It’s been nearly 5 years since I came out to Uganda (after much planning and guidance) to set up Malaika Babies Home.

What we’ve always known is that children belong in a family and that is where they thrive – and believed our transitional babies home was the best way of achieving this.

We wanted to see if it was possible to place abandoned children back into their extended families or find new families within six months to avoid the long-term damage that can be caused by institutional care.

I am very proud to tell you that we have successfully found families for nearly 200 children.

One thing we’ve observed is how quickly these children do, in fact, develop once they are in a family. So with 5 years experience under our belt, at the end of last year we decided to launch an emergency foster care pilot to see if it was possible to provide transitional care in a family whilst our social work team found permanent families for the children who came into our care.

Take a look at this video which shows the difference Harriet has made to this little boy’s life.

This has confirmed to us that there is a better way to care for children and there is no turning back. I am excited to share with you that from now on we will place all children with foster families like Harriet and reduce the capacity and need for Malaika Babies Home.

We were very lucky to have the professional support of Blue Sky Fostering to help with our pilot. So far we have 9 babies in foster families. Not only is foster care better for children but it’s half the cost of residential care.

It feels like a new era.

Thank you for continuing to support us.

Love Lucy x