Good news from Bruce

One of the biggest yearly danish music events, the Roskilde Festival, has just ended.

Bruce Springsteen (the handsome man in the middle!) with the Caritas crew. To the left of Bruce (the also handsome man with glasses!) is Jan Sjursen, director of Caritas 

At the festival, Bruce Springsteen was one of the main acts (what a great concert!), and he also got the honour of giving the "Orange Donation" to a charity organization of his choice. The prize consists of the profits of last years festival and this year, 1,5 million danish kroner was handed out.


The good news is that Bruce picked a danish organization called Caritas to recieve this years donation. The money goes to fighting poverty in Eastern Uganda.


Congratulations to Caritas - we hope that some of the money will find its way to the Tororo area!

Ugandans know how to party

In spite of all poverty problems and other challenges facing the ugandans every day, they also know how to have a good time - in the bedroom!



Take a look at this documentary (danish intro and danish subtitles) about "Sexy Uganda". The documentary shows a side of ugandan women, that we are not normally told much about: For instance how older and more experienced women teach younger women all about their tips and tricks. As they say: A healthy sexlife is the basis of a healthy society.

Have a nice summer!

A donation for the project

Yeah! Finally some good news. We have recieved a private donation for Hands of Hope. 450 US dollars has been send to the Tororo office.

Phibby has written to us that: "I receieved the money you gave us for the office. I had to pay pending office debts since last year, so it helped a lot". 

Some of the volunteers from Hands of Hope in front of the office. 

Even though 450 dollars is not a whole lot, it makes a great difference to Hands of Hope. They are really struggling to make ends meet. Running expenses such as internet access, electricity and water, really is a great challenge for them. 


Hoping to recieve even more funds in the future - please let us know (send an email to sfof@sfof.dk) if you are interested in helping us helping Hands of Hope! 

Weekend reading

Governor Cohen

Want to know more about what happens in Uganda - written by the ugandans themselves? Then the Monitor  might be a good place to start.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/

According to our sources, the ugandan newspapers actually do have their freedom to write critical stories - although they might sometimes get in some kind of trouble for it. But they persist and the Monitor covers a lot of what of happens in Uganda.



This week, for instance, you can read about a ugandan human rights group, who is protesting against police violence. But you can also get a glimpse of ugandan history as the Monitor tells the story about the English Governor Cohen who prepared the road to independence for Uganda.

Applying for funds... not so easy!

Hi everyone

These days we (SFOF and friends) are trying to look for funds for Hands of Hope and their many good projects. We are working on several applications, trying to cook up some good ones. It is not as easy as it might seem!

Even though Hands of Hope is a genuine organization, their projects such as prevention of diseases, health promotion, basketball clubs and schools for orphans are necessary etc etc, it is still a complicated thing to fill out all the forms required by donators. Understandable - they need to make sure, that there is no corruption etc - but still very complicated for us who just want to help Hands of Hope :-)

If you know anyone who would like to help us in our fundraising efforts, please contact us at sfof@sfof.dk! Money, used equipment or a helping hand to fill out the forms - all help is usefull.

Power-cut

Just talked to Phibby on the phone. Called her to hear how Hands of Hope is doing these days. Turns out that things have been rather difficult since Phibby returned from Denmark.

When she came home to Tororo, electricity and water supply had been cut off at the office of Hands of Hope. They do not have money to pay the electricity bill so these days they are running the office without power. It goes without saying that this is not an easy task! They need a computer to run the logistics of their 12 projects and of course they also need light and so on to be able to work.

The situation very well illustrates the challenge of this kind of project: It is not easy - but possible - to raise funds for specific projects like cancer prevention or a health campaign. BUT: Raising funds for the daily expenses of an office is next to impossible.

Right now Phibby is knitting and selling sweaters in order to deal with these daily expenses. But it is difficult for her to make enough money out of knitting. So we are going to try to raise some funds in Denmark to help her run the office of Hands of Hope.

If we could find 20-30 people who would be willing to pay let's say 50-100 danish kroner a month for a year or two we could really make a big difference. This is the challenge we are going to take on now. Hope that we can make people join us!

What was in the suitcase

Phibby arrived with several extremley heavy suitcases.

This is why: When a ugandan visits Denmark she has to bring gifts. And of course she has to bring ugandan food to friends living in Denmark...: Sugar cane, sweet potatoes, spices and of course matoke - green bananas.

Matoke

More friendraising

Peeling the sigar cane for guests

Phibby showing the contents of her suitcase

Food for ugandan friends