published on The Underground (http://www.theunderground.nl/2012/02/making-a-difference/)
Making a difference
You can’t change the world, but you can change somebody’s world
THE HAGUE – Jennifer is a fellow Haagse student. Her commitment to improve someone’s life is more than a passion or an ideal: she is actually achieving results.
When I met her, she had just come back from a 16 days trip in Uganda. She went back there for the first time since 2010, but she has never really left the place.
In fact, she is been carrying out a project for the past year and a half involving sponsoring children to go to school.
Jennifer went there first in March 2010, as part of a volunteering project with the association Be More. She was living in a small community of around 100 people, mostly families that had been infected and/or affected by HIV.
But HIV is not the only problem affecting these communities: “While I was there, I realised there were a lot of children who were not going to school, or could not attend classes on a regular basis.”
Jennifer herself was teaching in a school where about a fourth of the pupils were able to attend through sponsorships offered by the school. “I talked to the deputy headmaster and asked him to come to the community and choose a child to sponsor, and thankfully he agreed”. This is how the 9 years old Yudaya is now able to attend school.
Yudaya had an older sister, Mariam, and an HIV-positive mother, but no father. Because of this unstable parental situation, Jennifer decided that it would have been good for Mariam to attend school too, so she took the task of finding sponsors upon herself. “I realised I had the opportunity to connect the people in The Netherlands, who were willing to sponsor, to the children in Uganda, who needed the help”.
Jennifer sent “her” children to a boarding school. “It was a tough choice: quality or quantity? If I decided to let them attend a normal school, I would have been able to sponsor more children. However, I went for quality. Some of the children are orphans: in a boarding school they are looked after, they live somewhere safe, they receive three meals a day.”
Supporting a child through one year of schooling costs about 300 euros, depending, on the year the child is enrolled in. “I do have some sponsor that pay the whole fee, but most people contribute around 50€ per year. Most people are enthusiastic about contributing to this project because everything is clear and transparent. 100% of the money goes to the children’s education.”
So far Jennifer has been able to support 7 children through their education. “Three of them have just started the first year; Yudaya is in P2; another girl, Veronica, is in her P3 and Teddy and Mariam are in P5.”
The distance and the young age of the children make it hard for Jennifer to keep in touch with the children. However, she is not completely alone in her project and she receives valuable help from a man, Moses, whom she met through the CHEDRA organisation: “He knows what it means to not being able to attend school, as he had work for years himself in order to afford it. He is my contact in Uganda: he makes sure that the money is received and all of the transactions are transparent; he writes regular report regarding the children’s education and behaviour and he sends me pictures, so the sponsors can also witness and follow the children’s progresses.”
As there are more children in need of help, Jennifer would like to expand the project in the future. For now, she needs a web designer to create a website, and, most important of all, more sponsors: “There are still so many other children that need sponsors to receive an education. It’s hard to explain to the mothers that ask me “why not my son?” that, unfortunately, I’m not the white rich person that they think I am and that I have limited resources. However, whenever I receive a new request, I add it to the list and, as soon as I get more sponsors, I’ll help that child”.
Jennifer quotes Mandela: “Education is the most powerful weapon.” By receiving an education, the children can hope in a better life than their parents, have less chances of being infected by the HIV virus and can break the cycle of poverty. “A small contribution can have a great impact on somebody else’s world. I strongly believe one person can make a difference, and what a difference it is, giving the means to a child to have a better future.”
For more information, you can get in touch with Jennifer at jennifer_kuipers@hotmail.com
Just Words 