Bringing a smile to children through donations

In times past, most parents with children with special needs kept them out of sight for fear of being discriminated against. Working at Mulago National Referral Hospital in the Physiotherapy department, Ms Florence Namaganda watched those that took a step to access help from their children grapple with limited access to occupational therapy and more despite travelling long distances.

 This prompted her to start the Mukisa Foundation, a community-based center to bring these services closer to the people.
The center also ensures each child has a medical diagnosis, helps parents access surgical interventions for their children, and provides nutritional support.
Depending on their abilities, the children are fitted in a suitable educational institution to cater to their learning. Those who come to the foundation for education only pay a small fee, depending on the family’s ability.

Seeing that the children are at the center daily, the highest quality of care in terms of nutrition, and hygiene. That calls for ensuring the basic needs of a home such as sugar, rice, posho, nutrimil, milk, soap, and washing liquid, among others.
“However, there are many that cannot control their bowels. To ensure their dignity and that of their parents as they transport them to and from the center, they need diapers and wipes. However, looking at the number of children, we prefer disposable diapers to avoid the work that comes with washing the reusable diapers,” she says. The older girls, on the other hand, may need sanitary towels.
Apart from education, all the services at the foundation are free of charge. That is why the help from VW Uganda, who paid the foundation a courtesy visit on June 9 was such a joy to all the stakeholders.

For Ms Namaganda who has been running the center for the last 18 years, seeing young Ugandans think about them was amazing.
“For the last 18 years, we have looked outside Uganda for help. Seeing young Ugandans giving back to the children and making other people's lives better was very heartwarming,” she says.
Ms Namaganda adds that the things they brought such as food have saved us a lot of money because we need to buy food every day,” she says.

On another front, Ms Namaganda says the children’s parents were amazed to see young people driving amazing cars coming to sit with them on the mat to share a meal.
“It was them saying to these parents that, “We see you as fellow humans, we see your need and we will stand with you.” The parents felt acknowledged and dignified that these people were bringing and sharing a meal with them,” she says.

VW Group
Mr Louis Bismarck Ovon, Chayimani as he’s popularly called, the group Leader of VW Uganda says every Heroes' Day, the group chooses a charity to give back to.

“We don't want to be affiliated with one charity because there are many different charities and we want to spread the love. While we currently look at those within Kampala and Entebbe, we are thinking of widening our scope to go beyond that,” he says.
The drive is to ease the financial challenges that many of these groups face and the target collection this year was Shs10m, which they hit with some extra. Of that, about Shs7.8m was used to buy food items such as rice, Posho, eggs, biscuits, sugar, powdered milk, and other items like sanitary pads, diapers, scholastic materials, and two wheelchairs. About Shs2.7m was handed to Ms Namaganda. Mr Ovon says they have also made some collections of used clothes, shoes, and books.

“It’s a one-time visit every Heroes Day to bring a smile to the children and this was made possible by car owners and enthusiasts as well as friends. We have also got money from organisations like Ray Perfumes and Sky Re-Insurance Brokers among others,” he says.