Humanity Africa is a name, but the initiative of Humanity Africa didn’t start with a name. It started with a compassionate heart that saw a need and chose to do something about it. In Uganda, burying is one of the things that are embedded so much in the culture. When someone, even in the distant circles, loses a beloved, people travel from every corner of the country to stand with the family of the bereaved in the moment of burial.

The First Ever Humanity Africa Initiative (Wheelchairs)

In 2017, to save you some of the details, someone had passed on, and as usual, people had to travel from Kampala to deep down in Mityana to attend the burial. During burials, people often try to explore the village, and oddly, they found one of the neighbors who had not left their home to attend the burial. This was too strange, for Mr. Luchi and his friends confronted her. They had driven close to 100 kilometers to attend the burial, but someone who was within a radius of less than half a kilometer had not left her home.

They went ahead to ask her why she didn’t attend the burial, to which she opened up about the issue at hand. She had a daughter who could not walk, and the last time she left her home unattended, she was almost raped. She told them that had she had a wheelchair, peradventure, she would have gone with her daughter for the burial. She also told them how she had stopped all the garden work away from home because her daughter was now grown, she could neither carry her to the garden nor leave her unattended.

With this story coming to the surface, Luchi and friends did a fundraising amongst themselves. It was around $130. They went to a town in Kampala called Katwe and got the lady a second hand wheelchair. This was the first ever initiative of Humanity Africa. It was Humanity Africa in seed form. No one knew that it could even come to the point of a simple act of compassion turning into a whole organization.

Luchi posted on his Facebook account to make some noise about the help that the lady needed. The wheelchair was simply a small piece of her needs. She need to start earning a living once again. People gave towards the cause and in the process other people that needed wheelchairs on the same village reached out.

It seems like many people on the village knew the lady but no one had taken a step to do something about it. And once they saw something being done about it, they reached out to Luchi to get similar help. (You can still visit the family of Shakira who was the first person to benefit from the wheelchair initiative)

Community Water Tanks

Working in the tours and travel industry exposes you to almost every corner of the country. It gives you the opportunity to compare the quality of life. While some places in Uganda are gifted with tap water, in most of the remote areas of Uganda, people have to share the same water source with animals. The same dams where animals drink in the afternoon, are the same places where people collect drinking waters.

It is not simply about the quality of water, but also the long distances that children have to travel. The tragedy was brought home when Luchi visited one of the communities in Sembabule where a whole school was sharing simply one room. They had no access to water yet they were the only school in the community where the financially disadvantaged children could get their first toeing in life.

In partnership with friends from the Netherlands, $4000 was raised and a community water tank was built. This was to rely mainly on water harvesting. In Uganda, it rarely takes more than 2 weeks without raining. The intensity of the rains vary but one thing that has been for sure, it will at least drizzle.

This journey has seen the construction of three water tanks in Sembabule and one borehole in Gulu. At first they has considered a borehole in the rest of Sembabula area unfortunately, after several attempts, water could not be found. We are now planning to create water dam with a pumping system that would allow the communities have accessible water even outside the season.

Reusable Sanitary Pads

In the process of offering wheelchairs and constructing water tanks, one of the community leaders in Sembabule reached out with the need for sanitary pads. The cost of the sanitary pad (single use) is enough for the family monthly expenditure thus it is not a cost that many families could bear. Humanity Africa saw the gap and started offering sanitary pads not only to school going children but also mothers.

A pack has three sanitary pads. Each pack costs around $5 and with these, lives are being transformed. We believe that this is an initiative that dignifies life. It is one of the least things anyone who wishes to partner with humanity Africa could start with.

Education

In regard to Education, there was need to have things structured to ensure that everything is in order and formalized. That was the birth of Humanity Africa as an organization but the initiative of humanity Africa has been in existence since 2017. We currently handle termly teachers salaries of $1500. This is around $4500 per year.

These places are open for those interested in volunteership. You can come and see what actually is happening so that you may amplify our voices to places where we cannot reach. Our mission is to dignify lives and we believe you are part of that story. There is more satisfaction in making someone else’s life better.

Humanity Africa Our Projects 

Kindly visit our projects page for more details about the following projects

• Reusable sanitary pads
• School fees
• Clean Water supply
• Wheelchairs
• Community Computer lab