Uplift a Child - 4000 Children

Dear Well Wishers, Sponsors and Friends,

COVID-19 has impacted us big time. It might have impacted us financially but will not impact us on our success. It will not impact our desire to excel. Frankly speaking, most of our children and families are underprivileged and their lives remain the same during the pandemic. All of our fundraising activities are canceled for the remainder of the year. However, some of our donors are very kind to us and have sent us a little extra. We are also very thankful to the US government who has given us a total of $7,000  to help maintain some of our applications.

Here is a little update on our new school year of 2020-2021. 90% of our operations are in India, 10% in Congo, Kenya, Nepal, and South Africa. In India, the government has approved a plan for all the educational institutions not to conduct the final exams due to COVID-19. Instead, they have promoted all of the children to the next grade by taking their monthly exam grades, quarterly exams, and half year exam grade results to an average. Because of that reason, we are unable to send you a final exam progress report to all of our sponsors for the 2019-2020 school year (which generally concludes in April). For the new school year, the schools in India will be starting (re-opening) 3 months late.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is a similar situation, and final exams are not conducted. So again, we are unable to send a final exam progress report from there. For the new school year, it supposed to re-open in September and looks like they too may be starting a month late.

In Kenya, the schools will be re-opening only in January 2021. The government did not want to promote anyone to the next grade but to repeat the same grade again. All our children have lost a full year. I personally spoke to some of the children in Nairobi, Kenya and inspired them never to give up and continue the hope we all have for them! In South Africa, the schools will be starting January 2021. They will be on time.

Apart from our educational support to the children in all of these countries, we have also done some help for the families affected by COVID-19 and other related issues by supplying food and items under our budget.

 India:

April 2020: Our volunteers went to a few slums in Vizag, AP, India to distribute food supplies to some of those needy families. Please click on the link for details: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=upliftachild&set=a.1592409950922506

 July 2020: Apart from COVD-19, the state of Assam was impacted by floods. We are currently working with our local volunteers to help the victims of the flood (most of them are actually our Uplift a Child children families in the area). Please click on the link for details. This is ongoing and we will be providing a full report in the next quarter. See the details below: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=upliftachild&set=a.460819387414907

South Africa: Nagaraj Gurrala and his team from the Johannesburg area worked hard to raise some funds during the pandemic to help an orphanage receive some needed supplies. Please click on the link for details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvK_yLvAeyE

We would like to thank all of our sponsors, donors, and well-wishers for choosing Uplift a Child to help the community. We have earned all of your trust and that will continue forever.

Please stay safe and wish you a wonderful week,

Sam Vonumu

Dear Sponsors and Friends, 

For those who do not know me, I was a slum dweller once upon a time from India. It is because of a sponsor’s help I was able to go to school and get an education. Education has changed my life forever and today I have learned to give back. I have been giving my time, my money and almost everything for 19 years. I have a full-time job in the IT Industry. Outside my job, leading Uplift a Child International as it’s CEO in a voluntary position spending 2000+ hours annually. I may be one of the poorest American living in Washington D.C area. But I am very happy in life living a simple life with my little daughter Stella and my wife Rena. We are very satisfied in life and happy to go many extra miles to make a difference to underprivileged children in the world.

2019 was a challenging year for us. It was a great year for all of our children. Out of our 4,000 children, we had close to 1,000 children without sponsors. We took the risk and put them in school with a hope that we could manage. Making a little adjustment will change someone’s lives. Uplift a Child is thankful to our Sponsors and Volunteers for their dedicated service to humanity through their contribution of time and money. They are our backbone and we are successful because of their help. Once again, we left “No Child Behind” for education in 2019. All our children within our network are at School and doing very well.

Wish you all a Happy New Year 2020

Sam Vonumu

Founder, CEO & Chairman of the Board

Links:

• 2019 Uplift a Child Annual Report

• 2019 Uplift a Child Annual Report (PDF)