sent to schools Paddy visited while he was in England.

Always the last to know

On Saturday evening I rambled my way through downtown Cincinnati with 20 others to support the work of 'Invisible Children'.

'Invisible Children' is a documentary that chronicles the plight of the Acholi children caught up in the 19 year old conflict in northern Uganda. Many children walk long distances every day to their nearest town to sleep. In doing this their hope is that they will not be abducted or killed by the rebels. Night commuting has created problems of its own - increased sexual activity amongst youths which has led to a rise in the spread of HIV. Other problems are a general lack of resources for these children - few blankets, poor sanitation and so on.

Unlike the Ugandan children, my token gesture felt like an adventure rather than a burden. That was until I discovered that I was the only person who did not know we would all be sleeping outside. Luckily I managed to scrounge some plastic off a stranger. I can't say I really slept - the rain did not let up all night and my face and feet were constantly damp. Lots of people left throughout the night - calling friends or family to pick them up because it was unbearable.

One question struck me - what happens when you don't have an option? Or rather when the only 2 choices you have are to stay in your village and risk being abducted by rebels or walk miles to the nearest town and sleep in the cold? How do children stay positive when these are the only choices life has to offer them? Indeed do these children stay positive? Or do they despair and give up?

I hope that this conflict ends soon and when it does I hope that there are people still willing to stand with these children and help them get back on their feet. I hope I.hug can be part of this restoration. When the world is indifferent to the abuse and neglect of thousands and thousands of children it is time to take action.