ChanCes Charity Uganda
Educating children and building classrooms in Uganda makes a difference.
ChanCes Charity is committed to giving children chances through sponsoring their education & building classrooms. Ask anyone in the habit of helping people on a small or large scale what the key to positive change is, and the response is always the same – Education. Whether you’re helping your child tie their shoes for the first time, helping your boss acquire a new merger or trying to change the cycle of poverty in a third world country, education is the underpinning commonality. This was made abundantly clear on our first trip to Uganda. You are literally unable to turn a corner without seeing at least one child of school age on the streets being blatantly deprived for a chance at a brighter future. The most heartbreaking part is that they are fully aware of this too. However, with youthful enthusiasm they are desperate for education and those who receive it are desperate to continue with it as long as humanly possible. Merely walking into a classroom highlights this. Imagine approaching a primary school and not hearing a word. Not a single word. You approach an incredibly rundown building, if they’re lucky it’s a permanent structure, and you see a haze of children. Rubbing your eyes and thinking it’s a mirage due to the equatorial heat you come to realise that you are, in fact, looking at up to 90 children silently working in a classroom we would consider fit for 25 kids. They realise they have a visitor and you are greeted with nothing but smiles. The teacher, that’s right, just one, for these 90 children welcomes you with such gratitude, and that alone can make you tear up with overwhelming emotion. Don’t even get me started when the kids start proudly singing for you! It’s at that moment, right there, when you’re resisting the urge to cry that you realise two things…..read more
Jo Sykes is the Founder of ChanCes Charity.A day in the life of Jo Sykes in Australia:
Jo wakes up at a leisurely pace (she’s never been a morning person) and heads into her husband’s office where she has managed to commandeer not one, but two desk spaces. She turns on the computer and is bombarded with emails written in broken-English about the trials and tribulations of life in Uganda. Armed with an extra-hot skim cappuccino she begins the climb from the bottom of the pile to the top of the email mountain. Before she knows it lunch has come around…read more
ChanCes Charity is committed to giving children chances through sponsoring their education & building classrooms. Ask anyone in the habit of helping people on a small or large scale what the key to positive change is, and the response is always the same – Education. Whether you’re helping your child tie their shoes for the first time, helping your boss acquire a new merger or trying to change the cycle of poverty in a third world country, education is the underpinning commonality. This was made abundantly clear on our first trip to Uganda. You are literally unable to turn a corner without seeing at least one child of school age on the streets being blatantly deprived for a chance at a brighter future. The most heartbreaking part is that they are fully aware of this too. However, with youthful enthusiasm they are desperate for education and those who receive it are desperate to continue with it as long as humanly possible. Merely walking into a classroom highlights this. Imagine approaching a primary school and not hearing a word. Not a single word. You approach an incredibly rundown building, if they’re lucky it’s a permanent structure, and you see a haze of children. Rubbing your eyes and thinking it’s a mirage due to the equatorial heat you come to realise that you are, in fact, looking at up to 90 children silently working in a classroom we would consider fit for 25 kids. They realise they have a visitor and you are greeted with nothing but smiles. The teacher, that’s right, just one, for these 90 children welcomes you with such gratitude, and that alone can make you tear up with overwhelming emotion. Don’t even get me started when the kids start proudly singing for you! It’s at that moment, right there, when you’re resisting the urge to cry that you realise two things…..read moreA day in the life of Jo Sykes in Australia:
Jo wakes up at a leisurely pace (she’s never been a morning person) and heads into her husband’s office where she has managed to commandeer not one, but two desk spaces. She turns on the computer and is bombarded with emails written in broken-English about the trials and tribulations of life in Uganda. Armed with an extra-hot skim cappuccino she begins the climb from the bottom of the pile to the top of the email mountain. Before she knows it lunch has come around…read more
ChanCes Charity Foundation is committed to giving children chances through sponsoring their education & building classrooms. We are a 100% not for profit organisation. This means we volunteer our time. Any person performing paid administrative functions for ChanCes Charity here in Australia or “on the ground” in Uganda, are all paid by our sponsor S.E. Rentals. It also means any travel done to Uganda is paid for by each individual’s personal finances. Operating in this manner means all money allocated to helping disadvantaged people does just that. All of it.
ChanCes is a fully registered charity with the ACNC and
Our Projects
Our Original Boys
In what can only be described as fate, our involvement in Uganda began in 2008 when we offered to support a small orphanage in the slums of Kampala. A personal donation was sent each month to assist in the day-to-day running. We soon made the conscious decision to not be the ‘absent donor’ and travelled to meet these 17 boys aged 5 to 17 years, who we had been supporting. Excitement doesn’t do the feeling justice.
Venturing into the slums it was clear that what we knew about the world was about to change for us. Seeing the surrounding poverty and steadily growing more anxious to meet these boys, we knew at that moment that ‘our boys’ poverty cycle ended right here....read more
Special Needs Children
Having a child with special needs, or having special needs yourself is hard enough in a developed country like Australia. But for someone living with special needs in a developing country like Uganda takes the difficulty to a whole other level. Unfortunately in traditional cultures across the world having a child with special needs is viewed as a curse upon the family.
Many marriages are broken up because of this often leaving a single parent to take care of a special needs child along with their other siblings. In horrific cases these children are simply abandoned at hospitals and orphanages. ChanCes has been privileged to encounter some....read more
Community Empowerment
It is true that we would rather support people than bricks and mortar, but every now and then, we come across a need that we feel duty bound to get behind, that involves building something. But rest assured we do not get involved in these projects if there is an expectation from the community towards the donor. This is why the community involved in any of our building projects is carefully considered and thoroughly relied upon to inspire us to inspire them.
We are not in the habit of building no strings attached schools and handing out a solution without commitment. The building works we are involved in are dependent on community involvement....read more
The Basua Pygmies
Yes Pygmies. If someone had told us we would meet the King of the Batwa Pygmies, complete with poison arrows and no taller than our belt buckles, I don’t think I would ever have believed it.
For those of you unaware, pygmies are essentially an ancient and traditional tribe of people who are, as the name suggests very small in stature. This tribe of small hunter gatherers tend to be no taller than 150cm.
The pygmy story is a sad one at that. This proud and traditional group of Ugandans, wish to be just that, proud and traditional. However due to political reasons they were evicted from their forest where....read more
Success Stories
The advantages are clear...educating children and building classrooms in Uganda makes a difference.
Since 2012....
Kids in Primary School
Kids in Secondary & Tertiary
Structures Built
Graduated
South Sudan to Arua
Success Story: South Sudan to Aura
This is their story… This is the story of 5 orphaned children from South Sudan, a country in horrific warfare. Their father died in Juba after the 2014 uprising, then their mother died in local fighting. They were taken in and…
Godfrey Byokatunda
Success Story: Godfrey Byokatunda
This is my story… I am from the Bafumbira tribe on boarder of Congo/Rwanda & Uganda but they are definitely Ugandan’s! Me & my mum are not ok together. I became tough because I didn’t know my relatives and I tried asking about my…
Richard Weazher
Success Story: Richard Weazher
This is my story… It’s my pleasure to share with you my life story…I was a son to two parents who never married and both didn’t have attention and love for me. I went through a lot of sufferings because I was not recognised…
Contact Us
ChanCes Charity Foundation
ABN 52 603 681 670
Australian Contact
Jo Sykes
Founder
Phone: +61 2 9882 8000
Address:
Level 10, Building B, Suite 1,
207 Pacific Hwy,
St Leonards NSW 2065
PO Box 312
St Leonards NSW 1590 Australia
Ugandan Contact
Lukenge Solomon
Country Manager
Phone: +256 752 396 849
Address:
Plot 1081, Block 246 Muyenga, Kyeyitabya
PO Box 12483 Kampala, Uganda
Email Enquiry
eMail Enquiry
Please Donate
Giving Chances to the children of Uganda through education sponsorship.
Give a Chance. Make a Change.
All donations go to providing education, family support and selected building projects to those most in need.
To make a donation please click the button below to go to the secure PayPal portal. Thank you for your support.
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