In the serene hills of Mpigi district lies the Peace Portal community hub that was once an orphanage. It has since been repurposed into a vibrant centre for the locals to acquire a skill for economic development, a boarding section to a community school and offers community care support including free medical services, provision of essential items like food to vulnerable families.
Peace Portal, originally established as an institution for children in need, once hosted 56 children. With the support of Child’s i Foundation, it has recently undergone a remarkable evolution. Recognising the changing landscape of child welfare, they have transitioned their services into a vibrant community hub.
Opened 20 years ago by Pastor Michael Masembe and his wife, it was an orphanage aimed at socio-economic support for vulnerable families within the community. Peace Portal aimed at offering hope for a better tomorrow especially to children and widows.
To ensure the bright future for children and their economic prosperity, Pastor Michael and his wife decided to start a school, “We realised that to empower the children to become successful in life, we had to educate them. We had also witnessed many successes as a result of education. That is why we started a school,” Pastor Michael shares.
The school initially started with four children, then eight children and thereafter the numbers continued to grow. For children whose parents were unable to look after them due to various challenges, they were housed at Peace Portal and that is how the institution came about.
In most cases, institutions are birthed out of initiatives like schools that originally start with good intentions of supporting children. Parents usually become comfortable with leaving children in the care of the schools which eventually become institutions. This action can lead to long term harm to the child like; difficulty in preparing for like after, mental health challenges among others.
Transition of Peace Portal
In 2018, the Government of Uganda revised the approach to supporting vulnerable children from placing them in institutions to kinship care, Peace Portal had to embark on a transition journey in 2019.
“The government called us for a meeting and informed us that it has changed its approach to caring for children and that they would be closing institutions. I had no idea or where to start from in the process of returning the children that were at Peace Portal back to their families,” Pastor Michael shared.
With little to no expertise and resources for this to be done, Peace Portal reached out to the Probation and Social Welfare Officer at the district for support. The officer was able to link them up to Child’s i Foundation to support them with the transition process.
The process kicked off with a capacity building session for the Peace Portal staff on the transition of institutions, delivered by Child’s i team of social workers. The training provided insights on why children needed to be with their families rather than in institutions and how children can be supported during the transition process.
A desk for Child’s i social workers was created at Peace Portal to offer onsite support to the team. The process kicked off with the search for the families and engagement of parents as to why their children were being brought back home.
One of the major challenges expressed by the parents during the reintegration process was the fact that they had little to no resources to look after the children. In a bid to support the parents to thrive economically, Child’s i supported them with the startup of income generating activities.
The income generating activities were aimed at enabling parents to meet the basic and household needs of the children. The ultimate goal was also to create a safe and secure environment for children to thrive.
“When we reintegrated the children back into the families, many of the families were vulnerable. To ensure that the children were in a safe environment, we offered start up grants for income generating activities to the parents to empower them economically,” Emmanuel, a Child’s i social worker shared.
One by one, the children were taken back to their families that embraced them with loving open arms. The once sceptical parents were happy to receive their children back home.
“I am happy that the children went back home as they were missing out on a lot of things whilst they were in the institution. They are now able to learn how a community works, have values and also develop as individuals,” shared a happy Harriet, an education officer at Peace Portal.
With the children back home, a boarding section for the school was set up to replace the institution. This was to ensure that the children who were far away from the school could still access education. During the holidays, the children are picked up by their parents to spend time with them.
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of girls had become mothers while others got married. To support them to thrive, a skilling centre was set up aimed at equipping them with tailoring skills to economically empower them to care for their families.
With the availability of the required resources, a skilling centre for the boys will also be set up in future to support them too.
The families are continuously monitored on a monthly basis. During the visits, parents are offered psychosocial support, essential items where possible and a check-in on the progress of the children.
“I am happy that the transition happened and that is why I like Child’s i slogan; We make families not orphans,” a jolly pastor Michael shared.
