ECM’s ministry in Naigobya, Uganda began through a missionary project, the Afayo Project, started in 2012. That project’s close ties with the local community and school led ultimately to the development of a Hope Center for vulnerable children, including several true orphans. Naigobya’s very rural, poverty stricken setting has led to many children being unable to attend school. The Naigobya Hope Center works closely with the school as well as the local families to meet the spiritual and educational needs of the most vulnerable in the community.

Masaka in the Lwengo district of Uganda was the scene of a terrible abduction of a preschool age girl for purposes of child sacrifice. (See Resty’s story.) When ECM learned of the plight of young Resty Nakijiira, we came in to help her and to develop a program that would lessen the vulnerability of other children around the area. The Masaka Child Sponsorship Project resulted. Children receive scholarship assistance and meet weekly for Bible stories, games and training in practical skills.

They are the most hated children in Uganda–the Karamojong beggar children in Kampala. Some were brought to the city by adults in search of a better life. Many were trafficked and put on the streets to beg for the benefit of a master. From proud families, experts from time immemorial in all things relating to cattle, they have ended up homeless, hungry, abused, outcast, and hated. Unschooled, unskilled, and with no future. If they don’t beg, they will starve. If they don’t bring in enough cash, they will be beaten. If they do beg they may be rounded up by police and sent away from their families. Caught in the middle of forces beyond their understanding, it’s hard for them to win no matter what they do. No wonder the Lord has laid the Karamojong beggar children on our hearts at ECM!

In the Katwe & Kisenyi slums of Kampala, through partnership with child sponsors, ECM has taken Karamojong beggar children off the streets and enrolled them in boarding school, where they are all making excellent progress, despite the fact that they had no previous schooling to prepare them for their entry into school. A weekly club continues with their mothers and other mothers of the communities to teach basic hygiene, family living skills, and to give spiritual counsel. After determining that it was not safe for the Karamojong children to return home during holidays, ECM began to provide the means for them to remain in boarding school during that time.

Our plan is to continue taking beggar children off the streets through child sponsorship while we also develop programs in Karamoja, Northern Uganda (see Karamoja Homeland). While the situation of the children in Kampala is very difficult, at least at boarding school they will be safe, be learning, and be able to receive visits from family.

The Karamoja Homeland Project is an direct result of ECM’s goal to stop trafficking where it starts. Recognizing that it is more effective to stop the flow of trafficking at the source than it is to only help the children who have already been trafficked, ECM began the Karamoja Homeland Project. As our workers address the root causes of child trafficking in the area, we hope to also show each child and family the personal love of Jesus Christ.

Kamwokya (pronounced kuh-moh-chuh) is a downtown slum area in Kampala, Uganda, and is home to many ethnic populations including refugees who moved from the north when Joseph Kony’s LRA bands were terrifying the countryside. In Kamwokya, ECM helps vulnerable children, including those with albinism, stay in school or receive vocational training through child sponsorship, seeking to reach these children and youth with the Gospel and to help provide developmental opportunities for them. Some families have been helped with assistance to start family businesses.

The Gayaza Hope Center helps many children whose families are in crisis situations for various reasons. The children receive scholarship assistance, and help with vocational training as appropriate. They meet weekly for Bible teaching, fun and exercise, and help with schoolwork. The children have learned a variety of other skills too, including gardening and then cooking the food they raised, cakemaking, beadmaking, choreographed singing, and various art projects. Several children with albinism are also being helped by the project.