Today is a very good day!

NABIRYE TANISHA

This is Nabirye Tanisha, a little girl who was born on the 11th of November 2024 (a lucky day, for me, 11 is my number!) and will turn two years old next month. She lives with her grandmother, who loves her and takes care of her as well as she can, but who simply does not have the means to make sure that Tanisha has enough food every day.

In this photo she is sitting on the bench at our office, for her ”HOCT photo.” She looked at us very seriously the whole time, with those big dark eyes, as if she wanted to make sure we were trustworthy before giving us a smile.

She is a very sweet and gentle child, and it is impossible not to fall in love with her.

Tanisha is too young for school, so for now her needs are simple but very important: she needs regular, nourishing food.

We are looking for someone who would like to become Tanisha’s long-distance parent and help her with food, so that her grandmother no longer has to worry about what she will eat tomorrow.

If you would like to support Nabirye Tanisha, please write to me and I will gladly have you onboard Help One Child Thrive

Our email:

contact@helponechildthrive.com

….my Albino children

Today I would like to tell you about the children with albinism in Uganda, because their lives are much harder than most people imagine, and they rarely get the attention they deserve.

Albinism is a genetic condition in which the body produces little or no melanin, the pigment that colours the skin, hair and eyes and protects them from the sun. In a country where the sun is strong all year round, this means that these children are vulnerable from the very first day of their lives.

Their skin burns easily, and without protection it can develop sores, lesions and, over time, skin cancer, which sadly takes the lives of many people with albinism in East Africa while they are still young. Most of them also have poor eyesight and are very sensitive to light, so reading the blackboard at school or simply walking outside in the middle of the day can be a real struggle.

The medical needs are only half of the story. Children with albinism are often treated as different, strange or even cursed. At school they are mocked and given cruel nicknames, other children refuse to sit next to them, and sometimes their own communities keep them at a distance. Some mothers are blamed or abandoned by their husbands simply because they gave birth to a child with albinism. In parts of the region there are still dangerous superstitions about people with albinism, which means that some of these families live with real fear for their children’s safety. A child who has done nothing at all except be born looks a little different grows up feeling that the world does not want them.

What these children need is not complicated. They need sunscreen, hats, long sleeves and sunglasses, regular skin checks, help with their eyesight, a place at school where they are protected and respected, and adults who love them and stand up for them.

That is why I want to thank, with all my heart, the people who take care of children with albinism: the parents and grandparents who keep them close despite what the neighbours say, the teachers who move them to the front of the class so they can see, the nurses and doctors who check their skin and treat it in time, and every person who has ever sent a bottle of sunscreen or a hat across the world. You may never know how much you protect them, but they feel it.

When I look at these children, I remember something very simple that I believe with my whole being. Every living being, without a single exception, wishes to be happy and does not wish to suffer. A child with albinism wants exactly what every other child wants: to play, to learn, to be loved and to feel safe. The colour of their skin changes nothing about that wish, and it should change nothing about our wish to protect them.

This little one is called Isa Chencal. Danjela, I hold you in the highest reward!

Meet Kagoya Ashafat

One of our children at HOCT, and honestly, one of the happiest humans I know. Life hasn’t made things easy for her; her body hurts, things are genuinely difficult. And yet here she is, giggling, grinning at the camera, completely unbothered by any of it.

This photo was taken today, right after her monthly supplies arrived; flour, beans, bananas, eggs, the good stuff. Simple things, but they make a real difference between a hard month and a much easier one.

Huge kudos to her sponsor! Claire Demicoli there are no words to say how much I cherish you and our good collaboration. This is what sponsorship actually looks like; not just numbers or good intentions, but real food, on a real floor, for a real child who gets to keep laughing because someone decided she was worth showing up for, every single month.

Kagoya doesn’t need anyone’s pity. She’s got more joy in her than most of us manage on a Friday (it’s not Friday, is it?) What she has is… people who care, consistently, and that’s exactly what keeps a smile like this one going.

Keep shining, Kagoya!

READING

Do you know that a while ago we made a small Library at HOCT? It was the first glorious thing we accomplished together. Each person who had wanted to participate, had sent us a single book in English, via post. They all reached safely and we bought a beautiful cabinet in which they are kept.

Children come and read and they are happy, and it just… fills my heart with joy.

Each month, two beloved sweet and wonderful ladies called Josette and Mariella help many many children through one-time donations – they prefer like this, rather than committing, because this offers them more felixibility to help those who do not usually receive help from anyone – or are abandoned.

I cherish you, Josette, and I cherish you, Mariella – you have saved countless lives!

10 euros can save a life – it is THAT simple.

Donate through PayPal and save a life too!

PayPal: contact@helponechildthrive.com

Help One Child Thrive

THIS SMILE

This is Yakuti Seven years old, red shirt, Spider-Man trousers, and a smile that takes over his entire face and probably the entire room.

Behind this smile is a mother that works so so hard… A woman raising Yakuti and two other children. Alone

In Uganda, single motherhood has risen from 20 % to 30 % in recent years – those numbers are not a statistic, they are a daily reality of women who are, at the same time, a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a cook, a provider and a protector, all at once, every single day, holding back their own tears just to keep their children strong, because they are the only pillar… standing

Three children. No partner. Every morning, this woman wakes up and makes it work. I don’t know how. I know that she does.

Yakuti needs a loving sponsor who’d help with food. Maybe we are lucky and he steals someone’s heart today…

Fingers crossed, little one!

At HOCT, we are so lucky to have 545 children with long-distance parents! That is an amazing number! I would have never thought it to be possible! Did you know I started with 29 children?

As it is January, 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 for the children. At HOCT, we have the cheapest medical insurance in history: 15 euros per year, for all the illnesses that our Doctor can treat (and there are many of them).

At the same time, at HOCT, we have:

3 young mothers with small babies, abandoned;

4 elders with no support, over the age of 75;

3 can-cer survivors and 1 H-I-V positive

188 children without sponsor

Our Doctor will treat any of these without any demands for herself (yes, she is a lady!) – pro bono, as we say, but the medical supplies are still needed.

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐫, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝟏𝟎 𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫.

Offer a full year of healthcare to 10 children without sponsor and, apart from the great joy that you will get because of saving a life, 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:

– I will buy each of them a small 𝐭𝐨𝐲;

– I will send you a beautiful, 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝 that my Teacher (who is a Buddhist monk and painter) designed and offered to me with the purpose of helping HOCT.

MARY KWAGALA

This beautiful little girl with gorgeous hair is Mary and she is 4 years old. She lives in the village of Idudi with her grandmother and she has been brought to us for assistance, as they don’t have so much food.

I hope that Mary steals someone’s heart and that she will receive the help she needs, so that she can grow up free of stress, with good and nutritious food, so that she enjoys her childhood!

Fingers crossed, little one!

PayPal: contact@helponechildthrive.com

I’ve always liked this quote by Israelmore Ayivor:

“Your dreams are like the cement. If you water it with actions, it becomes a hard concrete mass. But if you leave it exposed and unwatered, the air will easily blow it away.”

Two years ago, some of our dear children in Uganda went to my colleague Mugoya and said:

“We would like to have our own school — with teachers you would choose for us, because you always choose what’s best… and then Madam Vero makes it happen!”

And so… we started building a school.
Mind you — I knew nothing about construction (though I’m sure my dad would’ve been delighted to see me try!). But learning came one brick at a time.

Now, HOCT School in Uganda is almost ready. ❤️
We’re currently building a kitchen — a space where good, nutritious food will be prepared daily for the children, helping restore and sustain their health.

We already have the bricks and the cement.
Next, we need:
🟡 Sand + Lake sand — 300 €
🟡 Aggregates — 150 €

With gratitude deeper than the foundation itself, my love and thanks go to my “cement angels” (I know, poetry officially died there 🤣):

Kristyl Gravina
Ioana Dorin Munteanu
Joe Grech
Pauline Abela

I sometimes tell my friends that my life is a comedy, and they kinda’… agree 😃

In my long humanitarian work for Unganda, a country which I love deeply, I was faced with the most surreal situations, apart from the very real, very normal daily work that you all see. The surreal, the pure Franz Kafka moments are those in which people try their best to… deceive me, or other sponsors, and I find out.

That is generally… not a good moment, to put it mildly.

As a practitioner of non-violence, I usually tell the rogues (when they are caught) that they get to choose between facing ME, and going to PRISON, and… you see… everyone chooses the second variant. Smart.

One day, a guy pretended to be dead – it was so hilarious to see him in bed, with napkins stuffed up his nose – mind you, he was a dead body 🤣- just to get away with the fact that he’d stolen 6000ish euros from a very good lady in Europe (his best sponsor!)

Some other time, another guy failed to give the food he was supposed to distrbute to the poor people (he just placed it in their arms for the photo, and then took it away – some level of deceit and shamelesness, no?) He served horrible time in prison, because I do not let such people get away with it.

Because of being a bad girl, there are currently two bounties on my head. Mamma mia, how fun! I feel like in a Western movie, with those posters… Wanted… dead or alive, but preferably dead… reward: $60 🤣🤣🤣

So if Bounties are what works there, I offered one too, for the safe location and retrieval of a missing child from our community (missing from July). The good lady that sponsored the child felt helpless, worried and depressed, because she is a loving, kind and dedicated soul and… who wouldn’t freak out?

And… we found the child, because I do not let children go missing and people (sponsors) go mad with worry. so yeah. We found Namukuve. Kris, I hope the news will brighten your day, beloved friend!

Very special thanks to:
🌷 Bugweri Central Police Station
🌷 The Officers who performed the field work (cannot disclose names)
🌷 The Informers (cannot disclose names, but you know who you are)
🌷 Mugoya Swaliki the person who works the most in this world!
🌷 Kristyl Gravina for trusting me that it will be done

All the previous persons who came to me in the past and required that I find their missing children, and I did, which helped me build up my own confidence that every good purpose can be accomplished – and also my own network of find-and-rescue.

Mamma mia, we’re good!