Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbEzYi7eL4k

Wow – this last 3 weeks has been a rollercoaster and we want to thank you for joining us on our journey and given us your time and love and made this trip a huge success.

Our aim was to make it as interactive as humanly possible and I think we pulled it off. Practically every night we have uploaded a video produced and edited by the brilliantly talented Saffron Jackson and our wonderful A Team in the UK and US comprising of Kirsty Stephenson, Matthew Knight, Lisa Howells and Matthew Edmonson have helped us distribute the videos onto loads of video sites across the worldwide web.

I want to thank Nerys Nicholls and Lara Gordon who have helped us with the logistics in the UK and Uganda

In Uganda we’d like to thank:  Mercy Ndirangu and Isobel Booth-Clibbons from Families for Children, Charles Mugasa, Esther Tumuhairwe, Ruth Chelangat, Diana Sande, Charles Banura from Home Start Uganda, the wonderful mothers who shared with us their experiences of bringing up ther children Nule, Esther, Christine, Lucy, Rose, Rosetta, Millie and Miriam, our team Norah Owaraga, Dr Catherine Ndekera, Peter Ndekera and Dennis Owaraga. Dr Atai and Faith Karamagi from Mulago Hospital, Mr Ssozi, John Kasule, Rachel Parsons, Larissa Rwakasiisi and Steve Waldron, Frank Dramba and Henry Walusimbi,Patrick our wonderful reliable driver, Barbara Nankya at Sanyu Babies’ Home, Barry Egan, Ben Ssebuufu, Damilie from Waaksia Ministries, Immaculate Kiiza from Hope For Children, Joel our housekeeper, Venita and Matt, Martin Shearman at the British High Commission and Kate Wedgewood from DFID.

We also want to thank everyone who has followed our journey and actually played a big part of the success – thank you for all you messages telling us to get some sleep, your questions and your brilliant support.

Lots of love Lucy, Brian and Saffron.

After 10 days of discussing, debating, agreeing and disagreeing we are both very excited to introduce our pioneering project which aims to tackle child abandonment problem simultaneously on three different levels – Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation.

Prevention

We will work in partnership with Home Start–Uganda, an existing family support NGO on a project to support pregnant women at high risk of abandoning their babies to help reduce the numbers of babies at risk. Our aim is to improve mothers’ circumstances and parenting skills and ultimately benefiting over 300 children a year.

Care

We will set up and run a transitional and dynamic Children’s Centre  providing high quality, short term care to safeguard the lives of up to 48 abandoned children aged 0- 2.

Rehabilitation

We will set up a social work department with the specific aim of resettling children back into their own families or extended families or finding caring families to foster or adopt them, instead of the common expensive long term institutional care until they reach the age of 18 years old.

We put our brilliant Social Work Advisor Brian Waller in front of the camera and asked him for his valuable, expert opinion on our project.

Link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt2yLrnq8_U

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It’s great that you’ve gone there with an open mind and are listening to what people are saying. The fact that prevention is now a much higher priority for the charity definitely seems to make sense – I’ll be interested to see how this commitment to prevention takes shape.

I have a question about the transitional care centre. How will you find foster or adoptive families for the children? How will you vet these families? And is there an organisation in Uganda that registers suitable families that you can work with?

Thanks.

Ian

Who better to answer than our Social Work Adviser Mr Brain Waller:

The first is by rehabilitation back within their own families or extended families. Although this might seem an impossible task, given that the children have been abandoned, but we have found mothers often leave enough clues to make it possible (through careful investigation) to find them. Then we can see if she can be helped in some way to resume care of her baby. Although it might seem unlikely, given that such a big decision has been taken, we know that once a baby is on the scene the mother’s own family can sometimes be persuaded to welcome their daughters – and their babies – back into the fold.

The other route to family life is, as you mention, Ian, that of finding foster or adoptive homes. This is not as easy as it might sound, given the very different culture here. But the good news is, it can be done and we have met some remarkable and talented Ugandan social workers who are finding new homes for children from orphanages. Our home will be catering for babies, and these are easier to place than older children, so we are optimistic that it can be done, especially once we get known here and establish links with key contacts, such as women’s group, local churches and local leaders, who will often know who might be interested in being a foster or adoptive parent. We have also met some remarkable people who are already doing it and we hope that they will work with us as “ambassadors” for our project.

I hope that’s helpful, Ian, and thanks again

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P.s. When the trip is over we will update our FAQ page with all of your questions and answers.

When, last September, Lucy first told me about her ideas and asked me to be her Social Work Adviser I was, to be honest, rather sceptical. In my  long career  in Child Welfare, including work in Africa, I had learned to be very cautious about people with bright ideas and extremely doubtful about orphanages of any description. I remember writing some stern words of warning about her plans and rather hoped she would go away.

In the event, and being Lucy, she persisted and persuaded me to listen to what she had learned in Uganda over the last four years. Since then we have innumerable conversations and some arguments, about what might work best in Kampala and, most importantly for me, be consistent with modern social work principles and practice.

It has proved to be an intriguing but productive journey – the child care expert meeting the pioneering visionary, so to speak. And now here in Uganda we have had a chance to actually test out our ideas in practice by looking at a whole range of services, good and not so good, here on the ground and, above all, to talk with Ugandan families and professionals about what they want to happen to give families and children “at risk” a better chance.

I now believe that there is definitely a place for a relatively small – perhaps a 20 place – specialist transitional home or centre for babies and toddlers who have been abandoned in Kampala. The emphasis needs to be on top-quality care coupled with a total commitment to find families for these children as soon as possible.

But in addition to this I have always felt that more is needed and we now both see this in terms of some preventative services designed to offer help and support to mothers at the end of their tethers. I think that Home-Start Uganda could provide this for us at Mulago hospital. Later perhaps we might see a place for a day centre to support families in dire need.

Lucy and  are  very close now to an agreement about what Child’s i Foundation can  best do and I am feeling positively enthused about the difference the charity will  make  to the lives of  some extremely needy children  in Uganda.

What a journey – but what a worthwhile destination!

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