Eagles Wings Team visit to Katwe Slum, Kampala, Uganda, November 2008
We were particularly excited to visit Katwe and see the progress of the primary school and clinic Eagles Wings have already helped to set up. We had a great time at the school, where they spent 25 minutes singing ‘we welcome you visitor’ songs that they had been practicing for our arrival! In return, our United States team member and myself taught them the only english nursery rhyme we both knew with actions. They thought it was great, I doubt Simon Cowell will be signing us up in a hurry! It was evident on our visit that many more individual child sponsorships are needed to help these young kids. I was able to see the direct result of someone’s giving when I met 2 young girls in the school. They were only there because of the generosity of sponsors back in the UK, willing to commit £15 a month. As I have been personally responsible for child sponsorship recently, it was quite a moving experience for me.

It was great to see a new, clean and tidy clinic stocked up with equipment and medicines, right at the centre of a dirty slum. We met Mary the nurse who reported that the clinic was making good progress, and we were able to give them a portable blood pressure unit donated by Omron Healthcare UK. Omron made 10 such units available to Eagles Wings as they are perfect for these places being portable, reliable, easy to use and invaluable for small clinics seeing many patients each day. We were also able to give units to the clinic in Nakuru, one for the ambulance that we previously sent there, and several to Kericho District Hospital in Kenya, who have been overwhelmed in the recent crisis with so few resources.
A former seamstress from the UK, kindly gave sewing materials, buttons, zips and fabrics, to help the tailoring school set up in Gulu. This initiative is going really well, giving widows and girls the ability to learn a valuable skill, thus enabling them to provide food for their families.

The Sue Ryder charity shop in Watford, kindly donated a wedding dress for Nebbi in western Uganda. Here, the ladies have absolutely nothing and this wedding dress will be taken in and let out many times over, bringing great joy to each new bride as her time comes to be married. It was such a delight to hand this over, knowing how many dreams we were helping to come true.
Lucy Oliver, Team member