Uganda Women Concern Ministry ... well here's a little about how this all started, then I'll tell you about the first part of the project i'll be working on in Ugands in June and explain how you can help. It's worth mentioning at this point that I wanted to desparately raise £200 for my initial trip, and was hoping to raise £1000 for my second trip later in the year. For my 50th birthday I asked all my friends and family to ditch presents and cards, explained there will be no 'big birthday party' and asked them all to donate to this project instead...

Initially, UWCM trained and supported individual women on how to live positively with HIV/AIDS and these women then went out to encourage and support other women in similar situations within their communities. Since 1991 when Edith set up the charity many many girls and women have been helped in many differnt ways. UWCM has helped with emotional support through forming Womens Groups, teaching them new skills so they can earn money to support their famillies, offered small grants so they can set up a little business, and encouraged and supported girls to acess education, the acitivities this charirty has done and continues to do are endless.

So having heard what UWCM do I decided to get involved and intend to make several trips to Uganda starting in June 2018. Here's a little about the first project I'll be working on.....One of the main reasons young girls dont go to school and one of the main reasons women struggle every month is due to something we take for granted, they dont have sanitary products, many dont have underpants, "knickers" to you and I... can you even begin to imagine the impact this has on them? .....so I'll be working with a lovely lady Esther over in Uganda and a group of women and girls and I'll be teaching them how to sew and make re-usable / washable sanitary towels. I'll be taking with me "LOTS" of new knickers (200 pairs donated so far!)... and I'll be taking as many materials as i can squash into my enormous rucksack so we can get this project started.

We're hoping to distribute a pair of underpants/knickers and a washable sanitary towel to around 200 women and girls in the community in June and get some figures on how many more need these products. Then I'll be back in the UK to do some more fundraising activity, and hopefully get some of you lovely people involved as a few have said they'd love to join me on my next trip, we can then buy a much greater volume of materials and knickers, arrange the next trip out to Uganda, teach more girls to sew and make more washable sanitary pads and get them distrubuted. I just can't explain to you how life changing this will be for so many girls and women... can you help?

Can you support my project In any way? Can you help me to empower young girls to access eductaion every day, can you help me to empower single mums to get out to work every day to support their children?

If you can make a donation, no matter how small it will help me to buy the essential mateials we need. Someone recently donated enough pennies for two sewing machines, but we have no thread, no fabrics, no press-studs, not enough knickres, no scissors, the list goes on and on...... I'll be making the patterns for the differnt sanitary towels before I head out for my initial trip on 3rd Jun, and some lovely people have donated packets of knickers, an amazing lady in M&S Pen reduced some packets for me which helped massively.... so now I'm looking for some pennies from anyone who can help so I can buy more essential materials.

It's my intention to head back out to Uganda after this initial visit and if you think you'd like to be involved then please just let me know, the more people involved, the greater the success of the project and the more women and girls we can help.

Please ask your friends, family and colleagues if they can help with a small contribution too, even if you can only donate a price of a coffee honestly it would be amazing and I cant tell you how much i'd appreciate it. If all you can do right now is share my page that would be equally amazing, thanking you all in advance,

Let's Empower Girls and Women to Turn Their Lives Around!

Sue xxx