ACT Uganda Blog

  Enjoy more stories of those whose lives have been touched by ACT - on both sides of the ocean! From one of our long-time donors and sponsor of an orphan - Jane Lacher: "My fondest memory/story has to do with adopting my first orphan. I was so blessed to be matched with the first group of orphans. Her name is Fadious and she looked so sad in her first picture. My memory is that her smile blossomed as time went on.  But the story has also to do with John Waechter. He told me why I matched with Fadious. She is a member of a pygmy tribe and given that I topped out at 5'1.5", he said we would make a good match! (the tribe lives within the Bwindi Bamboo forest in Muko). I was so sad when her mother made her quit school to go to work. She will be in my heart forever. " Jane Lacher See a brief interview with Fadious https://youtu.be/w9Om6uIry24 And a very recent story from Judith Tukahirwe, our former HONOR Staff Manager and ACT's first Maverick Leadership Scholar who ...

Friday, September 8th and Saturday, September 16th, ACT and its friends and supporters celebrated 20 years of accomplishments and impact in Muko SubCounty Uganda and in our own lives here. It felt like a pinnacle in this beloved partnership. We heard brief presentations from our amazing staff in Muko about each programs accomplishments between 2003 and 2023.  We also enjoyed the song and dancing of these joy-filled people.  Together, we have truly made a difference. We planned our dinners to be food from Muko so people in the US could experience the good food we enjoy while in Uganda. We had chicken (prepared Ugandan-syle), green beans, chapati, roasted Irish potatoes, G'Nut sauce, cole slaw and we even added a dessert which Ugandans don't typically eat - mango crumb bars. Everyone was incredibly generous in their giving. We ended the 2 dinner celebrations with gifts totaling $12,484.76. This included handcrafts sales, silent auction proceeds and generous donations! This will ...

How can we make ACT more self-sustainable? That was the question that led the ACT US Board to charter the FUNDS (Financial Ugandan Needs for Development & Sustainability) Task Force in early 2020 to research and propose new models of sustainability for ACT, for both programs in Uganda and ACT US.  FUNDS Task Force members include (from Muko, Uganda) Alexander "Guma" Gumoshabe, Generous Turinawe, Onesmas Arinda, Ken Blickenstaff (Indianapolis), and from Midland: Bill Busch, Kelly Busse, Gail Hoffman, Mark Maxwell, Roger Moll, Dave Molzahn, Lynn Pottenger and Sue Waechter (Traverse City).  The Task Force brainstormed possible social businesses that could be run in Uganda to provide ongoing revenue to support the ACT Uganda programs. There are many business models for a social business (also known as venture philanthropy), but generally it is a non-dividend company dedicated to solving human problems. In our case, the goal would be to raise money for ACT programs, with seco...