Learning to Embrace God's Love

David Wasangai Alfred lives in eastern Uganda with his parents and three younger siblings. The family used to struggle every day just to survive. They lived in a two-room house with mud walls and a dirt floor. Because his parents couldn’t afford school fees, finishing high school seemed like a hopeless dream. And David doubted that a loving God would allow his family to suffer so much.

Life began to steadily improve once David became a Food for the Hungry sponsored child. Staff helped David know and embrace God’s plan for his life. He received assistance with his school fees and medical care.

Like the other parents with sponsored children, David’s parents learned to make bricks and how to market them to grow their small business. David’s family now lives in a larger, more solid home. They are able to buy the basic necessities of life and eat more regularly. And David now believes he will finish school and have a bright future.

“I really don’t know how to thank God and Food for the Hungry.” David says. “I now have the joy of the Lord in my heart and this makes my parents very happy.”

What We Do

Agriculture & Environment: Best practice training, sack gardening, cassava multiplication, seed support.

Child Development & Education: Education support program, medical care, school building and rehabilitation.

Child Protection: Rehabilitation center for “child mothers,” psycho-social care, vocational training, literacy classes, sexual violence case referral.

Economic Development & Livelihoods: Micro-finance, livestock distribution.

Health and Nutrition: Malaria prevention education, distribution of mosquito bed nets.

HIV/AIDS: Home visits, awareness, food provisions, school materials, strengthening village health teams, support for orphans of HIV/AIDS.

Water & Sanitation: Capping water sources, building latrines and wells, drilling bore holes, spring protection, hygiene education.

Food for the Hungry started working in Uganda in 1988, initially as an extension of our work in Kenya. At that time, Uganda was beginning to address infrastructural and social damage wrought by 13 years of civil and liberation wars as well as the AIDS pandemic. Both AIDS and the war left high numbers of widows and orphans in their wake. Initially we helped communities recover by providing relief commodities and strengthening household food security. Food for the Hungry has expanded its work to include programs that address agriculture and food security, water and sanitation, child education and development, community health and HIV/AIDS, returnee resettlement, child protection and psycho-social care for survivors of abduction.

Uganda has been blessed with beautiful, talented people and a bounty of natural resources. More than two decades of violent conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government decimated the country’s infrastructure. The Lord's Resistance Army, infamous for its brutality, frequently maim and kill civilians, abduct children for use as soldiers, sex slaves, or domestic workers. Over 25,000 children have been abducted since the conflict began. Adding to this is 2 million children who have been orphaned by AIDS. Most Ugandans lack access to adequate food, clean water, electricity, health care and education.