People

  Rose was beloved—by every one of her fellow members of the Katonda Mbera group in Tororo, Uganda and by all of the Give Us Wings volunteers who had the privilege of meeting her. Her kindness, generosity and gentleness radiated from her as easily as her sweet smile. Courage came from a place deep inside…

  Michael has had neurological damage since birth.  He cannot speak, and instead screams and screeches in an effort to be heard and understood. He has difficulty going to the bathroom. Until recently, he spent much of his early childhood living in one of Africa’s worst slums imaginable—the Bison Slums in Tororo, Uganda. Sometimes Michael…

  Jacinta lives with her husband and children in Tororo, Uganda. Her incredible story of courage is best told in her own words: The day you walked into the village, I did not know what to think. No one had ever come to our place before. Give Us Wings people seemed so kind. You sat…

  Geoffrey and his family live in Kayoro, a rural area about seven miles outside of Tororo, Uganda. They are members of the small community group called Makimoth, founded with the help of Give Us Wings in 2007. A few members live in semi-permanent houses made of metal sheets, but most live in grass thatched…

  Justine and her husband were subsistence farmers when they began working with Give Us Wings. The family of 9 barely survived on the little food they were able to grow. Then her husband passed away and Justine became the sole-provider for her family. Her family desperately needed a more reliable source of income. So…

  Judith is married and has 5 children. For years, she and her husband tried desperately to provide for their family through subsistence farming. Then, in April of 2014, Judith enrolled in Give Us Wings’ Building Business for Family Sustainability (BBFS) program. She received training in business management, savings and record-keeping. With the help of…

Give Us Wings’ focuses much of our work on educating girls and young women. The rural areas of Kenya and Uganda have been decimated by the AIDs epidemic. Thousands of men and women have died from the disease leaving hundreds of thousands of orphans. Many families generously adopted orphans. Many families generously adopted orphans, but…

  The women of Ngiyo Ber are are valiant, intelligent, some serious, some funny, some shy, some not. They are the hard-working, loyal, generous, courageous, and determined. They have had to be. When Give Us Wings met the Ngiyo Ber women they lived in a slum near Tororo, Uganda. Many were farmers who had fled…

“Before Give Us Wings came we sat together for many years to comfort each other. Now we have real hope that our lives can be different. Because we are with Give Us Wings people know that we are somebody even with our disabilities.”   ~ Margaret, Member of Mari Group   We found the Maari Group…

  Fatuma, a member of the Mari Abled group, was an elderly widow who cared for many children in the village despite the past scars she experienced from leprosy. She lived in a rat-infested home for 50 years, where she had to sleep with insects and vermin. In 2012, Fatuma moved with members of the…

They have watched their husbands and daughters die from AIDS, and now they find themselves getting tested only to discover their worst nightmare is true. They are HIV positive. In a community where the stigma around HIV/AIDS is wrought with disgrace, this group finds strength in each other. “I thought I had lost everything, but…

  The members of the Victoria Young Women’s Group are between the ages of 15 and 28. All of them were forced to leave primary school before graduating from 8th grade. It is a sad fact of life in rural Kenya and Uganda that girls are frequently forced to leave school before they complete their…

When we first met the Nyaoga Women’s Group in 1999 we talked extensively with them and learned more about who they were and what they wanted for their community. The Nyaoga Women’s Group was formed in 1991 by 20 local women to improve the income, food security, and health status of the village. They were…