Above: These ladies are part of a women's Bible study and co-op in Bulanga, Uganda. They're dressed in their finest gomesis, and they performed traditional songs and dances for us.
Note: Taylor's Humanities teacher gave her an essay assignment for while our family was in Africa. I'm reposting her work here just because she's so amazing. —Editor/Proud Dad
Today, women in Africa are facing many problems. For example, education for their children, malaria and other deadly illnesses and getting clean water. Clean water is a major issue for women in most parts of Africa.
In Bulanga, before the first water well was drilled, the women and children would walk for miles to get muddy water. I have pictures of some of the water they were getting. The women cooked with that water and would drink the muddy water. Women, men and children would become sick because of all of the bacteria in the water, and this is a crisis in africa. When my mom saw all of the children at the orphanage sick she decided to do something about it. My family started a company called half way there where half of the population of Africa does not have access to clean water. We sold T-shirts and all of the money went to help drill our first water well in Uganda. We raised more than fifty thousand dollars and have drilled many wells also called bore holes. These have changed many lives and I'm proud to be used by God to help make a difference.
In addition to water being a problem another issue is malaria and other deadly diseases. Malaria is a deadly illness that can be contracted in many tropical regions. Mosquitos transmit the disease. The problem for the women is that they can not afford to buy mosquito nets for themselves and their children. So they get bitten and get sick and some die.
Another very big problem is lack of Education, every mother wants her child to have a good education. They want them to succeed in life and get a job and get good money. But in some places in Africa getting a good education is very difficult. Most women have to send their children far away to a boarding school for them to get a decent education. In school they learn english, math, writing, farming, singing and dancing and more . At the orphanage that we visited they have a boarding school and I got to go inside one of the classrooms and I saw their penmanship and their math. Oh my gosh, their penmanship is flawless, it is amazing, and they do very very difficult math problems as well. They probably do some of the math work that an 8th grader would do and they are in primary school. (elementary for us.)
Before there was a well in Bulanga, women and children used to get water from this muddy pond.
These girls are in Grade 4 at Bright Hope School
The whole school performed songs and danced for us.