By Lynn Watts | Project Leader
Nafasi’s Chance to hold its first Open House!
Welcome to our first report of the year and our chance to share the news and photos of Nafasi’s exciting first Open Day, held to celebrate a full year of caring for our babies and infants since the formal opening of our purpose-built Nafasi Welfare Centre. We hope the photos ‘transport’ you to the scene and help you imagine the colours, voices, joy and energy of the day!
The aim of the day was to create awareness about the services we offer at our Centre to members of the Nsasa community where Nafasi is located. In the days leading up to the event our brilliant staff were busy distributing flyers urging our local community to come along and find out more. Everyone worked hard in preparing the buildings and garden and in planning interactive sessions for our visitors to enjoy and learn from.
On the day itself there were joyful welcome prayers. Nafasi’s manager then introduced the staff and explained how, as an Early Childhood Development Centre, Nafasi is working to promote the physical, emotional and nutritional health of babies and under 5s, plus develop their social and emotional skills.
The children who came along from the local community got involved in lots of fun activities, and it was lovely for the babies and toddlers in our care to meet and interact with other young children. Some local parents expressed interest in bringing their children to us for day care – so perhaps Nafasi may have yet another ‘New Chance’ to develop further as a community project and resource.
Four of our teen mums, who Nafasi helps or have their babies in our care, took the lead in looking after local visiting little ones whilst their parents chatted to staff and participated in various adult activities. This boosted these teenagers’ self- esteem because they were praised and appreciated. They realised that despite their tumultuous past they could still be recognized as useful members in their communities. Visiting mums had the chance to see the good job that these teen mums are doing in raising their children with support from Nafasi. A few expectant young local mums reached out to our teen mums to learn more about some of the practical skills and knowledge they have acquired at Nafasi or by participating in our community support project.
We are really pleased that the open day provided this opportunity for mums to interact. It also raised awareness that, despite the challenges of motherhood at a young age, with the right support teenage pregnancy does not have to be the disaster that it all too often turns out to be in Uganda. Our visitors left with a greater understanding of the plight of teenage mothers, and how collective and community intervention can begin to address the problems. We are very hopeful that another extremely important and positive outcome from the day will be that more local families will be prepared to foster a child in need, whether that be a baby or their teen mum, who of course is still a child herself.
We are thrilled to finish our first report of 2019 with news that in January Nafasi was recognised as a 'Top-Ranked Organization' by GlobalGiving, the leading global platform for grass-roots charitable projects. Better still, we have been awarded a total of 4 GlobalGiving accolades! We have also earned the 'Effective Organization' and 'Vetted Organization' badges and been given status as a 'Site Visit Verified' Organization. This recognition is helping us raise more money to provide crisis care for vulnerable babies and young children in Uganda at our Nafasi Welfare Centre, and to extend our work with teenage Mums through the Nafasi Community Support Programme.
Thank you GlobalGiving for this recognition and thank you all our wonderful supporters and donors who make all our work possible. 2019 has got off to a brilliant start!
Please help us to keep raising our social media profile. You can find us on Facebook at ‘Nafasi Welfare Centre’, so please Like and Follow and Share our posts with family, friends and colleagues. Help us to trend on Twitter at #NafasiCares and on Instagram as ‘nafasiwelfarecentre’ – where we’ll regularly be posting the latest photos.
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