5 Years Window of Life Babies Home

In September 2011 a dream of helping the most vulnerable children became reality. Maria Ndibwagana, her husband Joseph Tibaganda and their Polish friend Marta Majewska rented a housein Masindi town and founded the Window of Life Babies Home.

Now, 5 years later, we are standing firm; capable and motivated staff, good quality child care, a solidfinancial and support base and plenty of ideas and initiative for the future.

Children

Window of Life’s target group was initially abandoned babies but throughout the years, in closecollaboration with the district probation office, we widened are reach towards all vulnerablechildren. The majority of our cases come to us through the authorities, often in poor mental andphysical condition.

Over the past five years we reached out to 31 children in need. Two of them were successfullyresettled to their biological family; three were only with us for a few days; four children passedaway. One of our children, after successfully finishing vocational school and obtaining her ECDCertificate is currently employed as a care taker in our home. The remaining 21 children in the agefrom 12 months to 14 years are still under our direct care. Some of them are attending the pre- andprimary school in Masindi while the others get their education in boarding schools in Uganda.

In this section we remember those who, despite all the efforts and their will to live, sadly passedaway. May their souls rest in peace.

Innocent † July 2013

Edward † April 2014

Godfrey † June 2015

Michael † July 2015

Our great achievement is that through love, care and by giving hope our children have built trust inus and we managed to create a wonderful and loving family.

Staff

Window of Life Babies Home is a small but responsible employer. We pay fair salaries and providea solid secondary benefit package for our staff. In return we receive dedicated and motivated staff,resulting in high quality care for the children. At present the home is kept running by a generaldirector / administrator, three full-time caretakers, one cleaner and two guards.

Window of Life also invests in staff development. We trained staff in nutrition and feeding, first aidand primary care, family tracing and reunification. Furthermore, the home is supported - directly and indirectly – by countless volunteers from Ugandaand abroad. It is noteworthy that all external support, including the running of the supportorganizations, is 100% on a voluntary and unpaid basis.

Health & Medical Care

Health is definitely a major aspect in our operations; childhood diseases, vaccinations, nutrition andmalaria are part of everyday life. With Kitara Medical Centre as a main reference point we aredefinitely in professional and caring hands.

We do however also have to manage more complicated cases. Due to the dire and fragile state wesometimes receive our children in we were forced to deal with severe malnutrition, prematurebabies, mental and physical disabilities and severe neglect and abuse. Through these struggles wedeveloped knowledge base on health care in Uganda and created a good network with specialisedinstitutions like Mulago Hospital, CorSu and Mbale Medical Centre.

Volunteer Programme

Through the supporting Polish organisation Fundacja Window of Life a volunteer programme hasexisted since 2012. Since then, more than 30 volunteers from all around the world have helped inthe Babies Home. We welcomed medical doctors, nursery teachers, photographers, students, artists,travellers and many more. Through the programme, volunteers, children and staff alike learn frominteraction with different cultures. Furthermore, the volunteering experiences help putting Windowof Life on the map internationally. Enthusiastic volunteers that return to their countries of originoften continue to be engaged and organize fundraising, recruit donors and promote the project in apositive way.

Finances & Administration

From the beginning we have always closely collaborated and built trustworthy and equal workingrelationship with Masindi Local Government authorities which we value greatly. In addition, we arefully engaged with the community, in particular with our neighbours, Miracle Centre Church and St.Mathew Church and the Rotary Club of Masindi.

We are proud to have obtained a 5 year renewal of the Certificate of the NGO Board early 2016;securing our operations in Masindi until 2021. In addition, there has been a great progress inprofessionalising our internal administrative procedures.

We started in 2011 with hardly any donors funding our operations through private money, familyand friends. Throughout the years our support base has grown with dedicated supportingorganisations in Poland, Australia and Germany. Our view on organisation’s finances is transparency and accountability. Moreover, by keeping theoverhead cost low we spend the majority of the founds on children, their food, school, medical careetc. Window of Life is audited on a yearly basis by a certified Ugandan accountant.

Future Perspective

With currently 19 kids needing a place to sleep, live and play in our house we have reachedmaximum capacity. The foreseen acquisition of the neighbouring compound will foremost decongestthe main house to assure privacy and gender separation for the “older” kids and increase ourcapacity in general.

The acquisition of the neighbouring compound includes a piece of land which will be used to growown crops and vegetables and to keep animals for consumption of the house. By engaging childrenin these processes they will also acquire basic life skills.

Due to our limited capacity in taking children into the house we anticipate to do more communitybased work targeting vulnerable children in the future.