From: Bruce Murray, M.D., DTM&H, President, Board of Directors, Yamba Abaana USA
Southwest Uganda has been enduring a very significant drought for more than a year. It has resulted in crop failures, as all farming there is dependent on rainfall as opposed to use of reservoirs or irrigation techniques that we have here. As result, in the fall of 2016 the price of basic food stables started to rise significantly. Many schools in the area had to start cutting back on meal portion sizes including at our school. Yamba Abaana (“Help the Children”) promised the administration of the Rubanda Solidarity School that we would be there to help them if the drought and impending famine continued into 2017. Unfortunately, the spring rains did not come either and by May of this year the school was facing difficult choices once again. Meal rations were cut by 50% to the children as food prices doubled compared to a year ago. Supplies of milk, meat, eggs, and fruit were sharply curtailed and the diet was basically reduced to beans, corn meal, and sweet potatoes. I was working at a hospital not far from Rubanda in June and saw firsthand many cases of severe malnutrition. I visited our school in late June and saw parched brown fields which should have been bright green, and heard of wells going dry.
Our children were not yet facing true starvation but clearly needed help getting adequate nutrition. The PTA and school administration requested that Yamba Abaana USA help with this crisis. Our Board of Directors responded with sending $5000 to the school in July to address the immediate food shortage. This allowed the school to restore meal portions to their customary amount for the rest of the summer semester that ended in late August. Personal testimonies from Peace at the school described the effect of our aid:
Liberty who is in Nursery year 2 said that
“In the past months, I would not manage to play and dance as I used to do with my friends, in fact my friends had thought that I had fallen sick yet it was due to the little food that they were giving us at the dining hall. I thank God so much who has used our American supporters to send us money and now the school has increased the food they are serving us. I am now enjoying skipping the rope and playing hide and seek with my friends because I feel strong in the stomach.”
The Board of Directors launched an immediate fund raising drive and we raised nearly $10,000 to handle the current urgency as well as to create a fund to meet future food shortages in the coming months. Thanks so much to our generous donors who stepped up so quickly to help the children at our school. You made a immediate difference in the quality of the kids’ lives! Bless you for your kindness.
Recent Comments