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Education

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With a large portion of Americans spending more time at home amidst COVID-19, many are wondering how to keep themselves busy when they have more free time than usual. While watching Netflix and playing games may be fun for a while, it is also important to make sure you are exercising your mind.

To help you do this, we have compiled a short list of some resources below:

Coursera

Coursera offers hundreds of free courses taught by top instructors from world-class universities and companies. The courses are free, and give you access to on-demand video lectures, homework exercises, and community discussion forums. Paid courses provide extra content and a certificate at course completion.

Allison

One of the world’s largest free learning platforms that aims to be a catalyst for positive social change opportunity, prosperity, and equality for everyone. There are hundreds of courses to choose from to help in your personal and professional goals.

Scholastic

The popular kids book publisher is offering free daily projects to help keep kids reading, thinking and growing. They also have a Bookflix website featuring free audio e-books that come with quizzes, puzzles, etc. to keep the education going.

Duo Lingo

Whether your foreign to a new language, or want to brush up on your skills – Duo lingo allows you to learn a new language, anytime, anywhere, for free! It has lessons targeted to all ages and skill levels. And in case you’re wondering.- Uganda’s official language is English, but only because there are 43 other languages and dialects actively used in the country.

Art Is Fun

Artist Thaneeya vows to make art fun by providing tutorials for all ages and skill levels. You can select from several mediums to certain subjects. Whatever you choose, you are bound to have fun!

No matter who or where you are, continuously learning and acquiring new skills is incredibly important for success and sanity. As you can see, in the U.S. we have access to tons of free learning programs and videos but in Uganda, these resources are scarce because very few people have access to the internet or computers. There are no libraries or other places with free computers to use. If you would like to help the children of Uganda gain the basic traditional or vocational education needed to lift themselves from poverty to prosperity, please consider donating to Hope4hearts.org.

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Group of children at St Elizabeths Girl School

In just a few days we’ll be celebrating not only the start of a new year, but a new decade. 2020 will be a momentous year, and I hope it brings you vision, clarity, peace, and strength. I hope you can stand strong to face the obstacles in your way. I hope you can find the strength to do the things you think you can’t, and continue doing the things you know you can.

Group of children at St Elizabeths Girl School

I find this to be the number one lesson I have learned from the kids we serve in our orphanages and schools. Life is hard. It’s not always smiles. These kids came from some of the toughest places imaginable. Homeless, hungry, lacking education or family support. Through all their hardships, they stood strong in the face of adversity, and they envisioned a better life for themselves. They did not give up. They will not give up.

There are many children in our schools that are now happy to be in a home with a roof over their heads, a new familial bond with our staff and friends made at the school. They can once again begin to smile. But it’s not all smiles all the time. They still have memories of where they came from. They still face struggles learning the unknown. And while they may cry tears of sadness or frustration, they are really watering the seeds you’re planting for their future.

With your donation, you can help provide the seeds of knowledge to these children. Instead of crying alone on the streets, they can cry in the comfort and loving arms of our nuns, teachers and counselors. They can feel loved, supported, and most of all safe. They can let the tears out, then with amazing resilience that only a kid can have, they pick themselves up, go back to the books, and stand strong to build a better future for themselves.

As everyone is finalizing their New Year’s resolutions, I find myself thinking about mine. Taking a lesson from our kids, I resolve to stand strong. I resolve to stand strong in all that I do. I resolve to stand strong for others who need the hand up, by continuing to continue raising money and fighting for orphaned children in Uganda.

Will you resolve to stand strong with me? Stand strong for yourself and for the less fortunate.

Wishing you peace and happiness in the new year,
Cristen Lyn

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Happy Fall Y’all! What do you think of when you think of Fall? Perhaps it’s the changing of the seasons, the start of colder weather, pumpkin spice everything, holidays, and lots of family time. But for 140 million orphans in the world, many of them won’t be able to enjoy all the niceties that Fall brings. Perhaps that’s why every November the Children’s Bureau, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, funds the National Adoption Month initiative through a partnership with AdoptUSKids and Child Welfare Information Gateway. The focus is on adopting children currently in the U.S. foster care system.

I think this is a wonderful initiative, and one near and dear to my heart. Every kid deserves a loving family to come home to. To all the parents who have adopted or fostered kids, thank you. You are a shining light in a child’s life. Even though you didn’t have to, you chose to be a part of the solution for society, and for that one child. Trust me when I say you will get more than you give. This I know from personal experience!

There are 443,000 kids in the U.S. foster care system, 123,000 of which are available for adoption. And while it’s important to work hard to ensure that each of these kids finds a home, it is just a drop in the bucket compared to the 140 million orphans internationally. That is why I wish that this initiative would be recognized and practiced around the globe. Even if you can’t adopt, there are things that people can do to support the initiative.

While the U.S. foster care system may have its faults, it is still better than many programs around the world.

According to nightlight Christian adoptions:

All orphaned children need parents, and this is their paramount need. But adoptive parents drawn to inter-country adoption reason that children in developing nations face threats that U.S. children do not face. This is undeniable. Orphaned children in other countries are:

  • at risk of death due to unclean water or malnutrition
  • at risk of death due to insufficient or no shelter
  • at risk of having no education or economic opportunity
  • at risk of disease, even death by preventable disease
  • at greater risk of sex trafficking
  • at risk of being conscripted as child soldiers
  • at risk of being conscripted for child labor

The decision to adopt, and whether to adopt domestically or internationally, is a very personal one. There are many factors to consider. For those who do decide they would like to adopt internationally, many countries have put up barriers that can make it harder, if not impossible, to adopt.

This is something our kids know first hand. Some of the orphaned children in our program attending college work part-time for The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development in Africa. They have committed to full-time positions post-graduation with the intent to work on creating legislation to reverse Uganda’s international adoption laws. Currently, laws make it near impossible for orphans to be adopted by foreign citizens, adoptive parents have to live in Uganda for a 36 month fostering period.

When a country is unable to provide for it’s own orphans, and at the same time limits the ability for foreigners to adopt, the cycle of poverty continues. Take a look at this video to get an idea of how this works.

When adoption isn’t possible at the moment, foster care is there. It’s a step between the streets and a loving forever home. It’s a hand up in life. Our nuns work hard 24/7 to build a sense of family where it didn’t exist before in the lives of the children they care for. Where society at large failed to provide for these kids, our schools provide the foster care, love, and education needed to break the cycle.

I am thankful for the work the nuns do. Also, I couldn’t be more proud of our students who recognize the challenges in society that led them to where they are now, and are actively working towards changing the system so that future generations of orphaned children may have a better shot at getting adopted. A better chance at a second life filled with love and endless opportunities.

The mother in me thinks it should be easier to accept someone into your home and provide a life of love, laughter, and support for a child in need, no matter where they come from. My wish this month is that one day National Adoption Month will become International Adoption Month, and the world will come together to find a way to decrease the number of orphans waiting to be adopted.

Peace and Love,
Cristen Lyn

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Every 40 seconds, someone loses their life to suicide. Take a moment to think about that. I know it may be hard. Perhaps you’ve lost a friend or loved-one to suicide, or feel for those who have… for the people who felt they had no other options. It’s a difficult topic to explore, but it’s worth discussing in honor of World Mental Health Day.

Today is World Mental Health Day, a day to pause and reflect on mental health-related issues. This year’s theme is “Working together to prevent suicide.” Mental health is not a subject we often explore on this blog, but it is very much worth discussing. Father Mugaga and the nuns who care for the students in our schools not only have the task of feeding, sheltering, and educating these children, but also caring for their mental health and well-being. This care often includes helping children heal from traumatic pasts and the toll the past has taken on their mental health.

The children at our schools are all orphans who have faced several traumatic events in their lives. As a nation, Uganda is still facing several major issues including war, extreme poverty, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, etc. The impact of these tragedies has been widespread, but the most pertinent impact has been the deaths of so many citizens. One of the results of the unfortunate death toll in these cases is that children face uncertain futures, moving from family member to family member, until there is no one left to care for them. In addition to unstable caretakers, some children suffer from abusive caregivers before arriving at the orphanage.

Children who lack a consistent caregiver can develop disrupted attachment, which means that it is hard for children to form trusting, secure bonds with adults. The children have learned through lived experience that they can lose their caregiver at any moment, so they can develop significant difficulty attaching to other adults. Disrupted attachment is a severe form of trauma for children, leaving them to feel unsafe, unprotected, and vulnerable. This, combined with previous trauma that they have already likely experienced (war, poverty, disease, loss), leads to mental health symptoms that make it difficult for the children to function in a healthy way. Untreated trauma in children tends to mimic the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. They can demonstrate difficulty managing their behavior, with poor impulse control, inattention, hyperactivity, and defiance. This behavior makes it extremely difficult for the student to focus, but also interferes with the learning environment for the other children in the classroom. Often this can lead to a classroom in which the teacher is spending a significant amount of learning time redirecting the traumatized student’s behavior instead of teaching.

Poor mental health can have a major impact on everyone in the classroom, not just the affected child. Teaching and care-taking in an environment filled with traumatized children requires special people who understand mental health and the need for care and patience, rather than punishment. For the children in our schools, those people are Father Mugaga and the nuns who dedicate their lives to caring for these wonderful children. As much as we focus on the need to clothe, feed, and educate these children, their mental and spiritual well-being is also a priority. These children come to us at one of, if not the, most vulnerable points in their life. Many of them feel like they are broken, possibly seeing suicide as the only respite from life on the streets. Our schools give them shelter, love, and, most importantly, hope.

Although mental health is a primary concern for the children at our schools, it is difficult to concentrate on alleviating mental health symptoms when basic needs are unmet. This is where your help can make a huge impact on the long-term outcomes for these children. You can join Father Mugaga and the nuns and make a difference in the lives of these children, impacting generations to come. You can help our children focus on healing their mental health by making a donation to help provide for their shelter, food, and education. These donations allow them to truly focus on the important work of healing and practicing self-care at our schools, enabling them to learn, grow, and thrive.

For the truly disadvantaged in Uganda, counseling and therapy can be hard to access. However, as is true for the rest of the world, there are everyday things we can all do to help. In addition to donating to our children, there are also things you can also do on the home front to increase positive mental health for those around you. Think about all the self-care tips you’ve heard in your lifetime. Do you sometimes find yourself lacking the motivation to do some of these things? Perhaps you could use an extra push in the right direction? Be that motivation for someone else.

Today, in honor of World Mental Health Day, flip the script on suicide. Take 40 seconds to reach out to your friends and loved ones, especially those you may not have talked to in a while. Take the time to check-in with them and be there when needed. Show you really care by actively listening to them, and being there for them, without judgment. Break up their routine. Invite them to go to a yoga or tai chi class. Invite them to connect over a meal. Invite them to family game night. Invite them.

You never know the power a simple gesture of care and kindness can have on a life.

With love and gratitude,
Cristen Lyn

P.S. For more information on WHO’s A day for “40 seconds of action” to prevent suicide, click here

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Two balloons with peace written on them

What do George Washington, Martin Luther King. Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus all have in common? They’re not just some of the most famous names known to the US and, in some cases, world-wide. Yes, all of these men were great and well-renowned for their achievements in life. And it’s because of these achievements, they are on the same list – people with whom holidays have been named after them and are celebrated on their birthday.

Prominent figures throughout history have had holidays named after them. George Washington’s Birthday is better known as President’s Day, celebrating the first President of the United States of America. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrating his life accomplishments to end racial segregation and work towards racial equality in the US. The most notable on this list – Jesus Christ. His life work is celebrated in more than 160 countries every Dec. 25.

These are all great men in history, who passionately worked towards creating a better world for mankind. Their holidays are all well known and celebrated, but did you know about International Day of Non-Violence? This day was named after Mahatma Gandhi, and thus why he is on this list. Gandhi worked tirelessly to promote peace and non-violence on this earth. And just in case he isn’t already immortalized enough through his acts and reputation, in 2007 the United Nations named October 2, Gandhi’s Birthday, the International Day of Non-Violence.

Two balloons with peace written on them

Gandhi took a country in political turmoil and saw that the way out was not through war and conflict, but peace and understanding. Instead of resorting to physical violence, he advocated non-violent methods including peaceful protest, persuasion, non-cooperation, and non-violent intervention such as marches and blockades.

Important to this steadfast belief that peace could be achieved through non-violent means was Gandhi’s belief in faith.

“Non-violence requires a double faith. Faith in God, and faith in man.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence involves a certain inherent amount of trust that the person(s) you are practicing non-violence towards will not react in a violent matter themselves. There is a faith you put in God to guide everyone on the right path, and a faith you put in your fellow man (or woman), not to stray from that path.

So, which path will you choose? If society were to honor you with a day to celebrate your life’s accomplishments, what would we celebrate? I like to think the kids in our schools would be celebrated and remembered for their steadfast commitment to peace, and independence through education.

Father Mugaga and the nuns who care for these children will forever be remembered by many for their non-violent work to combat the aftermath of war in a time of political unrest. They take children off the street who otherwise may have been subject to a lifetime of corruption from warlords or slavery through inadequate education, and provide them with a hand up to the prosperity of an independent life.

Kids are the future of Africa. Among them there is the next political leader who will bring peace to the country through governmental change. There is the next doctor who will save countless lives and limbs of innocent victims harmed by the violent acts of war. They are the next era of business leaders who will know what it’s like to live in poverty, and thus strive to treat their employees very well. Because they remember what it was like to worry about finding their next meal, or shelter from a storm, and they will do everything they can to ensure nobody else has to go through the trauma they did.

These changes may be small when you look at the challenges of an entire country. But over time, and student by student, change will happen. The staff and students at our schools practice the value of peace through non-violent means every day. And eventually that will make the world a better place. Who knows, maybe one day one of them will go on to make such a profound impact on the world that they get a national or international holiday named after them. Be a part of making the next historic happy birthday. Sponsor a child now at https://hope4hearts.org/donate/.

Peace and Love,
Cristen Lyn