The Clinic

When Your Siblings was founded on September 26, 2010, our founder, Lisa Wiese, had already established our cooperation with the Ugandan nonprofit organization Child Need Africa. We would raise the money for a medical facility right where it was needed most, at the center of a greatly disadvantaged region of Western Uganda. Child Need Africa, founded in 2007, had years of experience serving these communities of peasant families, many living in abject poverty, with medical services but also with education on a personal and a communal level.

Topics of family planning, personal hygiene, nutrition education, HIV prevention and treatment, mother-to-child transmission of the disease, human rights, and much more are part of the educational repertoire that is often required in these desolate regions where many families have to feed their children, seven on average, with no more than the equivalent of US$495 per year. At the same time, immunizations and worm treatments are in high demand.

The clinic would be a center for medical treatments but would also serve as a base for their outreach programs, with which they would bring medicine and knowledge right to the doorstep of those who would otherwise never be able to obtain it due to their financial situation and their tremendous distance to any medical facility. Anyone unable to afford the medicine would be treated free of charge.

Over the course of two years, these plans gradually manifested until the pony fandom helped us complete the fundraising in 2012. It took till early 2013 until the clinic building was constructed and all certifications were obtained. Then the clinic launched.

The Support Project

Child Need Africa had not underestimated the demand for a project of this nature. On one day they treated two dozen children, some of them with life-threatening conditions, and often the children and their families were so poor that they could not contribute to the price of the medicine.

Over the course of the first six months, it showed that poverty and the need for medical attention were such that income from cost share programs could not offset the prices for the medicine. As a consequence, Child Need Africa would have to limit their service to the community in order to be self-sufficient.

They’ve already started implementing strategies to cut costs by buying medicine at bulk-discounted rates and by hiring staff for outreach programs on a case-by-case basis rather than full time. They will also limit their outreach activities in accordance to the funds available to them, since those ask most of their resources.

These limitations, however, are not inevitable. Over the past months, Child Need Africa has researched the market and devised a strategy to tap into the flourishing real estate business around the capital of Kampala. They will buy a house, renovate it, and rent it out to tenants, who will thereby provide the funding for the medical supplies of the clinic.

Child Need Africa reviewed five houses that are for sale in lucrative regions in the suburbs of Kampala. They did background checks on the owners to ascertain their legitimacy and to find out why they decided to sell the houses. To that end, they also interviewed family members and neighbors. Next, they negotiated prices for each of the houses and assessed the extend to which they deeded to be renovated.

One of these houses was particularly interesting. It has six rooms and is located less than eight miles from the city center. With the other houses requiring similar or greater levels of renovation at higher prices, we decided to base the project on this one.

Since, however, it is possible that the house will be sold by the time the fundraising is completed, Child Need Africa is prepared to look for a similar house at the same or a lower price counting the security margin. Possible donations in excess of the price for the new house will benefit the renovations.

For the house in questions, the nonprofit has projected a monthly net income of €200 to €220 for the first three years, which will supplement the cost share income that peaked in January at USh 1,677,100 (about €500). Additionally, they will reallocate money from salaries which have so far been constant at USh 2,050,000 (about €600).

We will launch our fundraising efforts in the coming weeks. Thank you again for your support, and stay tuned!