Greetings Hope for Hearts Supporters!
As 2012 moves ahead fast and furious, your mind may be focused elsewhere, perhaps a new promotion, a new baby, or preparing your children for a new school year. Well, I ask you to pause for a moment and think about the girls being served by St. Elizabeth Girl’s Academy (SEGA).
Like many of us experience over and over in our lives, our Ugandan family at SEGA has hit a snag in the road. Last month I filled you in our scout to purchase 30-50 acres of land to help further our mission with the construction of a new campus that will serve up to 1,000 girls.
As we continue to focus on funding the $4.5 million to make this a reality, we must take a look at the immediate need. Financial help to replace necessities lost in a fire created by old electrical wiring. The fire demolished SEGA’s main building and displaced 40 students and nuns. The main building housed offices, storage, nuns living quarters, and a student dormitory.
Although rare due to brick structures, fires do happen. Since there are no firefighters and fire trucks contain no water, the fire eventually burned out. The fire has been a strain on our resources, as well as cramped learning and living space for the students and nuns.
It would cost $250,000 to rebuild the facility, so a tough choice had to be made in order to focus on the bigger picture, our new campus. We will make minor modifications to existing buildings to create temporary living quarters.
Please join me in my efforts to build, not only a new campus, but also a new life for these girls. If we can help just one girl, we have won. Your past support has helped more than 200 girls live a better life – a life with basic necessities like food, shelter and a chance to gain skills.
We must continue the goal to break the cycle: girls being exploited, girls becoming a mom before they are ready, and girls living on the streets. I look forward to a better tomorrow, and our actions today lay the groundwork.
From our hearts to theirs…peace and love,
Cristen Jacobsen-Champagne
Executive Director/Founder
Hope for Hearts
Uncategorized
This month the game of baseball brought the world a little closer. A feel good story with roots springing from Uganda.
We all have amazing stories to tell about a first, whether it’s a first date, your first job or your first big win, that feeling is so fantastic. Uganda’s Little League players will relish in their historical first. Those 11 boys were the first African team ever to be represented in the Little League World Series. They will soon travel back to Uganda with stories abound. Stories of stadium play, real uniforms, proper equipment and fans cheering. The players come from poor families. They play the game in dusty fields, sometimes barefoot, and never in front of a crowd.
Their experience will turn into a legend passed from generation to generation. Yes, the boys lost to Panama and Mexico in series play. But they won in their hearts; and winning over hearts throughout the world.
They will be bringing home a win against Oregon in a consolation game. Their biggest win though, is the history-making trip that is creating hope. Hope for our littlest under served hearts throughout the world.
For the love of baseball, for the love of Ugandan children, it is moments like this where we cheer and cheer loud that our work to help children is not in vain. We stepped up to the plate and we will continue to strive for home runs as we continue our run for hope.
Cristen Jacobsen-Champagne
Founder
Hope for Hearts
Summer is an enriching time for children as they explore the boundaries of their world. Whether it’s swimming, sleepovers, or the best yet, summer camp, they grow through these experiences. Their self-esteem bolsters, their confidence shines.
The summer camping season is wrapping up and children all over the world have increased their social development and created memories they will cherish for a lifetime.
With that thought comes the question of children living in orphanages – are they receiving an enriching summer experience like other children? How can the life of an orphan – one who may be vulnerable with barely enough resources to survive even compare to a child from a privileged home where summer camps are the norm?
Well having experienced the norm with my children and then traveling halfway around the world to meet the children being served by St. Elizabeth Girl’s Academy, kids will be kids no matter their background. They are excitable, curious, fearless, and compete for attention.
St. Elizabeth Girl’s Academy may be an orphanage with few resources, but that won’t stop the kids from exploring themselves and their future. They laughed, played, and created ways to have fun. As I reflect on my visit, the kids at the orphanage reminded me of my children and their friends – happy, fun-loving kids looking for new adventures.
We all come into this world the same way. It’s our experiences that mold who we become.
Did you know a $240 donation provides for one child at St. Elizabeth for one year?
Cristen Jacobsen-Champagne
Founder
Hope for Hearts
Every four years people throughout the world are glued intently to the television to see who will come away with Olympic gold. Stories of glory. Stories of defeat. Stories of how for 17 days the Olympics bring the world together.
We are a global community. We all breathe the same air. We all rely on mother earth and its resources to survive. Even through the fierce competition among countries to score medals, the Olympics celebrate fellowship. We see elite performances rise above the superior. What we achieve are heroes and standards of excellence that everybody else can emulate.
Uganda, a country with millions of vulnerable children, has 16 athletes competing, of which five are women. Their perseverance can teach these kids to rise above the poor living conditions, the sickness, the lack of necessities.
Choosing the right path usually means to push hard, think creatively, and thrive amid the contradictions life brings. The girls being served by St. Elizabeth Girls Academy (SEGA) are discovering they can reach their goals with effort and dedication.
The stories that come out of SEGA are lined with gold. Girls turning around their lives from living on the streets to gaining the education to survive on their own, creating their own dreams of Olympic proportions chapter by chapter.
Cristen Jacobsen-Champagne
Founder
Hope for Hearts
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Greetings from Hope for Hearts founder! |
| Greetings Hope for Hearts Supporters!
We hope this letter finds you in good spirits. Many of you know about our mission of helping orphaned girls at St. Elizabeth Girls Academy (SEGA) in Kampala City, Uganda. Thanks to you, 200 disadvantaged girls are now living safer lives at SEGA, receiving food, clean water, clothing and shelter. Additionally, they are learning important skills to give them a better chance at an independent life. It’s been an eventful year for Hope For Hearts. Last September, our founders, Cristen Jacobsen-Champagne and Father Muggaga Lule traveled to Uganda to visit SEGA. Along with bringing much-needed food and supplies, including 200 mattresses and 40 beds, they were eager to see what the girls have been up to since Father Mugagga’s last visit. Before SEGA, these girls would have been born and died in the slums. Cristen and Father Muggaga also made a special trek to check in on some of the girls who have since graduated from St. Elizabeth Girls Academy. One 19-yr old graduate is able to work as a seamstress, and earns money to feed and house her four younger siblings. She also pays for their schooling because there is no public school system in place in Uganda. Cristen and Father Mugagga were inspired to see firsthand the direct impact educating one girl at SEGA for one year has had on four children. Another great development this past year was the official launch of Phase 1 of our project to build a new SEGA flagship academy and campus. Since the school’s founding in 1998, our girls have been living in tents and dilapidated buildings on just one acre of land. With the 30-50-acre piece of land we are currently looking to purchase, we will be able to build a much larger, better-equipped vocational school and rehabilitation facility. The new campus will house up to 1,000 orphan girls in Uganda, at an estimated cost of $4.5 mil. Our existing facility is still in need of many things, including food, school supplies, a TV or music system, computers, sewing machines, embroidering machines and cooking appliances and supplies. Because we depend on 100 percent on private donations to run SEGA, every contribution counts, large or small! We hope you will continue to help us help hundreds of orphaned girls in Uganda who have no one to love and care for them without SEGA. We thank you so much for your continued support and for helping to transform the lives of so many deserving young women. Thank you so much for all that you do, Cristen Jacobsen-Champagne |
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Every contribution counts! Please donate today! |