OASIS ORPHANS CARE MINISTRY – UGANDA
P.O. Box 544
JINJA,
UGANDA
EAST
AFRICA
Contact
person: Mr. Mukulu Jonathan
E-mail: mukulu200@gmail.com
TEL: +256784035698
+256773946799
+256773946799
Website: oocmuganda.blogspot.com/
CBO Registration Number: BUG/06/O8/13
WHO
WE ARE
OOCM is an independent, indigenous Community Based Organization (Non-Profit CBO) which
was started in 2010 by Mr. Mukulu Jonathan to address the growing needs of
orphans and widows due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Though started as a community
based organization, OOCM plans to eventually upgrade to a nongovernmental organization (NGO) to
better handle the anticipated future characterized by abject poverty and the
unending spread of HIV/AIDS.
OUR
MISSION
OOCM Uganda is
a pro-life giving ministry whose mission and mandate is to uphold the
sanctity of human life and endeavoring to meet the physical, spiritual and
emotional needs to the HIV/AIDS orphans and widows facing welfare
problems.
OUR VISION
To
ensure the well being of orphaned children and widows facing welfare problems,
our aim is to reach all kinds of HIV/AIDS afflicted people in both rural and
urban communities through various means. OOCM works in:
- Assessing child welfare needs for orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children and coordinating resources for their care.
- Providing psychosocial care to widows and children whose lives have been affected by AIDS
- Empowering widows economically through pursuing income generating activities and vocational training.
- Providing formal education for orphans and vulnerable children whose families are affected by AIDS.
- Sensitizing and educating communities about HIV/AIDS.
- Providing mobile palliative care for people living with AIDS.
- Providing spiritual care and support
STATEMENT
OF NON-DISCRIMINATION
OOCM does not discriminate in regard
to religious or tribal background in its mission to serve orphans and
vulnerable children, and our community members living with AIDS.
OOCM PROGRAMS
Community Placement of Orphaned Children
As we identify children
that have lost their parents, we trace the next of kin to try and place them
there, so as to keep that unique semblance of familial attachment going. In the
absence of relatives, we identify families with the capacity to absorb one or
two extra children and then place them there. These families are expected to
treat the orphans as though they are their own children, by providing them with
whatever their families would: food, shelter, medical care, education,
clothing, but above all, love without peripheral qualifications. OOCM now
visits these homes twice every month to supervise and ascertain compliance to OOCM’s
child placement standards.
Children’s Home
In the absence of a suitable home for
orphaned and vulnerable children, OOCM provides a home to care for them as they
can meet that need. Children’s needs are complex and require physical, social,
developmental, and spiritual care to raise them with a sense of self confidence
and self worth. The Children’s Home currently serves thirty children.
Widows
Economic Empowerment Projects
It is women who
assume much of the responsibility for orphaned children ultimately. The income
generating capacity of these households is profoundly constrained by numerous
dependent children; lack of opportunity to accumulate productive resources like
cattle, goats, and farming implements; and difficulty in gaining access to
credit. They are further constrained by limited education and training which
limits their employability. OOCM has
countered this trend by organizing widows in groups, and then offering them
training in different skill sets such as tailoring, crafts, agriculture and
farming. The women work on skills of their own choice and demonstrable ability
for sustainability. OOCM raises support for sewing machines for groups of four
widows, supplies for crafts, and livestock.
Support Care Groups
Our
activities include widows groups and households affected by HIV/AIDS. We have 4
active grass root inter-denominational community based groups, called Support
Care Groups (SCG’s). Each of these groups has a leader, treasurer and
secretary.
Community Based Health
Education
Throughout Africa,
thousands of community-based organizations are
addressing the needs of children and families made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. These organizations are
strengthening the traditional safety net of the extended family through a range
of vital programs and services. Often operating with minimal funding and with a
great deal of volunteer support, community based Social Care Groups are the
frontline response to the needs of children affected by AIDS. Very few funds
are reaching this grassroots level.
We walk down to the people, deep in
the remotest of villages, and teach the basics; what HIV/AIDS is, what it is
not, ways and means of protection from infection, and how to treat and care for
the victims without discrimination. In vicinities where there is electricity we
show videos about HIV/AIDS, nutrition, and other sexually transmitted diseases.
At times, when we deem it practicable, we mobilize a parish, using the local
political leadership of the area, in concert with OOCM’s own registered
community based volunteers as a mass approach.
We also use the
home-to-home approach where we reach out to those who cannot make it to the
collecting centers for one reason or the other. This is where we also reach out
to the chronically ill, assess the vulnerability rate of the children and take
appropriate corrective measures, commensurate with our capacity. We
administer off the shelf medication, advise on when and where to visit
professional medical care, and offer basic
necessities like maize flour, beans, salt, soap, paraffin and sugar. We
also provide condoms through this approach, as we realized that the cost of a 3
condom pack in the local shops is the equivalent of almost 2 or 3 meals in this
part of the country.
Education for Orphaned and Vulnerable
Children
Education is such a vital
ingredient of a country’s development, as it is known to furnish the tools with
which children and young people carve out their lives, and is a lifelong source
of comfort, renewal and strength.
While Uganda currently has
a free primary education system, many barriers stand in the way of children
accessing a school, which has greatly
increased the overall dropout rate. The
implicit costs of building fees, feeding, uniforms, books and pens and other
scholastic materials are alone financially impossible for many families to
provide. Added are the complications of AIDS and other health epidemics as
children are required to stay home to care for their terminally ill relatives.
Household resource bases experience shrinkage, as medical care, funeral costs,
loss of work, and the like take their toll.
We at OOCM realized that it was our
duty to plug this gap in helping non-school going children access formal
education through the provision of the stringent scholastic requirements
necessary. To ease the burden of looking for the requisite materials necessary
for schooling, we are planning in the future to develop a primary school.
