May you all be blessed!

Life, simple and beautiful. Children, different and beautiful. Younger, older, white, black, albino, or from anywhere. I love them all, deeply and profoundly.

Kayuza is an albino girl. She suffered a lot of persecution and bullying, having been considered “a witch”. She is now safe and cared for, at HOCT.

Babirye is a beautiful young girl who dreams to become a nurse. It seems that this is a profession that many of our children want to embrace. I strive to fulfil their dreams.

I know Namugaya since a couple years ago. She and her sister were among the first to seek help from HOCT, together with their young mother. Now they are growing like flowers.

Nkobe is a teenager who did not have much chances at finding a long-distance parent, because boys (and especially older boys) are usually avoided by people. But somehow, he got really lucky and a wonderful person is offering him food and enabling him to attend school.

Life is made of beautiful stories and I fight hard for all of them to have a happy ending.

It was a long, beautiful, hard day of work. We send warm greetings to you all.

It’s been a day packed with everything: maize flour, eggs, rice, beans, matooke, children falling asleep on the porch, bank issues, distribution issues, fixing of all problems, and above all, lots and lots of love.

Beautiful children, happy with their food, joyfully expressing their gratitude. May their parents be blessed always!

We started our week with quite a bit of work. We are slowly-slowly getting back to our routine, after the holidays. Each day, we organize our work in two stages – one in the morning, which consists in planning our activity, calling the children for food pick-up and ordering products that are necessary for distribution – and one in the afternoon, when children are coming and the actual distribution of food is starting. 

Things do not always go according to our plan – sometimes, products are out of stock, and sometimes it rains hard, preventing children from coming; but each day we try our best to find a workaround and to deliver good, high-quality work.

Of course, sometimes it may happen to make mistakes, but they are… just mistakes. We acknowledge them and we fix them. Mugoya and myself apologize to each other ten times a day, and together to the sponsors, when we do something we shouldn’t have done, or when we forget something. To make errors is to be human; to fix them, is to be a better human. So we always strive for that. 

What else are we currently working on? We have had quite a few people choosing to leave HOCT at the end of last year. Such is life; people come and go. We hold all of them in our heart. 

We try to find new sponsors for those children, and it is not always easy. We do not force anyone’s hand at coming to HOCT, or at staying if they do not like it. HOCT is free of pressure.

And last, but not least, these days we are working to complete the roof of our school. I can’t wait to get this done! We are working very diligently, but more discretely, towards this goal, in order not to make people tired and in order to maintain the focus of the people where it should be: on the children.

At the end of each day, our friend Mihaela takes a few pictures and makes a collage. She puts so much love in this work. We get to show the children in a happy, colorful context, and to also display their beautiful names. 

HOCT is a good place, and everyone works with all their heart.

Well, this is our story for the day. 

Each day, when the children come to pick their things, we get to see them showing a whole rainbow of emotions and sensations. Some are happy, some do not know how to smile; some are chatty and some are very shy. We allow the children to be themselves, and we never force them to “smile for the picture”. If they do, they do; if they do not, we will not love them any less (even though, we’ve had sponsors give up for the mere reason that the child was not smiling in photos).

Each day, we do our work with gratitude, and each day we learn to love more.

It is January 3. We worked with love and gratitude 🙂 Tashera fell asleep: Kibila is looking at us with his astonishingly blue eyes.

I am so happy today. The first day of work for 2024 has finished. We did not do much, as we are still recovering after the massive work we had to accomplish at the end of 2023. But we welcomed our children with love, we wished them all the best for the New Year that has begun, we discussed about their dreams for the future and about their present situation.

At HOCT, we are growing a little bit each day, and it is beautiful and inspiring. We are not in a hurry; we are not in competition with anyone. We do our part, in this forgotten corner of the world, and we hope that it matters.

Have you seen the movie “Schindler’s List”? In one of the last scenes in the film, as Schindler prepares to flee from the Allies, Schindler is given a golden ring, engraved with this quotation from the Talmud: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”

It goes the same for HOCT.

Happy New Year, beloved Friends, Partners, Sponsors and Long-Distance Parents! Happy New Year, wonderful children!

Here’s to another year of hard work, beauty and splendid achievements together!

We have worked very hard today, to finish the distribution of Christmas gifts and food items, as many children have gone on vacations. We wait for them with love and patience.

We always allow the children to be themselves in photos. If they want to smile, they smile; if they want to be serious, they are serious. A photo is just a frozen slice of time. The children are happy and grateful, they’ve had an amazing Christmas and, most of all, they felt your love.