The problem of homeless children living on the streets of Kampala, capital city of Uganda, has been ongoing since the late 1980s when poor governance by the government of Apollo Milton Obote who was President of Uganda from 1980 – 1985, took a hold of the country. During this turbulent period, there was raging guerilla warfare in the country which led to a generation of orphans because a lot of parents died from conflict-related warfare, and a lot more abandoned their homes and fled for fear of being caught in the cross-fire between government troops and the guerrillas. Many of the children from these conflict areas ended on the streets of Kampala and presently there are about 10,000 homeless children on the streets of the city.

The 1980s and 1990s are also decades, in which hundreds of thousands of people in Uganda died from complications of HIV/AIDS, thus compounding the child homelessness problem that still persists to this very day. The children on the streets face a lot of challenges living on the streets of Kampala and other towns in Uganda. Many of these youths succumb to illegal and dangerous means of survival thus putting their lives in increasing danger by the day.

Meet The Need Africa Foundation’s primary mission is to get some of these young people off the streets and into a vocational educational institution where they are able to acquire vocational skills for life, protection from physical and mental harm, housing, healthcare and food, among other essential human basic benefits. We view this as one way of solving this homeless problem, and creating a difference in these young people’s lives.

Our secondary goals include trying to procure medical equipment and medicine for the vocational school and partnering with hospitals and clinics in Uganda and later in the wider East & Central African region (Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, DR Congo and Burundi), to help them acquire the same. Our plans will be expanded into procuring construction equipment, agricultural equipment, water-well-drilling rigs and educational materials and supplies, not only for the vocational school, but also for partner organizations, agencies and communities in Uganda and East & Central Africa.