And a 2010 Amnesty International report shows, between January and June 2009, there was only a 1.83 per cent conviction rate for rape and a 5.89 per cent conviction rate for defilement cases. Defilement is the all-too-tidy euphemism used in Uganda for sexual molestation.

How do you even begin to inject hope and change into a society with those kind of horrific human rights odds? Among many other strategies, we empower the women and unleash the full legal power of attorneys like Ugandan’s Rose Nsenge, a strong ally in our Project Justice program.

For eight years, Rose has proven that “I’ll do anything to help anybody as long as it’s within my power! When I feel justice has to be done, I’m not going to eat. I’m not going to sleep.  I will make sure I follow each task until the very last conclusion.  I don’t mind having sleepless nights if, in the end, I get justice.”

Working closely with legal authorities, Rose helped mobilize our St. Kizito community, identified the headmaster who’d assaulted the girls, and got him arrested. After serving some time, he was released for lack of evidence (all-too common in Uganda). But he was run out of the community – for good. As importantly, Rose sees people in the community rising up with their own sense of empowerment. “Now when we return to St. Kizito we ask, ‘Where are the children?’ And they are in school. And the majority of women? They are making decisions and holding positions in the community.  They are more vigilant about protecting the children.”

A 29-year-old mother of two, Rose grew up in the slums of Kampala. She became outraged when she saw how she and other children had no voices in her culture, even when they were abused or treated as property. Now, she’s an attorney making waves across Africa. Her husband, also an attorney, supports her professional leadership.

Under our Project Justice umbrella, Rose trains paralegals, police officers, social workers, medical personnel, and families in more than 50 communities in rural Uganda about their rights, the need for justice, and how to seek it. She’s made a name for herself throughout Uganda as a legal lightning rod. Rose was the first attorney on the scene when a horrific human rights abuse from Uganda rocked the globe. It’s beyond the pale, but in 2009 it was discovered that a rural Ugandan man had forced his wife to breastfeed puppies for years.

“My role was to initiate, mobilize, and call for action from fellow women activists to travel and visit the woman, who lived about 100 km away from Kampala. I led a team of about 14 women activists to seek justice for her.”

The man, who felt justified in abusing his wife in this manner because he’d paid a “bride price” for her, was arrested, but not prosecuted.

“I have been following up on this case, trying to see to it that this poor woman gets justice.” Rose says. “Actionaid Uganda got the woman funding, and they managed to build for her a house, however, the man is still at large, and up to now, he has never been charged. The case is currently before The Uganda Human Rights Commission. I will work to see that this woman will get justice one day. I think I was the determination and courage to move this case. It might be a matter of time, days, months, but the woman will get justice one day.”

Disease won’t change, poverty won’t change, and illiteracy won’t change—until access to justice increases.

For centuries, Ugandan women and girls have been forced to meekly kneel before men. We are so proud of Nyiraguhabwa Monica, who is teaching our girls to stand proud and treat themselves with the greatest respect.

Monica is helping girls embrace life skills and empowered choices that will help them navigate the rest of their lives. Monica designs and leads our Girl Power workshops, which teach hundreds of young women that they have the right to live their lives without being harassed, exploited, or hurt. And that they can choose to attend school or work without persecution.

Monica’s work couldn’t be more urgent. Save the Children estimates that two children each hour are defiled in Uganda.

One of Just Like My Child’s students was raped and impregnated. The rapist’s family tried to “erase” the abuse by giving the child’s family a cow — and her family accepted it as the only kind of justice available to them.

Vivian Glyck knew in that moment that she had to launch a program that would strengthen, protect, and empower future girls, and convinced Monica to train hundreds of girls ages 9 to 13 via the Girl Power Project. Those girls now are becoming more confident and bold, knowing THEY may be Uganda’s next leaders.

We live for those days when the girls say things like, “I discovered ways of building my self esteem” or “I unlearned the mentality that men are stronger than women!”

Thank you Monica, for making the Girl Power Project a force with which to be reckoned! Monica will be joining us remotely from Uganda for our Hand Up, Never a Handout Celebration!

Join us October 13 for an unforgettable evening of hope, inspiration, education and FUN!!

Nearly 30% of her neighbors were infected with HIV, she was surrounded by dozens of orphans, and she was going to a school that had no books and barely a roof on the structure.

Recognizing her intelligence and drive, Just Like My Child Foundation, through the generous help of one donor, Jim K., began sponsoring Nalubombwe at one of the best elementary schools in Uganda.

Flash forward four years: Nalubombwe excelled so far in school and scored so well on her end of term exams that she was just accepted into THE best high school in all of Uganda.

Left to Right: Nalubombwe’s mother, Namagembe Topista, Nalubombwe Josephine, Tessa Davis

It’s almost incomprehensible to the residents of her village, Kikoiiro that a girl born into such a dim reality could be walking into the brightest future possible.

Thank you Nalubombwe for all of your very hard work to make this happen!

And thank you, Jim, for believing that the fire of knowledge can change the world. To be like Jim click here.

Please start a dialogue with us by commenting on the stories. We want to know what you think and what’s important to you!

Puja Shah graduated from Tufts School of Dental Medicine in 2007 and in 2008 completed her general practice residency at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, NY. She works as a dentist in a pediatric practice in Riverside, CA. On a local level, she is involved in community outreach via public health programs such as the UCSD Free Dental Clinics. She has done grant research on the need for dental treatment in trauma cases for victims of domestic violence, which enabled women of shelters throughout Boston, MA to receive free dental care. Her long-term career goals include international outreach and education.

This past May was Shah’s second visit to Uganda with The Just Like My Child Foundation.

Here’s what we asked, and in Puja’s own words, what she said:

How did you get involved with The Just Like My Child Foundation? Why JLMCF?

Vivian and I met through our husbands, both Internet marketing geniuses. We got together a few years ago, in La Jolla one evening, just the two of us, when I had first moved to San Diego from New York. We hit it off right away. After all, she is a New York girl at heart But we shared more than just similar interests; we shared a passion to want to make a difference in the world around us. I loved hearing her talk about JLMCF, I loved its message of deep development, and loved her story of starting it. It inspired me to take action.

What was your first impression from your first visit to the clinic to now?

The dental clinic has grown in so many ways and we hope continues to grow.

When we first created the dental clinic, we just had a small wooden chair and little table. Now it is two rooms and we have a brand new dental chair! We have state of the art restorative (filling) materials as well. It’s so amazing to know that patients will have high quality dental care. These people deserve the best and that’s what the clinic and Dr. Jane, the local dentist, can offer them since she is equipped with the proper instruments and supplies and of course dental chair unit.

What is your favorite moment/memory from your visits?

There is a mesh of favorites for me. Apart from the stories of seeing patients, and the precious moments I shared while treating them, some of my favorite moments were connecting with Dr. Jane and the people who work in the hospital. It was always intriguing to me to discuss her story and what she had to go through to become a dentist.

Is there a particular patient or visit that stands out most with you?

It’s hard to narrow it down to just one. These kids, their eyes and voices stay with you. I can’t describe what it feels like; the feeling is just so pure. There was one girl, who needed a lot of dental, but she was scared and nervous. She had teeth extracted before when she was younger, as per her mom, by the witch doctors of the area. There is a belief in Uganda that if a child’s canine teeth erupt prior to their incisor teeth (front teeth) then it is unlucky or like the devil. Therefore, witch doctors extract the teeth and it impedes proper development of the other teeth, of jaw relation. She had another tooth that was extracted as well and her mother said she just had bad teeth. We educated her on brushing or proper oral care so that she could save what she had and so her other permanent teeth wouldn’t have the same number of cavities. She was shy and didn’t speak to us the whole appointment. Then at one point, she looked up at me and started singing. Her head was turned down, and she was smiling at me. It was so beautiful.

There was also a 3-year-old boy who needed many extractions. Almost every tooth of his was what we call ‘bombed out’ which means cavities extending so deep that there is no tooth structure remaining and just mainly black stubs remaining. When we told his father who was with him that all his upper teeth were sources if infection due the cavities, the boy responded, “No, that’s not true, only my bottom teeth have cavities.” We laughed because he probably said that because he could not see how damaged his back teeth in his upper jaw were and also since he was so observant and aware that we were talking about him. We needed to anesthetize him via injections so he sat in his father’s lap. He was of course, not happy about that, and when we were done, he climbed off the chair out of his father’s arms with his arms flailing and said “Stop, just stop! Do not give me any more injections! I have been struck with Malaria because I am shaking!” We hugged him, told him he didn’t have malaria; he was just such a character. When we were finished, he was crying from the procedure but stopped, took money out of his father’s shirt pocket and handed us the larger of the 2 bills he found. We started laughing and told him no, it’s okay.   He even smiled at us before he left.

There were kids who would sit and point to areas in their mouth that were painful. I would know when I’d see the teeth that these things were hurting them for awhile and they would sit there so still during the
extractions, that I knew they just wanted to be out of pain finally. Often they would take our hand and say thank you or bend down on knees and kneel to us, their way of showing gratitude. It always warmed my heart.

If you had one story to tell about your most recent visit, which one would it be?

Finally having the dental chair installed! Getting that dental chair implemented was not a simple task, but rather a battle of its own. We had to call engineers every single morning to be sure they were coming, since the track record of many was not good. Finally, at the end of our stay, we got one out there, and our chair was installed and working! It was amazing to see it there, after knowing how hard we worked to get it installed.

What was an average day like for you?

An average day consisted of heading over to the clinic and starting at 9 am. There were already kids who were lined up around the door and down the hospital corridor. The other dentist, Dr. Jane, gave every child a number to hold their place. Lidia would manage the kids outside, teach them OHI (oral hygiene instruction), and bring in the next one and help us get set up for each patient since we were bringing them in and out at a fast pace to see the most children possible. Some kids who were scared or in a lot of pain required more attention and coaxing, so with those, Dr. Jane and I would assist one another and take more time with them. At some point in the afternoon, we would realize we hadn’t eaten lunch and when the instruments were all used and in the sterilizer, we would go eat something and tell all the patients who were waiting to do so also. The sterilizer took one hour to sterilize and cool off instruments so we would return in an hour and resume seeing patients until about 6 pm. On our last day of the clinic, we went until 7 or 7:30 pm, and even that felt like it was not enough. There were so many children with needs and in pain. We ended up treating about 150-200 children as an estimate in the 5 days our free clinic was open.

Did you partake in the May Mango Madness? If so, what was your favorite mango fever moment?

Mango Madness! I love it Lidia and I climbed the mango tree on the day we left and sat on a branch together overlooking our little world we had gotten so used to and had grown to love. It felt like the perfect ending to our trip since we had mangos every morning with breakfast and even started to figure out which types were the stringy
ones vs. sweeter etc. One morning at breakfast, Vivian’s little boy was eating one and probably decided the mango was his science experiment calling it a volcano as it squeezed out onto his face and shirt because it was so juicy. It was so fun to have him there. He made us laugh every morning and even in the evenings after seeing so many sad cases in the clinic, it felt good to come back to the guest house and know that this healthy little boy would be being silly and smiling.

I am just so grateful for JLMCF to continue to inspire me, to search and find meaning in all that I do. This trip was amazing.

~

Thank you, Dr. Puja Shah. For more information about The Just Like My Child Foundation or if you would like to make a contribution, please click here.

Photo by Lidia Trainer-Domagalska

The Nike Foundation and The Girl Effect’s The Clock is Ticking campaign is based on this truth and for the past few years has been reaching out to the world through their beautiful and inspiring animated video. This one is my favorite because the message is clear and honest – to the point.  One day I hope Just Like My Child can work with The Girl Effect and promote the Girl Power Project together.

One of the projects the Just Like My Child Foundation has undertaken is to implement a sponsorship program we call the Mandela Project — the focus is to create leaders who can in turn move their country forward.. It costs less than $1700 a year to send a child to one of the best boarding schools in Uganda. This includes tuition, room and board, and uniforms, health care for the child and the family, vitamin supplementation, transportation to and from school, canteen money, and incidental expenses.

According to Sister Ernestine Akulu, founder of the Bishop Asili Hospital in rural Uganda, sending our first student, Nyangoma Rachel to school will most likely save her life. Many students in this village who are not in school will become sexually active as early as 12-years old. With over 30% of the adult population testing positive for HIV, this is certainly a life-threatening behavior.

Since Nyangoma Rachel received her sponsorship, the Just Like My Child Foundation has focused on building schools rather than sending individual children to select schools making it possible for hundreds of children (boys and girls) to attend school. Previously, it  would have been nearly impossible for these children to go to a safe school. We are focused on building safe schools, educational facilities, empowerment workshops, and trainings to reach more Ugandans. The tremendous efforts have been paying off and now we have so many Nyangoma Rachel’s we almost cannot keep count.

It takes so little to help these children achieve their dream and with your help we can help many more children make their dream a reality. It doesn’t take much; click here to see the different ways you can contribute.

But the most fun and fulfilling part of the trip was spending a lot of time with the six children we are sponsoring in boarding schools as part of our Mandela Project. Just three short years ago, these children were destined to live a voiceless, nameless existence in one of the poorest villages in the areas we serve — they, like so many others, were at risk of death through early pregnancy and marriage. Several of their parents were on the verge of death from AIDS. These six children have grown and have become such an inspiration to their villages and have made me so proud.

Today, our kids are BIG (they’ve grown so much).  They are speaking English, reading fluently and at the top of their classes. Their parents are on AIDS treatment and they are healthy with new income-generating businesses that are alleviating their heavy burden. The students are full of ideas and fun and have a bit of attitude like all good teenagers. Healthy teenagers!

Witnessing their growth and development is like a metaphor for all of our work in Uganda — slowly by slowly the seeds have been planted, the roots are strong, and the fruit of our work is ripening. The communities are thriving, the children are healthy, and the elders are growing stronger. With so much community in the air it makes one realize how small efforts make tremendous differences.

If you would like more information about Just Like My Child and it’s specialized programs, contact Vivian Glyck at info@justlikemychild.org.  To donate please click here

The Just Like My Child Foundation has received crucial donations from the Clinton Foundation in the past, which has provided Uganda with the essential CD-4 Analyzer, a piece of laboratory equipment used in the diagnosis of AIDS. The pleasure of meeting President Clinton along with other celebrities such as Chelsea Clinton, Blake Griffin, Maria Bello, Michael Strahan, and Drake was a great honor for me.

James Malinchak, ABC’s Secret Millionaire has also provided Just Like My Child with a generous donation – a school. Malinchak raised enough funds for Ugandan children in the village of Namumira to attend a clean, bright, and safe school that they previously would never have been able to access. The school has four classrooms, which provides education for 200 students as well as a bright promise for the future.

Through the help of The Clinton Foundation and ABC’s Secret Millionaire James Malinchak the Just Like My Child Foundation is successfully providing holistic solutions to poverty and helping Ugandan families experience the power of potential. I am forever gracious for the donations and contributions from organizations such as the Clinton Foundation and people like James Malinchak.

I started Just Like My Child because I was eager to make a difference in the lives of other mothers and children. The efforts of The Clinton Foundation and James Malinchak enable many people to know the joy of helping to save and enrich lives. Just Like My Child’s commitment is to create a world where all children feel joy and happiness by experiencing his or her full potential.

When Christian Bale accepted his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, his graciousness and heart were right on his sleeve, bursting through his emotion. His final words were for his child: “and for our little girl who’s taught me so much more then I’ll ever be able to teach her.”

And, wham, it hit me so hard that the reason my cup was flowing over from the four days I’d just spent with my boy, was because of the opportunities he gave me to grow, expand, and reach deeper into my heart.

On our vacation, we talked about a lot of things and un-earthed a wound he had about being bullied and made fun of in second grade. And I was ultimately to blame. Inadvertently, I had put some juice in a toddler’s “sippy cup” in his lunch box. Apparently I missed the cut off date for throwing out the baby sippy cups. My bad. Some schoolmates laughed at him and made fun of him for having a baby’s cup and it cut him to the core.

Through a deep and earnest conversation where I found my mother’s heart practically beating outside of my body, we came up with a solution where he got to decide how to keep his heart open while protecting it from the piercing words and actions of others. It was a watershed moment I think we’ll both remember forever.

The next day we went on an outdoor adventure with seven long zip lines, rock climbing, hanging bridges and more. He blasted through the entire day with a courageousness I know came from him feeling more decisive and “in control” of his world.

I thought about the children whose delicate hearts we have touched in Uganda, the children who will always be “Just Like My Child.” When I was in Uganda in January, I had deep conversations with our sponsorship child, William, about his fears and outrage at the bombings in Uganda this past July, his commitment to helping his mother through her AIDS crisis, and his adolescent desire to be hip and cool while honoring his studies.

I know without a doubt that William’s ability to think and dream bigger were made possible by people like you who’ve invested in his future. Without your help, this boy could have only taught us about the depths of poverty. Instead, today and tomorrow, he will teach us about fortitude, courage, and leadership, just like my child has taught me.

The bottom line is that the seed of humanity in each of us can grow more vibrant with love or can shrivel through neglect.

Thank you, Christian Bale, for reminding us that the most divine aspect of parenting is the ability to grow through our children.

Have a great story you’d like to share with us? What have you learned from a child? How have you grown? Tell us in a sentence or in a couple of paragraphs. Share your story with us by leaving a comment below. We’d love to hear from you.

In a previous blog, “Why Create The Girl Power Project”  we were thrilled to report that The Girl Power Project is making massive headway in rooting out cases of sexual abuse against girls, and empowering entire communities to stand up and protect their children.  Unfortunately, what we learned while doing our workshops is that many of the 30 girls that attended had been defiled by one school teacher in the community.

The Just Like My Child team worked diligently with legal experts and law enforcement and had the man arrested.  I am so encouraged and proud to provide you with this update from our Country Director, Dena Lewerke.  Dena has been like a dog with a bone on this issue and her dedication and persistence is truly inspiring.

“The accused assailant was released after spending a month in jail.  The Prosecutor felt that the evidence we had was not enough to keep him in jail, this worried me, but there was nothing to do and I was anxious to get to the community meeting today and I didn’t know what to expect.

I was glad to see the turn out for the meeting.  The entire community arrived, including parents, local council members, local elected officials and many students, including many of the girls who were in our training and gave statements against the teacher.

I was impressed that the community had already put together a several page document of bylaws on how they plan to protect the children and they had already implemented many of these.  The bylaws included items such as not allowing parents to send their children to collect water alone (or anywhere really during the Holidays), not allowing children to be out after dark, and not allowing parents to take children to the bar in the evening.

The Local Council members and community members who attended today are already enforcing these rules by accepting the responsibility to take children home and talk to parents who are not following these community bylaws.  They also wrote a no tolerance policy for teachers in the school who abuse children and in the community as well and have made it a requirement to report it to police.  They are in the process of creating a committee in the community dealing with Child Protection as well as a chain of command for reporting.

We then asked for two volunteers to be in charge of child protection in the community and explained that we would provide these two people with legal training (through FIDA).  These will be people that children can go to, to report problems and will be responsible for helping children to go to police or appropriate authorities.  We explained that they do not need to be formal leaders, only people that the community trusts with their children.

I was so happy and surprised to see the grandmother of three girls who had been sexually molested by the teacher raise her hand.  Previously this grandmother feared the community and to report anything to police or to do anything to help her children because she and family feared retribution from some members of the community, and now after many sensitization meetings, she is ready to take on this responsibility for helping any child who has experienced abused in the community!  For the first time this grandmother looked hopeful and empowered.

We are leaving it up to the community so far, to monitor the former teacher, decide what to do, and report back.  In the meantime, the Prosecutor is following up on reviewing the videos I provided him with and will let me know if there is enough evidence there to reopen the case.

Though the case doesn’t feel resolved from a legal standpoint, I feel really good about the change in the community and that they are supporting each other and their children, the change in attitude seems palpable and I felt much better leaving the girls there today and knowing that community was taking child protection seriously.”

I am so happy to hear that the community is coming together to protect and empower these girls!  What a wonderful follow up.

If you share Just Like My Child’s passion for protecting the rights of children, please support our efforts with a tax-deductible donation. https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=39639

Read more about The Girl Power Project here.

How can we teach our kids to realize that there’s more to fulfillment than the next video game, cell phone or fast food drive through?

How do we teach our kids that what’s going to fill them up is Giving not Getting?

As the mother of an eight-year-old boy and the founder of Just Like My Child Foundation,  I am constantly thinking of how to move children from “me” to “we.”

Here are my Five Steps to Raising Globally Conscious Kids.

1.      Identify a cause. There is something so beautiful and pure about a child’s innate passion and energy. Don’t be afraid to leverage this! Ask yourself: “What do I feel passionately about? What is my child naturally interested in?” Expose your kids to a cause you feel strongly about, even if it’s by sharing information with them, showing them an article in the paper about poverty or a great story of triumph over tragedy.

I have seen so many kids in Africa deal with things that my son will never have to know, and yet they smile through the day and are as willing and happy to love. Kids can handle way more than we imagine. Try to focus their inherent passion on a meaningful cause.

2.      Interpret why it matters.  Help your child to interpret why becoming conscious of others is important to them. Develop their natural instinct to be compassionate beings.Why should they care that children they will never meet are dying of a disease that will never affect them? Why should they care if the polar ice cap is melting?

Introduce the concept of “oneness” – we are all in this together. The kids on the other side of the world are just like them; the earth is our home.

3.      Make it interesting.  Give them something to be interested in! Give them something that they can champion, something that will build their confidence in their own ability to make a difference.

4.      Get them involved. One of the best ways to engage kids is to “involve” them in a project. When you involve them in the process, it becomes their own, and they LOVE this! And kids are so capable and creative. Their ideas are guaranteed to amaze and surprise you.

Serving in the local community with your kids through small volunteer projects (which abound everywhere) is a great antidote to consumerism.

After spending a day distributing meals to the homeless, it’s far less likely that you’ll be getting the plea to buy your kids anything new on the way home!

5.      Let Them Struggle. Our children need to struggle to grow stronger. Allowing them to feel their own pain helps them feel the pain of others. This is the only way to learn compassion, which literally means, “to suffer together with.”

As a mom, I often reference the story of the little boy and the butterfly. The little boy comes upon a chrysalis, a cocoon of a caterpillar ready to emerge into a butterfly. The boy watches the butterfly struggle to break free of its home. Taking pity on the butterfly, the boy removes the chrysalis for the butterfly. The butterfly spreads its beautiful wings a few times and then, unable to fly, lays down and dies.

The butterfly needed to struggle out of its shell to gain the strength to fly and live.

The Buddha said, “Compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others. It crushes and destroys the pain of others.” Your child’s heart already inherently knows this, and all you have to do is guide him or her along the way to ensure they are clear about what it looks and feels like to be a globally conscious human being.

For ideas on how to engage your child in giving, or how you can make a difference directly today, please visit our Programs page

Please support our efforts by donating https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=26195&Itemid=10