Please support Gurt Lush Feed the Kids!

Gurt Lush Choir are fundraising to feed 792 children in three communities in the Kigezi region of Uganda who would go hungry without the daily mug of porridge that we have been providing since 2019.

We’ve also helped build a school, open a health clinic for the Batwa community, supported these children through the Covid pandemic, and helped rebuild their homes after a landslide. We are asking choir members and anyone who has ever enjoyed our singing to help us continue to feed and support these children.

How we got involved:

In 2017, Gurt Lush Choir held our first concert to begin to raise funds for a project to establish schools and facilities for children living in extreme poverty in Uganda. Our second gig launched the GURT LUSH BREAKFAST PROGRAMME 1 at Mwisi Primary School, Kabale, where children, many of them orphans, were too weak and hungry to learn. It had a huge impact – every term, £450 was feeding 300 children a mug of porridge every day ( now 600 children due to increased poverty levels). (Image below - Mwisi school, Kabale)

Further concerts and events in 2018 and 2019 raised over £7,400 to build and equip the Virunga Masif community school 200 miles away, for children of the Batwa community who had become marginalised and destitute after being evicted from their forest homelands when the government set up Mahinga Gorilla National park. The project also helped the community build a water tank and grow potatoes so they don’t always have to beg. The school opened in February 2020 with GURT LUSH FEEDING PROGRAMME 2. (See top picture with the children in the breakfast hut with their first mug of porridge, and below, the Batwa community with farming tools)

But the pandemic hit the schools and communities hard – the schools were closed and for 2 years Gurt Lush Choir were unable to sing together to raise money to feed the children. Thanks to monthly donations from choir members, funds for soap and food were sent to the Batwa families suffering during lockdown. It was then we set up our first JustGiving crowdfunding page which over three years raised £9,520 to continue to feed 657 children every day in the two communities, set up farming projects, and provided a nurse, medicines & health care. During this time, the communities have also had to cope with the impact of war and natural disasters like landslides and floods (see below).

Food arriving after the disaster.

In December 2023 we also started to support a third feeding project in Kigezi at Lake Bunyonyi education centre which works with disabled children, orphans, and street kids - so we are now feeding and supporting 792 children every day. The funds we raise through our concerts and JustGiving are vital to help us to continue to support these children and give them food, a community school and a future.

WHAT YOUR FUNDS WILL BUY

100% of all money collected will go to feed 792 children on the 3 projects and help maintain the Virunga Masif Community School

£12 feeds 72 children at Virunga Masif school their breakfast porridge, and poshu and beans for lunch.

£18 feeds 600 children at Mwisi school a daily mug of porridge (3p a mug)

£32 pays for the nightwatchman at Virunga Masif to protect the school, for 1 month

£64 pays the Virunga Masif teacher’s salary, or Nurse Milliam’s salary, for 1 month

£5 provides 1kg flour,1 kg beans, 1 cabbage, soap and clothing for survival for each child from the Lake Bunyonyi education centre, during school holidays

There are no paid staff in the UK; all fundraising and project work is done by volunteers.