By Karin Ringheim | President, Friends of Canon Gideon Foundation
The Hope Institute for Transformational Leadership and Development, a vocational training school for vulnerable youth in Uganda, supported by the Friends of Canon Gideon Foundation USA and other donors, was forced to close in March, 2020 due to Covid 19. To help the school reopen with Covid safety protocols in place, we initiated a campaign in late 2020 to raise funds for Covid prevention and training, as well as to rennovate and reconfigure a space for a library and study area for the students. While the GlobalGiving campaign did not meet its goal for this purpose, a parallel fundraiser by our headquarters in Sewanee Tennessee was able to raise the full amount. As of October, 2020, 27 students who were scheduled to graduate in Spring, 2021 returned to school and are preparing to take their National exams in March 2021. To date, there have been no Covid cases among students.
As the attached report, written by school Principal Ruth Ninsiima Mbalinda, (and featuring photos of the students and the library), shows, the Hope Institute has achieved a number of successes in recent months, including the creation of the library space and a garden to support the student's nutritional needs. Ongoing challenges include the slow recruitment of new students for the Fall, 2021 term. This is to be expected given that Hope Institute students are largely from poor families hard hit economically by the pandemic. Nevertheless, FOCAGIFO plans a vigourous campaign to enroll 200 students by the Fall. The report notes the need for vocational training materials for the Library, in the areas of study offered by the Hope Institute. These challenges will be considered in future fundraising campaigns.
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