AOET~Uganda Major Projects

1. Rehaboth Integrated School

 

After Renting buildings that acted as classrooms for about 6 years, AOET Uganda bought property and has built a wonderful School - Rehaboth Integrated School.

Right now, together with making final touches on the School (Paving the compound, Building the Kindergartten Section, Final Painting…), we would like to start construction of dormitories on this property so Children can have boarding facilities.

This is meant to serve two purposes:

1. First, We have Children that do not have a stable Home environment. Most of these are orphaned or vulnerable Children. Boarding facilities for these Children will be a great relief. Already some of the Children that we send to School but do not necessarily have specific sponsors have lunch at School and wait until the next day when they get lunch at School again! With Boarding facilities, we will be able to provide three meals a day for them.

2. Secondly, Rehaboth Integrated School will be opening it’s doors to Children from all over the great lakes region (East Africa Especially) to attend Primary School with us. This will not only further our vision to raise leaders beyond our boarders, but will bring another aspect to our training programs where the vulnerable see themselves as part of a bigger picture … a bigger world.

However, we are not only taking care of the vulnerable at Rehaboth. Our Schools are open to everyone. kids from well to do families, from cities, villages … everyone. This is the best environment for the orphaned Child.

To achieve this vision, it will neccesitate us to have Boarding facilities.

If all goes well and the funds are realized, boarding facilities for Rehaboth Integrated School will start early 2009.

2. AOET’s Rehaboth Childrens Village

 

In 2002, a small, old news paper inspired the Leaders of AOET Uganda to start a Children’s Village.

The News paper stated that, From the ’90s - 2002, 850,000 Children had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. Emphasis in the early and late nineties was on Rakai/Masaka Districts.

The News paper went on to give statistics on How many people had died since the eighties, How many Men/Women were infected, How many Men/Women had AIDS…

It was VERY disturbing information.

Feeling Challenged, - ofcourse with a VERY small staff at the time, and limited resources, everyone resorted to prayer asking God if there was something AOET needed to do in response.

In about 3 days, feed-back came from the staff to the AOET Leadership Team:

We were to Build a Children’s Village with an Emphasis on Family.

A Home with three Bed rooms, a Kitchen, two Bathrooms, a Dinning room, store, front and back patios… would be built.

This would be given to a family that has always wanted to take care of Children, but was limited by space. Additionally, this would be a functional Family - father and a mother with their own biological Children and we would give them 3 - 4 Children to add to their existing Family unit.

(For details and or More info on the Philosophy of this program, PLEASE contact us at: aoet-admin@aoet.org

Precisely, EVERY single day since 2004, construction of a new home is going on. Individuals, groups, Churches … are sponsoring a Home at our center. We also have Volunteers  from all over the world that come to volunteer on a regular basis with painting, planting trees, providing psychosocial support…

Our Vision and hope is that this will serve as a model of Good Practice for AIDS Affected Africa.

We already have people from Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya… that come ALL the time to see and seek advise on how to start a similar program, seeking to know the challenges we face running this program…

We currently have MANY, MANY Children resident at the center with many more on the waiting list.

Many homes have been built so far, but MANY more are needed.

Please contact us at: stushabe@aoet.org if you would like to help us build a home as an individual, family, Church group, Company or organization.

 

3. Early ChildHood Center and Kindergartten

 

A good start promises a good academic journey for the Child!

Over the past few years, one of the things that AOET has concentrated on has been Educating Children under 6 years. While difficult given the amount of time, Energy and resouces put into it, AOET’s Leadership believed that this was something that needed to be done.

With a little over one hundred Children in make shift classrooms at one of our centers, we embarked on a near impossible mission to build a home for the Early Childhood center.

An initial $30,000 USD was sunk into the making of Blocks, buying Steel for the foundations, Hundreds of Bags of cement…, but at the end of 2006, we realized that we were climbing a VERY steep hill after our fundraising efforts were not enough to take the project forward.

We picked it up again early 2008 and construction has taken off since then.

 3D impression of the center when fully done in May of 2009

The project will be completed by MAY 2009 and commissioning will officially be done together with our Donors and Line Government Ministry, stakeholders and beneficiaries.

Construction Progress

With Thousands of Steel Bars, Hundreds of thousands of Bricks, Hundreds of thousands of Cement Bags, Timber/wood,… Construction continues to crawl forward. As workers wheel away building materials, small Children - now having their classes in make shift / temporary structures a few feet away from the new building look on through the holes of the shelters!!!

One can’t help but envision them in an ALL Electric lit, properly plumbed building with real Bathrooms and proper classrooms (above)! This is the building that they will have in only a matter of Months, and as shown here, construction is in high gear!!!

The contractor was specifically told NOT to hire people from other towns, but individuals from the community around the project. As this happens, the whole community owns the project. They feel like they took part in building it, and so will definitely want to protect it. Economically, circulation of money as a result of wages paid to local people is translating into improved lives. What this clearly says is that Donor funds don’t only set up projects as requested by receipients, but when carefully crafted can actually go WAY BEYOND the projects into uniting communities, improving and touching MANY lives.