President of Austrian Development Agency Visits SOS
A team from Austrian Development Agency (ADA) on Monday, April 18, 2016 visited SOS Children’s Villages Entebbe to tour the facilities at the location and re-commit their pledge to donate 730,000 Euros (Ugx 2,774,000,000) over the next three years (January 2016 to December 2018). ADA President, Dr. Martin Ledolter, who led the team, was accompanied by ADA Resident Representative, Mr. Englits Gunter.
ADA has been a steady partner of SOS Children’s Villages Uganda for the last 12 years. This partnership has benefited over 4,300 vulnerable children and their families in the communities of Gulu, Entebbe, Kakiri and more recently, Fort Portal in the South Western part of the country.
SOS Children’s Villages Uganda, a non-governmental organisation whose mission is to provide a loving home to every child, has been at the rescue of vulnerable children and families for the last 25 years.
While on his tour of the SOS Entebbe location, Dr. Ledolter mentioned that ADA was proud of the achievements SOS had made with ADA support. He said “We look forward to continued collaboration with SOS Children’s Villages Uganda through our project ‘Institutional Capacity Development for Quality Child Care and Protection.’ We hope to achieve effective management and sustainability of gender sensitive child care and protection programmes to support 2,000 more vulnerable children in Wakiso and Kabarole districts in Uganda.”
Among the facilities he toured were the SOS Entebbe Medical Centre and the SOS Entebbe Kindergarten, both of which serve not only the SOS children and staff; but also the communities.
According to a UNICEF report, despite initiatives and efforts to tremendously fight HIV in Uganda, the number of children orphaned as a result of losing one or both parents to the HIV/AIDS pandemic remains worryingly high at close to 1.7 million. Uganda currently has over 10,000 street children, who live in very poor conditions and do not have access to basic family care, health and education.
