He/she who has the spirit of supporting people in need or in harder situations than others, focuses a lot their minds on uplifting other people’s lives to a certain level they deserve to live at.
There is nothing you can give to a person in need other than helping them from the hard times that they go through that make their lives too challenging.
Please consider supporting my marathon running alongside Matthew by clicking here.
My focus is on the children living on the streets
There are different categories of people that need attention in the world but my focus is on the children that live on the streets. There are many different reasons to why these children leave their homes to come and start staying on streets throughout their lives. Some of the reasons are social for example domestic violence in their homes between their parents/relatives; some are of nature’s making for example landslides that make people scatter to different areas, others are monetary i.e. poverty at home and no food or school fees. There are so many reasons, these are just to mention a few.
Amidst all that, these children on the streets go through many more challenges than those that live at home. Some of these challenges are; lack of where to sleep, have hard times in finding food, they are nicknamed by the community as thieves and many other horrible names, and they also have to deal with round-ups and arrests.
This therefore calls for action! That’s to say at least everyone has something to do to make sure these children leave the street and be resettled back to their families and are supported from there to thrive. This can’t happen before building strong relationships with these children and then the relationship with their relatives should also be strengthened through family counselling, as well as supporting them with skills they say may be missing in their family to go on to the next level.
The challenge: finances
Amongst the challenges we encounter as providers of support to these children, the key one is finances. We can do the work we do well when we have enough finance (for things like food, medicine and care for children, reuniting children back to their families, rehabilitation, counselling and family follow ups etc.).
Once the child is settled, we can look at how to get the child back into education so he/she can fulfill their dreams and ambitions. We can also support their families with business empowerment skills to give them knowledge to succeed in starting up a small business to support their family. This can also prevent other children within the same family from leaving home and turning to the streets (because of reasons like poverty).
Why I want to run the Ugandan Marathon 2019
I believe children living on the streets is a crisis we all need to respond to. With the thinking of NO STREET CALLED HOME. We should not accept the fact that children live on streets in our community. We need to use our skills and talents and push ourselves further to help them.
I have decided to participate in the Masaka Uganda Marathon 2019 to make sure I am helping to fundraise for these children on the streets. I want to make sure the services are available from S.A.L.V.E. that can benefit them to change their lives.
It’s very hard to go for the full marathon (42km) but these children also go through hard times while on the streets of Uganda. The training is all in all hectic as the season keeps on changing, sometimes the sun is shining and it is too hot and other times it is raining too much, making training very hard. Sincerely speaking it’s not easy to do this kind of training but it’s also not easy for one to be on the streets, where basic needs and food are not guaranteed. This makes life of these children traumatising, to the extent even the very young ones can sleep without any meals.
I am also inspired to participate in the marathon to make sure children’s rights and responsibilities are respected in the community. The rights of children, living on the streets, are not respected compared to other categories of people. They are for example denied the right to education and so many other things. I am a father myself. It’s each ones’ responsibility to advocate for the rights of children.
This is why I want to take part in helping S.A.L.V.E. to raise money to support more children to leave the streets. I am proud to do this side by side with Matthew who has gone through that street life himself and also wants to help his friends.
Any support you give would be greatly appreciated.
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