Brick by Brick - Loaf by Loaf
This is a story about two people at opposite ends of the
world, Canada and Uganda, who had a dream to build a home for children. We would like to call the orphan an “angel”
and the word orphanage, a “home”. Children
from the poorest parts of the world without family, feel badly when they are
called “orphans”….so Jaaja Barb’s Home of Angels was the name we called our
dream.
My name is Barbara Giraud and
I am a grandma. This translates to “Jaaja”
in Lusoga and our dream was named in my honor.
I work solely alone in Canada with a 26-year-old young man Edwin who lives in
Jinja, Uganda. Edwin took
care of children at Agape Children’s Home before we met.
We felt there had to be a way
to take children who have lost their families or abandoned from the people who should care for them the most. To put them into a home; to have them
attend school and learn to be productive citizens of their country, Uganda. How could we ever do this…. a 72 year old
woman and a 26 year old boy? If your
dream is strong enough, you can do anything and we proved this to be a
fact. In June 2010 I started baking
banana bread and nine months later with 1,500 loaves baked, our Home of Angels
started to take shape.
Global Television filmed our
story in February 2011 and the viewers started contacting us with donations and
offers of baking the bread. Consequently
we were able to finish the children’s home and start the main house. The dairy community in our area donated enough
money for an 8’ wall to be constructed to enclose the entire compound. The sale of a purebred cow named “Faithful”
provided all the water on our premises, this being the largest gift we could
have ever received, as water is the most valuable commodity in Uganda. Because of this cow, we are also pumping 5000
liters/hour and are able to share with the community around us.
Fast forwarding to 2016, we have been blessed to house 26 children with another 20 children to arrive in May 2018. An acre of land was donated for a farming project and to date we have 500 layers. We intend to use the chickens and eggs for the children and the poor in the community. We are raising 18 goats to provide milk and meat and a garden has been planted with many vegetables to help us cut costs.
Uganda has a population of 39 million people, where 1 in 3 is an orphaned child. The infant mortality rate is 65 infants under
one year old in a year per 1000 live births.
The Ugandan health care is staggering with 4 doctors/28nurses per
100,000 people.
BARB! This is Morgan Taylor, we met at the Entebbe airport! Love the blog and story! Keep Jordan and I posted on anything you might need.
ReplyDeletetaylor.morgan58@yahoo.com
You are an amazing servant, Jajja Barb...I met you at the airport last year, and have continued to follow your story. THANK YOU for loving these precious littles. God Bless!
ReplyDeleteJaaja Barb, job being well done. Keep it up. God bless.
ReplyDeleteOtim.
You are amazing. God Bless you
ReplyDeleteYou are amazing! God Bless you
ReplyDelete