Uganda
LOVE ROWAN
Location : Mawanga, a small village near Jinja, in Bugiri district, close to the Kenyan border (500 km from the capital Kampala)
Program start date : 2007
Date of partnership with SOLIBAD : 2013
Number of children/families impacted since the start of the action in 2013 : 370 families in 30 villages.
Amount invested by Solibad in this program since 2013 : €59,558
The program in detail:
The goal of "Rowan" (short for "Rural Orphans & Widows AIDS Network") is to provide some help and autonomy to orphans and widows infected or affected by the AIDS virus in several Ugandan villages. Thanks to the help of a local mission and a pastor, the founder of the project, the young American Kelsey Hargadine decided to help them, so that they can receive in addition to an education, all the support necessary to become independent, by helping them in particular with their studies, but also to produce arts and crafts, crops, and thus provide for their needs. Rowan is a Christian association, but above all aims to help a community in the broad sense of the term, whether its members are believers or not - tolerance is omnipresent towards others.
Since 2013, Solibad has decided to support the Rowan project in its daily needs, through several significant actions, following the trip of several members of our association on site, to better understand how to best help the ROWAN team and the villagers of Mawanga. an initiatory journey, where Solibad's envoys lived among the inhabitants, in a small hut, without water or electricity...and an extraordinary welcome from the entire community. (story HERE in English)
Solibad's first action, in 2013, was to finance the education of 15 children for a full year. The association initially sent US$4,500 for the children's education, and to promote the development of the Rowan educational program. Then, over the years, our assistance has adapted to local needs.
We have financed in turn the construction of a house for one of the new community coordinators, Juliette, whose particularly traumatic past does not prevent her from being both a ray of sunshine despite her HIV status, but also a source of information on AIDS for her young compatriots.
We also financed the purchase of plots of land for the community so that several families could cultivate and provide for their own needs, or the construction of a well a few hundred meters from the village, which until then had no access to drinking water. Also, we bought "solar kits" for dozens of families, who were able to have light in their huts after nightfall - electricity is a rare commodity in Mawanga - only the community premises have it thanks to a generator.
To go further and better discover Love Rowan
