Help Poor Children with Cancer to Access Treatment

Dear friend of New Hope Children’s Hostel at Kawempe Home Care,

 Warm greetings to you all, we hope you’re are having a healthier year with your families and friends.

Kawempe Home Care continues to deliver quality healthcare to people living with HIV, TB, Cancer and other health related issues through community based holistic care models, and thanks to you all for making this possible. Amidst all strangles of health issues, political and other factors, Kawempe Hope care is still committed to service and ‘moved by love’ as our statement of faith goes. So many wonderful stories come up each day to inspire and keep us in great service. In this report, we are excited to share with you a story of one of the children battling cancer in our care hoping that you will be inspired too.

Slage is one of the beneficiaries of your support through GlobalGiving since we joined the platform in June 2020. She is 9 years old from a family of five, and her family lives in Mbale District in the Eastern part of Uganda. Slage’s mother noticed that her child was not well in March 2019 when she started complaining about the body weakness, and had on and off fevers with body swelling. She was taken to different health centers in their district but no accurate diagnosis was given and treatment attempts remained unsuccessful. Her mother was distress, felt anxiety and helplessness during that time because she could not understand her child’s health status, and had no financial support from family especially her polygamous husband. Slage’s mother was courageous enough to gather some money from her religious community for transport to Kampala to seek treatment from a National Referral Hospital in November 2019 with suspicion of cancer from one of the hospitals she visited. Slage was able to reach Uganda Cancer Institute at Mulago National Referral Hospital where several tests were carried out and was diagnosed with Wilms’s Tumor(cancer of the kidney). She was very ill, with on and off fevers and had lost so much weight. Slage was admitted for five days and later referred to New Hope Children’s Hostel at Kawempe Home Care. This hostel supports poor children diagnosed with cancer from far regions of Uganda to start and complete their treatment by offering food, accommodation, transport to and from hospital, counseling, play and music therapies among others. At Uganda Cancer Institute her affected kidney was removed, and underwent both chemotherapy and radiotherapy as treatment while she stayed at New Hope Children’s Hostel. Slage and her mother were able to find friends at the hostel who shared a lot like laughter, hospital experience which gave them a big relief of the burden they had before. It is always hard for such families with poor financial status like Slage’s to survive in the city because of the high cost of food, accommodation, prescribed medicines and more. This family was supported with all these expenses at the hostel and they are grateful. Slage has stayed at the hostel until she completed her treatment cycles. She has started coming to hospital for her quarterly reviews and her family is grateful. “A home like environment at New Hope Children’s Hostel helped to quicken my child’s healing process because she was able to play with her fellow children, get all the medicines prescribed by the Uganda Cancer Institute and she was given transport to go back home after her treatment cycles, to me this is a great support to my family” Slage’s mother narrates.

Our dream is to see many more children supported, however much difficulties they may find that come along with the cancer treatment, we want to give them hope where it is almost lost. Our support of 3 meals a day, transport to and from hospital and rent for accommodation to the 30 children and their care takers is much needed. Slage still needs transport for her quarterly hospital reviews and this is still a burden to her mother who has no income and was abandoned by her husband.

We are so grateful to all our donors through GlobaGiving who with your kind donations have supported 152 children like Slage since we joined this platform in June 2020. Your participation in the campaigns has helped us raise $10,838 from 123 donations giving us hope of hitting our goal of $45,000 by end of 2023 Little by Little campaign is underway in March and we counting on your support, please join us!

There is a lot more to see how your support, our work and achievements are making a difference. Please go to News on our website https://kawempehomecare.org, and social media: https://www.facebook.com/KawempeHomeCare and https://twitter.com/KawempeCare

We thank you so much for your continued support.