Before our children joined 1moreChild, they typically had one meal a day and even that wasn’t guaranteed. They now get three good meals a day and don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. The main diet in Uganda consists of posho (maize flour cooked with water to a dough-like consistency) and beans. It’s a simple, cheap & filling meal. We also vary the meals as much as possible, which the children love, with cabbage, rice, peanut sauce, spinach, fish and meat.

Last week we weighed and measured all the boys – one year has passed since we first did it.  Thankfully there were some big gains!  Lochole Michael grew the most – by almost 8cms!  Putan Zakayo gained the most weight – 31lbs which was a 40% increase.

One of the toughest boys to start with was Lomunyan Abra.  Abra was a real street boy – often throwing stones and smashing our car, always filthy and malnourished.  He moved into our boys’ home a year ago. He has gained 9cms and 18lbs and is thriving with the constant care he is getting.

The 2^nd term reports have arrived with the usual amount of excitement and trepidation. Most of the children have gradually improved with one boy, Lotudu Paul, coming 1^st out of all the P3 (Year 3) pupils. Coming first means the school pays for the next term’s fees, lunches and books.

The other 1moreChild children are so proud that one of them is no.1 and it’s a great incentive for them all to keep pressing in academically.

Lochilichilia, Aliat, Lokure and Loput were 2nd, 4th, 7th & 9th out of 230 pupils in P4.

10 days ago the first four 1moreChild chickens arrived.  Since then they have produced 17 eggs!  The local chickens are fed a poor diet and as a result produce virtually white yokes. The 1moreChild chickens are now free-range so we are hoping for very nutritious, orange yolks.

There are also three rabbits in the chicken house – a male and two pregnant females. We’ll keep you posted with the progress.

Mobile phones are as popular in Uganda as anywhere, people are always using them and always upgrading them. They are rarely bought from the phone companies, but are traded through shops up and down the main streets.

As a result we are launching our first 1moreChild campaign called Phones for Kids! Please keep and send to us any old mobile phones that you have and we can sell them here for cash to put towards our running costs. We don’t need the chargers, just any used phones.  The cheapest ones are worth a minimum of $15 and ones with cameras sell for upwards of $50.  Please tell your friends, collect them up and send to Ash Farmhouse, Poole Keynes, Cirencester, GLOS, GL7 6EG. If you are not in the UK let us know and we’ll give you an alternative address.  Thank you very much for all your help.

Yesterday 40 of us from 1moreChild went to the Jinja Agricultural Show which is the annual national show for the agricultural trade. It also doubles up as a fair with plenty of LOUD music. The 1moreChild children had a great time seeing all kinds of animals, vegetables, fish and candy floss!

Due to the terrible bombings on Sunday the security to get in was worse than Heathrow, but once inside the boys got to ride tractors and diggers whilst learning about innovative new farming methods.

Last month, Jinja hosted a 10km run which had over a 1000 runners from many African nations. 1moreChild entered our top two runners to join in the fun.

Putan 10km

Agan Philip (15yrs) came 71^st in a time of 40:37 and Putan Zakayo (14yrs) came 83^rd in 43:06. They were the first under 16yrs to finish.

Agan 10km

World Cup Fever has hit Uganda with huge halls in Jinja totally packed out from the first match. We often take the boys to one of these halls to watch football matches. Fortunately a 1moreChild volunteer brought his TV from home, we added an aerial and the 1moreChild house now has perfect reception and front row seats for all the matches!

Each of the boys drew one of the 32 teams out of a hat and prizes are up for grabs if their country does well. It’s also an opportunity for them to learn some geography and a bit of maths as they try to work out who might go through to the next round – competition is fierce!

For the opening match their Headmaster even allowed them to leave school early!

Last week a local AIDS clinic came and tested 40 of our boys. We did a lot of HIV/AIDS education beforehand and tried to prepare everyone for all possibilities.

It was a fantastic surprise when all had been tested and all were HIV negative.  There was an amazing cheer of relief and the boys really understood the significance of the results. Around 10% of Ugandans are HIV positive so for all 40 boys to be negative was a miracle.

On Thursday the new Masese United football kit was officially unveiled! It has been in the pipeline for over six months and has been donated by many extremely generous UK sponsors.

As you can imagine it was greeted by stunned amazement and then excitement. There are 15 kits for both juniors and seniors and they got worn in with matches on Thursday and Saturday. So far this season Muya Solomon is the leading goalscorer. He has scored in every game, with a total of 14 goals in 8 matches.

Thank you so much to all who sponsored a kit – the boys are so excited and pleased to be the best dressed team around. Have a look below at the moment the boys saw the kit for the first time.