Helping orphan children of Uganda

ISHPEMING — Imagine living in a world where you have no clothes, barely enough food, and are forced to walk miles with no shoes. This is what orphaned children in a village in Uganda face on a daily basis. For this week’s ABC 10 Feature, I sat down with someone who is trying to change the lives of these children.

This is Mwanje Patrick, a volunteer at Caring Destiny-a church organization  in a village of Uganda. Mwanje looks after 35 orphans in the village whose parents are deathly ill, or have already died either from diseases or tribal warfare. These children walk miles on a daily basis most the time with no shoes, each of these children lack the basic necessities that we often take for granted.

One U.P. native and ABC 10 employee met Mwanje over social media and wanted to help.

“He wasn’t asking for money, he wasn’t asking for anything. When I saw Mwanje’s story, when he shared his information about the need in Uganda, it was kind of my idea to be like ‘hey you need to develop this more’,” said Andrew Lorinser, Co-Founder of Helping Orphan children of Uganda.

What started out as an acquaintance based relationship, turned into something much more. Mwanje and Andrew started a new fundraising campaign in hopes of raising money for the amenities that these children lack.

“One day I was looking at his Facebook page and noticed he was stirring a pot of what looked like white plaster or paste and I assumed it was for ceramics. It was Thanksgiving time, I thought this school was doing arts and crafts, so I asked him, ‘what’s happening at the school today? It looks fun’ and he said ‘o’h Andrew that is porrage, that is their lunch and dinner’,” said Andrew Lorinser.

A You Caring page was created to get the money to Mwanje with a current goal of raising $5,000. All this money will be going towards clothes, shoes, and even something as simple as a mosquito net that can help prevent malaria from spreading across the village. The ultimate goal is to raise enough money for Andrew to go to Uganda himself and help with building a school for these impoverished children.

“I really believe we can make a legitimate difference in these kids lives and I’m going to go to Africa and I’m going to see it for myself, and if we raise enough money, we’re going to build them a school. It will be called, Yooper’s Caring Destiny for orphaned children of Uganda or something awesome like that and what we need to right now, is people to help me in that mission,” said Lorinser.

If you are interested in helping out with this mission or even donating, you can contact Andrew via Facebook or email him at Andrew@abc10up.com. You can also find a link to the You Caring page on our website, by clicking here.

With Andrew’s experience in the non-profit sector and having family ties to Africa, he’s confident that he will make a difference. “So as Mwanje puts it every day when he talks, he says, ‘Andrew lebowa, which means Andrew my brother, let’s change the world,’ so that’s what we want to do,” said Lorinser.