Our Ewafe Home offers emergency help and a safe place to live for abandoned, missing and at-risk children. Ewafe means ‘Where We Belong’ in Luganda. Our Ewafe Home supports abandoned and at-risk children in the slums of Kampala, offering an emergency and transitional place to live, while also working towards reuniting children with their relatives and reintegrating them with loving families.
Ronnie* was referred to the Ewafe Home in May 2020. As soon as a child is referred to Ewafe, our team of social workers begin searching for immediate and extended family members, and where possible, put in place reintegration plans to bring these children home.
Ronnie had been found alone in a small room with no food by Aidah*, the women's counsellor of the local village. The team later discovered that following the death of Ronnie's parents, he had sadly been abandoned by his other relatives.
During his stay at Ewafe, Ronnie was cared for, provided counselling and sponsored to go to school, all whilst our social workers attempted to trace safe family members for Ronnie to stay with. Our teams always aim to reunite lost and abandoned children at our Ewafe Home with relatives.
However, sometimes this is just not possible. So, last year, we launched our Foster Care Programme to build new families and ensure more children have the opportunity to grow up in a loving home.
After much searching it became apparent that reintegration with family was not going to be possible for Ronnie and so our team then began the process of foster care. Very fortunately, after hearing that Ronnie required a foster home Aidah got back in touch and explained that she was a trained foster carer and would love to welcome Ronnie into her family.
Following consultations between Ronnie, Aidah, our social workers and the probation officer, Ronnie was successfully placed with Aidah and has been integrated well with the family.
Ronnie & Aidah, from strangers to family.
4 children have now been placed in foster families and another 10 families have been trained and assessed ready to welcome a child into their home. We’re also continuing to reunite children with their families with 12 families traced and 4 children reintegrated in 2023 already.
Abandoned, missing, street-connected and orphaned children are referred to our services regularly by the police and local authorities in Uganda. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns, we have seen a huge increase in the number of children being referred to the Ewafe Home due to family breakdown, abuse, neglect and abandonment caused by rising poverty rates across Uganda. Each child who is rescued and referred to the Ewafe Home is provided with emergency care once they arrive at our transitional home. We provide children with a safe place to stay and food, medical care, counselling and support.
All children have a right to shelter, and our Ewafe Home provides this. However, we know that the best long-term care plan for these children is to grow up in a family.
*names have been changed