Perhaps quite a bit of time has elapsed since you last heard about Beam of Hope for the Disadvantaged (BEHOD). But today I have an opportunity of writing and informing you about BEHOD.It was founded in 2006 as a community based organization and it was registered as an NGO in 2008. Its coming into existence was based on the fact that disabled people all over the world are largely discriminated against in all spheres of life and, suffer most in the third world countries, Uganda inclusive.
I think this is the right time for me to write and inform you about people who are disabled and the most marginalized in the faces of others ,yet we are all equal before God. Since they are also people like us who need to have hope in themselves. But despite the fact that they need our love and support, many people tend to ignore, neglect, discriminate, and even abuse them. For the children, its worse because they are denied education, and only kept indoors and this leaves them with no choice but to go out begging when they grow up.
BEHOD throughout these years mainly aims at fighting for the rights of the disabled, and it has been able to achieve a lot through aid mainly from Innovation Children’s Care (ALBUQUERQUE) in USA and through the initiative of Jackie Pellerin. We have managed to reach and help many disabled people through the following ways.
BEHOD has a boarding session for the disabled kept for one year and it provides shelter, food, computer skills, carpentry, crafts and other basic needs to all these students for free.
16 young girls with disabilities have been trained in tailoring courses for one year and each of them received a sewing machine at the end of the course as a start up kit for them, and this gesture has given them hope in life.
BEHOD also has friends from the Netherlands who donated computers aimed at making the disabled people self- reliant and this helped BEHOD to start a computer training institute called “Beam of Hope Computer Training Centre” which started in 2007. The center offers training in computer skills to the disabled coming from all parts of Uganda free of charge, and they awards a certificate at the end of the academic year.
In November 2009, radio program called “Eisuubi rya bakosefu” was implemented meaning “the hope for the disabled” aired on Bamboo 107.6 Fm every Friday from 8:00-9:00pm aimed at reaching out to communities since radio is a powerful tool of communication and also another way we can educate the community about disability and it yield good fruits since we started getting a big number of people who got interested in supporting the disabled. But due to lack of enough funds, it’s not possible for us to run the radio program every week as we wished.
On 16th February 2010, a friend of BEHOD called Virginia Ellsworth from Studio City California donated 60 treated mosquito nets which were given out to the people with disabilities at the centre and this has helped them to fight against malaria since the number of them becoming sick has reduced due to the fact that they sleep under treated mosquito nets.
BEHOD has also started carrying out Community out reach mainly in the villages of Eastern part of Uganda and this has helped the organization to reach many and per now five villages are covered and these include, Namutumba, Namuyumya, Balawoli, Kavule and Kagulu. We visit the disabled and carry out counseling and guidance which has helped these people have hope in life and also know that they are loved and cared for. And this has also helped them to form disabled groups in their different villages and working together as a team they produce quality products and later we market their goods especially the crafts.
Jackie Pellegrin has remained one of the key persons that has continued to support the organization by visiting our ministry in May 2009 and this strengthened our relationship with them. and when they went returned to the U.S., the friendship did not stop, but has continued and they have continually supported the ministry,but on a sad note, Jackie Pellegrin has fallen sick and this has led to the setbacks we are experiencing, and we really pray that God enables her to recover.
Visit BEHOD online: http://www.behod.org/
Leave Your Comments