Team from The Hub prepares to visit charities in Uganda

Monday April 3rd 2017

Flashback to 2015 – members of The Hub team at the Waakisa Centre for young Ugandan girls who are pregnant.

A group of students from The Hub, the Church of Ireland and Methodist Chaplaincy at Queen’s University, is heading to Uganda in June to work with two mission partners.

The young people will be supporting the work of Abaana and Waakisa.

There was plenty of fun when the Abaana New Life Choir visited The Hub in February.

Abaana is a charity based in Bangor, Co Down, which since 1998 has raised more than £1.5m to build schools, to provide clean water, medical care and education. It also runs homes for boys at risk, and has established a school.

The Abaana New Life Choir is currently touring Ireland and Britain, and the children from the choir had the opportunity to meet with students at The Hub on February 28.

Waakisa Ministries is another charity founded locally. The Waakisa Centre in Uganda provides care and support to young vulnerable girls who are pregnant and alone, and to deliver health education programmes to local schools and churches. By providing medical care, pastoral support and community to those in need, the charity aims to support vulnerable young women at a pivotal moment in their lives.

The Hub has partnered with these two projects because they reflect many of the aims of The Hub’s work with its own students: providing homes, community, education and support.

The Rev Barry Forde, chaplain.

The team will be supporting both projects through a variety of practical and manual tasks; by running children’s clubs; by assisting in education work; through schools’ work; and by providing relief work with street kids.

Church of Ireland Chaplain, the Rev Barry Forde, was part of a Hub team which went to Uganda in 2015.

“As a chaplaincy, we want to invest in the lives of those who go on the team, helping to cultivate their awareness of issues such as poverty, education, healthcare, housing – and how they might respond to such needs,” he said.

“We want this to be the start of an ongoing relationship, supporting these projects alongside growing the potential for future teams. We also want to inspire each member of the team to engage further with these issues, and work with them beyond university.”

The team will leave for Uganda on June 5, returning on June 18. Their itinerary is as follows:

Week one

Working in Kampala with Abaana’s street outreach ministry to homeless boys
Working in Kampala in New Life Homes – Abaana’s residential centre for boys rescued off the street
Working with Abaana in local schools

Week two

One half of the team will travel to Gulu in Northern Uganda to work in Abaana school projects and maybe undertake some building work
The other half of the team will travel to Waakisa Ministries near Entebbe to work in the Waakisa Centre

Team members contribute to the cost of their trip, and the team and chaplaincy are also fundraising so that money is available to support the projects financially as well as in practical terms.

In 2015 the team was so successful at fundraising that it was able to assist the two charities whilst on the ground in Uganda and provide £4,000 to each charity on its return towards their work.

To find out more about this mission trip, or to support the team’s fundraising efforts visit: http://www.thehubbelfast.org/uganda-2017/