Three more important goals for 2012…
Reaching out to young and old
At Kids of Africa we all try to reach out! Our 92 children increasingly reach out to their nearby friends. We celebrate hospitality and we gladly organize community events. Our bi-weekly village runs reach across our shores. When our children started them, we were about a dozen. Today, we sometimes mobilize over a hundred other children even for spontaneous runs.
We also reach out to other community-schools through which Kids of Africa has impacted the lives of over a thousand. And we also reach out to elderly. To some, we can offer meaningful jobs. Others we can help through their own families or through basic medical support. “reaching-out” is an important principle at kids of Africa. It should support the development of the community we are part of. And it should set an example of compassion, which our 92 children will hopefully emulate. In 2012, we hope to reach out to about five-hundred families through a combination of agricultural-, technological-, social-, educational- and environmentally-targeted measures.
Protecting our environment
Rapid population-growth and economic developments pose a serious threat to Uganda’s environment. As part of our commitment to long-term development, we support several initiatives to protect our environment. Specifically, we raise awareness for environmentally friendly lifestyles, for replacing firewood (which causes widespread deforestation) whith solar-power and we actively protect certain bio-reservations, together with local community-leaders. With the pace of environmental degradation accelerating, this initiative will inevitably remain an important thread in many of our initiatives.
In 2012, we hope to protect at least 30 acres of wetlands, home to about 600 bird-species and many other important animals (like frogs, which reduce malaria through eating mosquitos) and possibly some remaining, valuable rainforests of our community.
Education: a key-priority in 2012 (and beyond)
Out of the 92 children at kids of Africa, about 70 attend primary school. The others are still in kindergarten. Put differently, 2012 will still be one of the most important years for their formation. If our children enjoy to learn and to look after themselves today, the chances that they may continue to do so in the coming years increase greatly. Because early education offers the highest rewards and the best chance to create a long-term impact.
In 2012, more children shall benefit from the many improvements we have made to primary education in our community. And we shall step-up our effort to raise and maintain primary education standards for as many children as possible. Because it is the best way to take care of our future.
