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