Mary (49) has 6 children and lives in the Namatala slum. She came to our attention in 2011 when her husband passed on after a long illness and the family needed help in terms of burial expenses. At that time we took care of a number of expenses, including food for the family, transportation of the body for burial in the village and other burial related items.
Life continued to prove tough for Mary and her family; she fell sick for three months and the children had no food, clothes, shelter and all the general household items needed to support them. Child of Hope stepped in to offer medical care to Mary and a free school place to daughter Mary, now in Primary 4 Class.
Then the suffered an arson attack in February 2016 following the Ugandan presidential elections. She lost all her household property in the attack (picture) but she and her children escaped with only minor injuries. Mary was helped to recover from her loses and Child of Hope assisted her in renting another property.
Mary started to dream about one day owning her own house, and through the help of our Family Support team, Mary was encouraged to save weekly towards building her own house. By December 2016, Mary had saved the equivalent of just over £100, enough money to start building her three-roomed permanent house. That’s built from bricks and cement, as opposed to bricks and mud. Right now, Mary is confident she will be able to complete her new house by June 2017.