OUR FOREVER HOME
Thanks to all our supporters, Crazy Love Africa took a beautiful step forward this week! CLA has been working in Uganda since 2014. What started as a small program to help woman living with HIV find economic opportunity, grew into a movement of global sisterhood. Our Crazy Love Africa organization now includes over 25 sisters, trainers, and mentors. We have bi-monthly support meetings, savings groups, and trainings. We have developed an artisan craft program that is empowering our sisters to learn new skills and sell these crafts both in their local community and around the world. We have a school sponsorship program for our sister’s children that is providing educational opportunity for over 50 children from Nursery school to University. Micro-business grants are given yearly as we are able to invite more women into our sisterhood. Along with starting a new business, our sisters are provided business training and mentorship. We are providing HIV and health education to keep our sisters and their children healthy and safe. Together we are empowering leaders and transforming the villages in which they live. By working alongside our Ugandan sisters, we are then able to share the stories of courage and strength through our Crazy Love Africa Ambassadors to the world.
To put it lightly, we have just outgrown meeting in the homes of our sisters and knew it was time to dream BIGGER! Because of all this growth and the impact we have been making, our Ugandan sisters have been planning this past year. We started with a dreaming session. What would it look like if we had our own land? A safe and central location for our sisters to gather. A home where our support groups, trainings, and artisan workshops could be under one roof. Room for our children to play together while we are weaving baskets or rolling beads and storage for our crafts. A shop where people visiting Uganda from around the world could purchase goods. A community garden where our sisters can work the land together for their families. A guesthouse where our Sister Ambassadors from around the world can stay during their visits. And the exciting possibilities haven’t stopped coming!
With the help of the proceeds from our artisan crafts sales and holiday auction, we were able to complete phase one of making these dreams come true! This week we officially bought land in Ft. Portal, Uganda. The land purchased is just a mile outside of the city limits. It sits east of the beautiful Rwenzori mountains and next to an International Nursing School. It’s a blank slate right now with the planning of building coming in Phase 2. Today we wanted to share the JOY with you on this huge step forward in growth. Thank you for coming alongside us and praying for the next steps. We will need each of our global sisters and brothers to keep this dream going. We cannot wait to share with you the ways in which you can be involved and continue to bless and empower our Crazy Love Africa global village.
Peace,
Jess Wiederholt – Founder & Executive Director