We visited Blessing today! Blessing is a sweet, 16-year-old girl sponsored by teen students at the International American School of Warsaw in Poland. She attends Bishop West boarding school in Mukono, Uganda with a focus on vocational skills. Bishop West is one of only a few schools in Uganda with a special needs program. The support of her peers in Warsaw has allowed Blessing to thrive and learn valuable skills in spite of her disabilities. My fellow interns and I were able to see firsthand how happy Blessing is attending classes at Bishop West.

If you don’t know already, Providence Home is a care facility run by the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi where therapy, education and housing is provided for the elderly and disabled in Uganda. The youngest resident is a four-year-old little boy and the oldest individual is probably around 90 years old, so there’s a wide variety of people. Besides the Sisters, the staff at Providence Home ranges from cooks to matrons to occupational therapists. One person in particular who has really made an impression on me is an occupational therapist named Ronald who is on duty seven days a week.

On Friday, July 1st, we celebrated the opening of the new home for the elderly at Providence Home, a residence for disabled adults and children run by CARITAS ministry partners in East Africa, the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi. It was such a happy day and an exciting event to be a part of. For me, it was a lot of fun being at an event in a foreign country where a lot of people actually knew me. Providence Home is where I spend most of my time working during my internship with CARITAS child sponsorship programs, so I was very proud seeing the final product of all of the hard work that has gone into the event and the Elderly House.

I am slowly learning Lugandan as I make my way through my internship with CARITAS' child sponsorship programs here in Nkokonjeru. My Primary 3 students from St. Alphonsus Demonstration School love to teach me new words in their language at the end of each of my lessons.

School now has a whole new meaning for me. School has always been something that everyone I know has experienced. I have a new appreciation for it now that I’ve seen a child who has never been able to attend school before, finally be able to go. Today I had the privilege of taking a boy, who is deaf, to school for the first time.

I made it! It’s the third day of my summer internship in Uganda and so far, I’ve realized that it is a beautiful place with a lot of contrasts from America. Immediately after arrival I couldn’t help but notice some major cultural differences.