YOUR DONATION IS MATCHED!

I am honored to share my June 23 birthday with my Ugandan son, Ambrose Iradukunda, whom I met on my visit in December 2023 to the BACHO program in the village of Rwenshame, Uganda (at Lake Edward, and Queen Elizabeth National Park). For more information about BACHO, visit bacho.sahaya.org.

Ambrose and I connected very well, and I was impressed by his very gentle and caring nature, his intelligence, and his talents in poetry and singing. As he was an orphan, we decided to become father-son. It wasn't until later that we realized we share the same birthday! Recently Ambrosed contacted me with the request to start a fundraising page for him as he wanted to use his birthday to raise money for children at BACHO.

Then on May 29, an emergency situation took place at BACHO. In the fishing community of Kisenyi, approximately 28 km north of Rwenshama, a severe storm caused flooding, that destroyed many huts, and many villagers lost all their belongings. They walked along the road and faced dangers, especially when they had to try to find shelter at night knowing that there were hyena sightings. After 2 days, they showed up in Rwenshama where someone told the kids to go to BACHO. This included 32 children, many of them full orphans, who except for the clothes they were wearing (and some of them didn't have any clothes), had nothing. The few adults in the group have been finding temporary shelter with other people in Rwenshama or sleep in public places such as the church. Some sleep in places where there is the risk of wildlife at night. There are an additional 9 children in Rwenshama whose hut also recently collapsed, making it that we have a total of 41 children in urgent needs of a safe home.

As the children were referred to BACHO and showed up at the doorsteps, hungry, with dirty clothing and exhausted, the BACHO volunteers including Ambrose immediately jumped into action and did their best to assist them with a meal, borrowing clothing from other children in the village, and trying to find a safe space where they could sleep and not worry about the lions and hyenas that venture through the village at night.

Finding space to sleep has been a big challenge, as the 2 dormitories for orphans that we completed recently are already occupied to their maximum capacity. For the first few days, these children had to sleep on concrete floor at the BACHO headquarters and in the living room and kitchen of the girls dormitories.

We had to come up with an emergency plan to assist them. We already sent over some funds to get this started while we start to raise these funds. With these emergency funds, BACHO purchased one large tent, several smaller tents, food and clothing.

The total of our fundraising goal is $9,600 for immediate relief for these 41 children for 2 months. This covers:

Purchase of the tents for the the BACHO headquarters, adjacent to the dormitories (one tent for each sex). In addition, the children need other supplies (mattresses, blankets, towels, soap, clothing etc). The total of this is approximately $6,000. Scroll down to see the budget breakdown.
Food expenses: per month the projected expenses are approximately $1,300. So for 2 months, this is $2,600.
Basic school supplies (notebooks, pens): approximately $25 per child, so a total of $1,000.

We are appealing to your generosity and we invite you to become part of this effort of giving these children renewed hope and a future. Any donation, of any amount, will be much appreciated and helps us one step further.

We will match your donation 1:1 until we have reached our goal.

Please note that as with any online donation platform, there are transaction fees, which we hope you can cover. The platform also asks for an extra tip, but you are under no obligation to tip, and can set that to zero.

If you like to avoid any transaction fees, you can also make a check, payable to "Sahaya International", with note "birthday fundraiser" to Sahaya International, 1504 Portola Street, Davis, CA 95616

Many thanks in advance

Koen Van Rompay (Founder, Sahaya International)

For more information about Sahaya International, visit www.sahaya.org, or watch our award-winning documentary, Sahaya Going Beyond (narrated by Jeremy Irons) at https://vimeo.com/65517422

Ambrose

Ambrose and Koen's birthday fundraiser for emergency support for displaced orphans in Uganda

Your donation will be matched

Team Members