CHRISTMAS 2017

As usual, Christmas had to be special for us here at FALCO.
This time we went out of the familiar village environment and took the children to one of the hotels outside Kisoro town with beautiful gardens. Thats where we had our celebrations.
It was about dancing, singing, snacks, Xmas cake, photo taking and offcourse a short message about Xmas and the new year from our social worker.

2017 in Review

We are deeply grateful to God for a fruitful 2017. Our dear sponsors and partners, THANKS so much for turning around the lives of these children.

Here is a summary in pictures of 2017. The year had: Children's outing, parents' loan scheme where parents get small scale loans and repay without interest. This has enabled them to do farming and other projects; rotation of domestic animals continues; center days for classes, games and revision, sports, health and hygiene workshop, counseling visits to some families and domestic support to families with items like soap, body jelly etc.

Hosting visitors

The month of November was special at Falco. We hosted two groups of visitors. One was two interns from Belgium and the other was composed of 8 interns from Sweden. We visited homes, had fun activities, shared each others cultural practices and norms and the children sang and danced as they love to do. These events are very good as they expose the children to different cultures and develop their social skills. It's also an opportunity for us to network and showcase the work we do. This has greatly contributed to our growth over the years.  Children are now in their end of year holiday and we look forward to an exciting Christmas. We have noticed that many of our children either don't have shoes or their shoes are too old and uncomfortable. We appeal to our sponsors and partners to enable us give a pair of new shoes to each child as a Christmas gift. It will m as keep a world of difference! Each pair costs $15. Merry  Xmas!!

Empowerment through education

We are in the last term of the school year now before children break off for the long Xmas holiday. We continue to empower our children through inspiring them to stay in school (The school drop out rate in this part of Uganda is so high). One of the ways we do that is providing books and other school recquirements and lunch at school. Its clear from the images below that the children are growing up fast!

5 of them are due to sit for their primary leaving exams due next week. Please pray for their success and provision because secondary school is much more expensive and the needs are many. We shall continue to contribute to the fees and requirements for those who will proceed to secondary school, however, it will be more than what we provide now and we shall ask the guardians to contribute a small part...it will be a shared responsibility just like it is now.

Thanks our dear sponsors for standing with these children and putting a smile on their faces and hope in their hearts!

More children still remain unsponsored and we appeal to those who want to be a part of this cause to contact us for details.

War against poverty

We continue to tackle the problem of household poverty affecting our families through our economic empowerment program. We assist family heads to do small scale farming, business and have some domestic animals to keep at home as a form of wealth.

Here we bring you the mother of Gato Jackyline, who has been assisted once again to hire a small piece of land for cultivation for two seasons. its a common practice for families that have no land of their own to hire land and dig to feed their families and get an income.

This particular family, of 8 children, is one of the most needy in our programme. However, gradually we hope to work with them to get a sustainable income generating project for them. Both the man and his wife don't have a particular job and have no land of their own for cultivation. Yet its a big family which includes a 9 month old baby.

This particular programme recquires the support of all peaple who love children and want to contribute to a better future for them. Some of the families have sound small scale business ideas which are beyond our ability to fund as a project.
For instance, there is a guardian to one of our supported children ( Kwikiriza Angel ) who is trying to start a saloon business. She needs $ 350 but from the project budget we shall be able to contribute only about $ 60. Any contribution to that family will be highly appreciated.

Here is Gato's mum called Apophia...