To our Child’s i Foundation family,
We have since added a Coronavirus information page which is updated weekly and can be found here.
Globally, we are in the midst of uncertain times and facing unprecedented upheavals to daily life. We wanted to check in with you, our worldwide community of supporters, and see how you are doing. Now, more than ever, we need each other’s support.
At Child’s i, our communities and families still remain at the heart of what we do. Our community includes the families we support to stay together, the foster carers and adoptive parents who have opened their hearts and homes to children in need, our army of volunteers who help make our work possible, our dedicated team that makes the magic happen, and you – our worldwide network of supporters. We are all in this together.
Making families, not orphans remains our mission in these uncertain times, and we are putting a great deal of emphasis on ensuring safety in the face of COVID-19 for every member of our community. Today, more than ever, we believe that every child needs a loving family.
We are a global team spread across the UK and Uganda. Our team in the UK is working from home and practicing social distancing. In the past few days, Uganda has reported its first cases of COVID-19. In an effort to prevent an outbreak, prior to the cases being detected the President of Uganda made national addresses calling for restrictions on public gatherings and closed schools and some businesses. An additional statement was made over the weekend and as of now Uganda has closed all borders. We are vigilant and would like to ensure everyone’s safety as the global spread of COVID-19 is affecting every one of us. We would like to share the next steps that we will take in order to keep the families we support safe as well as our staff in case there is an outbreak of COVID-19 in Uganda.
- We will prioritise the duty of care to our staff. We will increase our commitment to keep all our social workforce and administration staff safe and well. This includes emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing. We recognise that we will need to continue and prioritise looking after our staff who may need extra support during this time.
- We will ensure the safety of children, families and our beneficiaries. Child protection will remain our utmost priority, and our staff will be remotely monitoring over 800 children we are currently helping support, as well as keeping a pulse on ongoing child protection issues through our network of community volunteers.
- We will support the institutions and orphanages we are working with. This includes helping with preparedness, sharing information about safety and hygiene, and continuing to remotely monitor and support them through this period.
Things are going to look quite different over the next few months. We have a lot of questions about the future, and we are sure you do too. We may not be able to hold events, or catch you up on our work over a cup of tea – but we will find ways to still connect and keep you up to date on how we are doing.
Stay strong, we will get through this – together.
