Receive the warm greetings from the entire team at Kitega Community centre. We are excited to share some of the events that have occupied the bulk of our time in the past few weeks

Holidays continued
The children at the centre had a brief 3-week holiday. This is a really treasured part of the centre curriculum that promotes bonding between the parents/guardians and their children. The parents/guardians get the opportunity to make holistic evaluation of the progress of their children and also continue to encourage them in many different aspects of their lives.

The children are encouraged to take active participation in home chores such as cleaning agriculture and cooking.
The children that have benefited from the livelihoods project get an opportunity to monitor their projects and actively participate in running them. During the home visits, the team receives a report on the conduct of the student, his/her progress and areas that need improvement are also noted. Such an evaluation helps the staff and volunteers to employ a needs based approach while working with the student.
We are grateful for the staff and our volunteers that continue Instruct the Children and share their smiles and love with them.

Centre activity for the children resumes;

The students were welcomed back to the centre after their brief holiday and they continued to pursue their education. The staff and volunteers are now working hard to ensure that the targets they made for each student this year are met to a substantial extent.

Parents visit

As a rare twist of events, the children hosted their parents to a fulfilled Parent’s Day at the centre. The parents brought with them food, drinks and fun for their children. They shared with the staff their children’s progress as noted in the long holidays. The staff at the centre also reminded the parents of their God given Responsibility to take good care of their and their responsibility to provide a good home and inclusive community for such children. It was, by far, a very successful event and it is being mooted to make it part of the special events of the Kitega Calendar year

Much as the task of convincing these parents that these students are a special gift from the Lord still looms large ahead of us, we are thankful that each passing day we note that the members of the community and some guardians appreciate and respect these children for who they are. We remain hopeful that one day such discrimination of these special children shall become a thing of the past.
The struggle continues

The Children have continued to improve skills in art and craft and it is hoped that some of them will be able to earn a living from this trade in the future.
The communities where these children live have continued to develop a positive attitude towards them and have very receptive to the children. The children are now viewed as a peculiar blessing from God because through them their communities as well as their lives have been changed and impacted.
In the classroom the level of instruction is improving as the teachers continue to master the new curriculum and come up with more innovative ways of instilling knowledge to the children. We are grateful for the many professional volunteers that are making this possible.

Sign language classes for the deaf children;
The Centre has will soon acquire the services of a skilled sign language teacher. This will help a lot in helping the children communicate better and obtain valuable skills for their future life. We are thankful for the resources that are going to make this possible for the next two years.

Community Health
The children are all in good health and save for a few isolated instances there is a commendable improvement of parents concern of their children’s welfare. The Centre continues to encourage the parents to monitor the progress and take keener interest in the programs cut out for them and their children at the centre to make the Centre’s vision a more attainable reality.
The centre continues to rally behind the different advocacy groups to push our government to honor its mandate by virtue of the Abuja Declaration of 2001, to which our dear is a signatory, the member nations pledged to increase their health budget to at least 15% of the state’s annual budget, and requested Western donor countries to increase their support. Tracking the progress of the efforts, the World Health Organization reported in 2010 that only one African country had reached that target, while 26 had increased health expenditures, 9 had no noticeable positive or negative change and 11 had reduced it. Uganda was reported amongst the 11. In fact our present health budget stands at a shameful 8%. We are convinced that the welfare of our children and the members of our community shall improve substantially if our government is pushed to fulfill its pledge.

Meanwhile the Centre will be running a health camp in late October.

Volunteers
We received Linda from Scotland. Linda is a professional Counselor and she spent her time at the Centre teaching and training the various members of the community on how to carryout professional counseling.
By the end of her time at Kitega, she had trained tens of the participants of the workshops she organized. The successful participants were awarded certificates of Completion and we look forward to seeing the change that they will cause to happen in the different communities they stay.

Clare has been very helpful especially with the volunteers, students during their hours of study, the artistic paintings on the wall made for the children and the tireless work she does in the community.

The work that our esteemed volunteers do at the Centre can not be underestimated and we pray that the lines may fall for you in very pleasant places.

Gary Swart from South Africa, Steve Meyer from the US and Todd Frocht from the US also visited the centre in August – September 2016.

VICOBA.
We continue to appreciate the new leadership of VICOBA for accepting the challenge to steer on the different groups of VICOBA for the next 2 years. We are certain that the vision of Vicoba is in the able leaders of the new team that has been charged with the mantle.
The members of vicoba continue to excel in saving and investing the savings into gainful projects that continue to help them sustain their livelihoods.

Vicoba members during a mock counselling session 
We continue to appreciate all the vicoba trainers that continue to spread the seeds of VICOBA across the country and the entire region at large. We are convinced that this model has the magic it entails to cause an overhaul in our economics if it embraced seriously by all the members. It has worked for many at Kitega, it will work for Uganda and it will work for East Africa!

Local Church:
The local church in the communities that Kitega serves has continued to build relationships with the wider community and in Kitabuli, the local church and the community are working together to minister to the children and people with disabilities in their community, this has been an amazing development in the last few months, and we are looking forward to seeing more action and building their capacity to continue serving the marginalized.

Meanwhile the Umoja group in Kitega has been reaching out to the sick and needy in the community, praying for them and supporting them in many different ways.

The Prison Ministry.
The Prison Ministry of the Kitega community centre aims at giving hope to the many men and women that are incarcerated in Prisons. This is by preaching the life changing gospel to all the inmates and teaching them new skills such as saving, and gainful work. It is hope that when they get out of Prison they will be better citizens that are responsible and valuable to the community. The Program is on going and it is carried out by our esteemed volunteers Philip and Banda. Be that as it may, this ministry still requires lots of your prayers and support.

Christmas 2016

December is upon us and as is our tradition we shall host the community to some Christmas festivities in mid-December. We are certain that you will never tire in doing good and we therefore ask you to think about sharing Christmas 2016 with the Kitega Community Centre.

Share the Joy this Christmas  – Donate

We wish you all a happy month and May the Blessings and peace of the Lord hover around you this Month.