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Hi EveryBunny!

It’s Easter and what does this holiday mean? Easter is the gift of hope, peace, love, happiness and new beginnings. That means taking time to celebrate your life.

This weekend take time to count your blessings, no matter how small or large. It’s been 12 months of ups and downs in all our lives. In Uganda, schools like ours closed and education stopped. Our Ugandan family is looking forward to a time when they can gather again. In fact, Father Mugagga is headed to Uganda to check on the orphaned children that remained housed at our schools.

Our children are striving toward a new beginning by receiving an education to make their dreams come true. Their dreams are often what some people take for granted – the opportunity to learn, work, laugh, smile, make friends and live an independent life. They strive to better themselves, so they are able to be an inspiration and sign of hope to others who are looking for more out of life.

The children in our program bring joy and happiness to my life every day. While we are able to help change their lives for the better, they have also changed my life dramatically and provided me a greater purpose. I look forward to new beginnings as our schools continue to help children joyfully and optimistically move on to the next stage in their life. We can’t wait for education to return to their lives.

What new beginnings are you looking forward to as we emerge from some dark times? What makes you happy? Let’s celebrate the joyous moments and look forward to new beginnings whether it’s in your career, family, friends or any change in your life.

Blessings,
Cristen Lyn

Sponsor a Child’s New Beginning
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Dignity – The quality of being worthy of esteem or respect.

While we may not think about the word dignity often, it plays such a large part in the way we live our lives. Having dignity gives one a sense of worth, confidence, and respect for who they are as a person. This is important to understand because without dignity, our lives feel incomplete and worthless.

So, how does someone have dignity? This can happen many ways but the three most fundamental are feeling like you’re being heard, valued, and treated as an equal. Based on this, if you were to ask citizens of Uganda if they believed that they had the opportunities to achieve dignity, many of them would most likely say no.

This is especially true with the children we support. Due to non-existent government provided social services including education, the extreme poverty cycle continues with no way to break out. Schools like ours are the only way out.

Dignity transformations happen BECAUSE we educate orphaned children who grow up to be productive members of their society, and then are able to provide their children with an education to do the same.

Countless children at our schools are found on the streets, orphaned, or selling their bodies so that they can keep themselves alive. They have no sense of dignity because they don’t have access to environments that build them up through love, knowledge, and mutual respect. This is one of the many reasons we take them in, as we believe dignity is a human right.

Our Model at St. Elizabeth Girls Academy

  • take orphaned girls off the streets
  • socialization and trauma processing
  • vocational school or high school with an opportunity to attend college
  • job placement
  • post-graduation mentoring

Our Model at Kankobe Children’s Home (orphaned children from infants to the 5th grade)

  • therapeutic support
  • housing
  • education
  • upon aging out girls are placed at St. Elizabeth Girls Academy, boys a vocational or high school

Nearly 49 percent of Uganda’s estimated 45 million are under age of 15. Ugandan children are the single largest demographic living in poverty.

If you would like to join us on our dignity mission, please consider donating. The funds we receive from readers like you go towards building strong children.

Donate Today

Love and Blessings,
Cristen Lyn

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Red beaded necklace and blue owl statue

Want to give your loved one something truly special this Valentine’s Day? Our beads of hope necklaces are a unique, lovely statement piece that directly helps the women of Uganda.

These beads are made from recycled magazines that are then carefully strung together to create a one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly piece of art. They are handmade by the women of Uganda, and the proceeds from these necklaces go directly back to the community. Our beads of hope are another way we are trying to help build the community from within and help break the cycle of poverty.

Red beaded necklace and blue owl statue

The beads are called kambulagos, and they are a popular business venture for women of Africa, the Caribbean, and many other countries. We have purchased our beads directly from the woman of Uganda, and the proceeds of each necklace support both St. Elizabeth’s Academy and the Kankobe Children’s Home. Not only are these beads a wonderful gift, but they’ll also give your loved one a taste of Ugandan culture.

Valentine’s Day isn’t exclusively about romantic love, it’s also about the love you bring into a community and the world. The women and children we work with at Hope for Hearts have so much to give to the world, but it takes your support to help them share it. These beads of hope give the woman of Uganda the gift of a future.

Get your handmade necklace today!

Sending love, hope and happiness.
Cristen Lyn

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They say the best way to understand a culture is through the cuisine, and we believe this to be wholeheartedly true.

The importance and independence of cooking is why Hope for Hearts has created a culinary training program for our girls at St. Elizabeth’s Academy. The girls are trained in practical cooking experience to help provide a valuable skill to their local communities upon graduation. Many alumni have fulfilled their dreams of opening their own food stands.

Ugandan food varies from the simplistic to the exciting. The basics being a type of maize porridge called ugali served with a peanut stew and topped with chicken, goat or tiger fish.

Their national dish is one of the oldest in the world and one of the most versatile. The matooke, a green banana found in East Africa, is considered a staple of most diets. Unlike traditional bananas, the flavor is savory like a plantain, making them perfect as a focal point for many meals. They are usually served boiled and mashed alongside stews.

Some Ugandan street food favorites are barbequed meat on a stick (Muchomo), African donuts (Mandazi), and samosas. The influence of Indian cuisine is prominent in Uganda due to the large immigrant population in the country.

The most popular street food dish is a rolled egg called a rolex. It begins with 2-3 eggs that are cooked like an omelet and is then stuffed with cabbage, tomato and onion. It is then combined with a chapati before serving.

The recipe we have chosen is a spicy banana curry that gives you a taste of Uganda with a fuller, more exciting flavor. The original recipe says to serve it over basmati rice, but if you want a more authentic meal, you can pair it with ugali instead.

Spicy Banana Curry

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 cup sunflower seed oil
  • 2 onions, diced
  • ½ cup curry powder
  • 1 ½ tablespoons ground cumin
  • 4 teaspoons ground turmeric
  • 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon white sugar
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground black pepper
  • 4 teaspoons curry paste
  • 8 cloves garlic, pressed
  • 1 (10 ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 2/3 cup plain yogurt
  • 2 bananas, diced
  • 3 tomatoes, chopped
  • ¼ cup flaked coconut

Directions

  1. Heat the sunflower oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
  2. Stir in onions, and cool until they are translucent and soft (about 5 minutes).
  3. Sprinkle in curry powder, cumin, turmeric, salt, sugar, ginger, chili powder, cinnamon and black pepper.
  4. Cook and stir until fragrant (about 1 minute).
  5. Stir in the curry paste and pressed garlic.
  6. Cook for about 1 minute.
  7. Pour in the tomato sauce and yogurt, bring to a simmer.
  8. Stir in the diced banana, and simmer gently for 3 minutes.
  9. Mix in chopped tomatoes and continue to simmer for another minute.
  10. Stir in the coconut flakes just before serving.

We hope you enjoy your taste of Ugandan culture. We believe our training programs set our children up for success, and helps break the cycle of poverty. If you would like to sponsor a child please visit our donation page.

Peace and Love,
Cristen Lyn

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Recently I shared some insights on birthdays that were turned into national holidays. We discussed a few great, well-known, world leaders who earned a holiday in their honor. Jesus, Gandhi, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. If you haven’t had a chance to read that blog, take a look here.

I want to share another story about an ordinary person, who became so extraordinary they too, were honored with a day for their life’s work – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

Avila Pakir Jainulabdeen (A. P. J.) Abdul Kalam was a well-loved and prominent political figure in India, having served as President from 2002-2007. But his path to the presidency was far from easy. His father was a ferry owner and imam of a local mosque, and his mother was a housewife. He was the youngest of 5 siblings. While his ancestors were at one time wealthy, they eventually lost their family fortune. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s family became so poor that from an early age he had to sell newspapers to help pay for his education and take care of his family.

Kalam worked and studied his way through good education and eventually graduated in Aerospace Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology. He served as the project director of India’s first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV II), and was Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. He was widely known as “The People’s President,” and dedicated much of his life to education, writing and public service. He wrote several books and spent every moment he could speaking with students from remote villages to big universities.

There’s no doubt that A. P. J. Abdul Kalam would not have been as successful in his life if he hadn’t worked so hard to support his own education as a child. And you can tell he knew it by his dedication to teaching the next generation of students from all walks of life. His story has served as an inspiration for millions of students, and will continue to do so for years to come. For his dedication to education, in

2010 the United Nations named October 15 “World Students’ Day” in honor of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s birthday.

In every student there is a future leader. From political figures to educators, scientists to small business owners, every leader has a role to play in making the world a better place. The American Dream has always been about turning rags into riches through hard work and dedication. What is often taken for granted in this scenario is access to at minimum a basic education. If you can’t learn to read and write, perform basic math tasks, etc. Your chances of finding a vocation that will lift you up in life becomes extraordinarily harder.

For country’s that are experiencing major atrocities on the home front, such as India or Africa, education most often takes a major back seat to securing basic necessities such as finding food and shelter. For every child that does not have access to education, the cycle of poverty continues. Whether it’s traditional or vocational, education is a barrier to entry to lifting children up from poverty to prosperity.

So in honor of World Students’ Day, won’t you help us take away this barrier for more children in the world? By making a donation to Hope for Hearts, you are providing the tools our kids desperately need to take them off the streets and give them a hand up to be the best leaders they can be in their community.

Donate Today

Humbly Yours,
Cristen Lyn