Last week I received a phone call from Peter who, with his wife, heads up the St. Nicholas Uganda Children’s Fund in response to a query I had sent him through his website about getting more information about his organization to fill out this blog post. He graciously agreed to an interview over the phone to highlight the work of his organization, but I bet he didn’t know that he would be so much of the focus on this blog post! That phone call was one of the most enjoyable I’ve had in a long time as Peter is amazingly genuine and very enthusiastic about his work with the Uganda Children’s Fund. It’s there in every detail of our conversation:
1) He retired from being a missionary to work on his project, the St. Nicholas Uganda Children’s Fund, full-time.
2) Based in Ohio (family and grandchildren), he and his wife spend seven months out of the year in Kampala, developing relationships with the children and families they support through their fund.
3) He was a fountain of information for me about visiting Uganda (I will be going for the first time in June 2010) and his willingness to share is a wonderful commentary on his character and the organization for which he provides leadership.
Where passionate and compassionate people work, they will gather interested and motivated followers and supporters. Peter, you have our full support. I think everyone should read this page about the history of Peter’s organization:
When Sharon Georges returned to Uganda in January 2005, one of her goals was to follow up on two children she and her husband Peter had begun sponsoring in school during their first missionary tour in 2003. What started as a simple inquiry developed into a ministry that would grow beyond anything she could imagine. Fiona and Henry, siblings and orphans, were not the only children in need in that particular family. Their grandmother was caring for them and seven others in a deteriorating mud hut wedged between a major road and a swamp. There were more grandchildren living nearby, some with a single ailing parent, some with another relative. Within weeks, the two became thirteen. After Peter joined Sharon in Uganda, other situations presented themselves: a family of five kids living completely on their own, a little girl abandoned to a neighbor, children living with HIV-positive single parents, and many more.
Half the people of Uganda are under the age of fifteen and there are 2.5 million orphans in a total population of 31 million. When Uganda’s bloody civil war drew to a close in 1986 and the country started rebuilding, the AIDS pandemic hit with full force. The result of these two devastating blows, combined with pervasive malaria and poverty, is that a large percentage of the “middle adult” age group has been wiped out. Children are being cared for by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors, and some are completely on their own. Many young adults find themselves without parents—and without the wisdom, guidance, and safety net that parents normally provide.
Education is extremely important in Uganda. Parents, guardians, and children see education as their best way of escaping a lifetime of poverty—scraping by as subsistence farmers or unskilled labor, and often early marriage for teen-age girls. Although primary education is partially subsidized by the Ugandan government, no schooling is completely without cost. The place of education in the Ugandan family’s priorities is evident in the fact that hospital admissions regularly drop off during the three times a year when school fees are due. Parents choose to do without medical care in order to keep their children in school. Although fees and expenses are low compared to western standards, they are still beyond the reach of many Ugandans, especially for people who are caring for orphaned children of relatives and friends as well as their own.
As Sharon and Peter became more involved with the children’s education, they realized that there was more to it than school fees, uniforms, lunches, and books. As in the case of the grandmother’s orphans, miserable living conditions can seriously affect a child’s ability to learn as well as jeopardize their general health. So their assistance became more extensive—improved living quarters, shoes, clothing, beds, mattresses, sheets, blankets, mosquito nets, food staples and health care. Although the cash outflow was now exceeding their modest missionary stipend, they continued to proceed in faith. And as word of their efforts became known, people of good will began to ask how they could help. Thus was born the St. Nicholas Uganda Children’s Fund.
Peter and Sharon resigned as missionaries in October, 2007, in order to devote themselves full-time to the work of the Children’s Fund.that Peter sent that gives much more detail about the ministry.
Download the entire info sheet here: Childrens Fund info sheet
You can also find out more at http://www.ugandachildrensfund.org
