Promoting Dignity: HIV Support for Uganda

The HIV epidemic in Uganda has left more than 1 million children orphaned. In some cases, elderly grandparents take up their care, but, for many, it is older children who are suddenly thrust into responsibility as heads of households.

Crossroads’ shipment to partners in the Bogosa region, Eastern Uganda, was hand-tailored to serve as a ‘bridge’ for support community strategies to bring relief from poverty.

Capital Investment

RS43785_MSMU-287Crossroads’ goal for this shipment, as for all, was to make a capital investment in the lives of those in need, not with finance, but with a strategic injection of goods to equip initiatives that will multiply themselves in years to come.

 

 

 

“Your support is a huge investment in the future of our nation.”

Just imagine the number of people who are going to be influenced through the items you’ve donated. When you set up an institution, you solidify a movement.” It was, they said, in keeping with their motto: “Promoting Dignity.”

RS43664_MSMU-166Medical equipment from Crossroads has revolutionised care at this rural health centre. For the first time, they can offer diabetes and blood pressure tests and have totally upgraded their level of care: “We can now offer inpatient services where clients are hospitalised on proper hospital beds,” they wrote.

 

“We can give better handling of critical patients with these trolleys. People are flocking to the centre for medical services!”

200 Children received toys, clothes and school books. All are from homes headed by widows or elderly grandparents who struggle to keep their little ones in school. Many of the children had never owned a toy before.

Give Now!

Donate to a shipment like this one.

DONATE MONEY

Donate Goods!

Want to donate goods for a shipment like this one?

DONATE GOODS

Uganda Snapshot

Population: 37.58 million
Capital: Kampala

Uganda is a fertile, land-locked country in East Africa, in the Africa Great Lakes region, with a tropical climate.

Great progress has been made in fighting HIV in Uganda, but 1.5 million people still live with the disease, and there are 1 million children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

39% of girls are married by the age of 18. 37.7% of people in Uganda live below the international poverty line of US$1.25/day.

map-uganda

 

Extreme taboo surrounds the process of menstruation in some parts of India, says local NGO, Goonj. What options do women have, then, without access to feminine hygiene products? In rural India, millions of women improvise with rags or, unthinkably, sand, ash and the like. As a result, they meet infection and disease, not to mention a crippling lack of dignity.

Goonj is doing what it can to restore that dignity to Indian women. In a project they call ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’, they produce pads and underwear out of cleaned, recycled textiles. They distribute these in packs to rural women, teaching them how to sew pads of their own. For the women, this simple provision is proving liberating and empowering.

This creative organisation also supports its women with another of their innovative enterprises. They train women to make paper bags out of recycled newspaper so they can earn income based on fair trade principles. These bags are sold all over the world, including Crossroads.

Any time you buy something from our Global Handicrafts shop, you will be given your purchase in one of Goonj’s recycled paper bags.

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

read more ...

Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

read more ...

Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

read more ...

Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

read more ...