Women and children celebrate as Mercy For Life Africa staff hand out green food bags

Gallery

The work, as it looks this week.

Classrooms rising, a boy on a ward, green bags in the street, a choir in white robes, UCE letters held up to the camera. Click any photograph. This is Mercy For Life Africa — not a slogan, a neighbourhood.

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From the field

Photographs of the week’s work.

Classrooms, wards, green bags, a choir in robes, a visit in a mud house. Click a photograph to open it. The rawer medical frames stay behind a care-gate.

Education

The courtyard, the whole house

Mercy Schools–Makindye on a bright morning: cream uniforms, letters in every hand, staff in the Africa-map shirt, the One Together mural on the wall. This is the school the fees actually pay for.

Video · Education

A peace lesson under iron sheets

At Mercy Schools the chalkboard is Romans 12: live at peace, refuse revenge, respect culture, share a meal, sit with the elders. The children wear the pink shirts. The floor is packed earth. The lesson is the neighbourhood they will inherit.

Education

Before, and after a desk

Seven children, numbered. Above: a compound, no uniforms. Below: the same seven holding result slips in Mercy School shirts. Sponsorship is not a moment. It is a childhood.

Education

Letters in the courtyard

Cream uniforms, backpacks, pages in their hands. Sponsorship is a child who can walk into the yard on a weekday and hold the term up to the camera.

Video · Education

The whole room, learning peace

The same Mercy Schools classroom, filmed from the back: pink shirts, packed-earth floor, Romans 12 on the board. A shorter look at the lesson the children will inherit.

Education

Desks on packed earth

The room is finished enough to learn in: timber walls, a chalkboard, exercise books, a teacher in the white polo leaning over a boy’s page. Mercy School, as it looks this term.

Education

The same room, the same children

A still from that classroom — teacher in pink, pupils in Mercy Schools shirts, exercise books open on desks that have already seen many terms.

Education

Letters on the steps

The same morning, closer in. Children hold thank-you pages and drawings on the school steps — red pillars, cream shirts, a girl in yellow at the centre. Sponsorship here has handwriting.

Education

Favourite subject, on the board

Mercy Schools shirts, open books, a teacher at a chalkboard that says favourite subject. The floor is still earth. The lesson is already happening.

Video · Children’s choir

The courtyard sings

The whole school in the yard — cream shirts, check skirts, papers waving, teachers at the back — singing together under the climbing frame. This is the choir as a neighbourhood, not a stage.

Education

A teacher over two pages

Two boys in pink polos, a teacher in the Mercy Schools shirt, exercise books filling. This is what school fees buy: a person who will stand at the desk until the sum is right.

Children’s choir

In the white robes

Children of the house in choir robes at a church door. They do not only receive fees and food. They give — in rehearsal, in worship, and on a Sunday morning.

Video · Children’s choir

Merry Christmas, all around the world

The children hold lyric sheets and sing: I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas, all around the world. A small boy in a beige jumper keeps the clap. The gospel they preach is a song you can join from Idaho or from the next compound.

Children’s choir

The whole yard, singing

Cream shirts, check skirts, lyric sheets in the air, the climbing frame behind them. The choir is not a stage act. It is the neighbourhood, on its feet, preaching by singing.

Children’s choir

A child, a statue, a quiet minute

A Mercy Schools boy kneels before a small statue of Mary. The choir preaches by singing. Faith in this house also looks like a child who has been given time to pray.

Education

The map on a back, in class

A volunteer sits among secondary students in the official Africa-map shirt — food, hygiene, beds, medical, hope, houses, sanitation, education, dignity — while a teacher works the board.

Children’s choir

A lyric sheet, a voice

One girl, one page, the rest of the choir around her. Rehearsal looks like this: a child who has been given something to sing, and is not ashamed to sing it.

Education

The whole class on the floor

Orange uniforms, number chairs, a wall of handwritten charts. Some lessons happen at desks. Some happen sitting close enough to hear the smallest child.

Education

The map on a back, in class

A staff member in the official Africa-map shirt stands with a pupil and a mother in a classroom of alphabet charts. Education here is a household, not a department.

Education

A circle on the porch

Pupils sit in a ring on the Mercy School steps — orange shirts, sandals in a pile, the One Together mural behind them. Assembly here is a porch and a listening seat.

Education

The same porch, another talk

A teacher on a stool, children on the tiles, shoes off. Mercy School is small enough that a whole class still fits on the steps.

Education

A fish on a tray, a whole class leaning in

Science in the yard: a teacher in the pink Mercy shirt holds a tilapia on an orange tray while the children crowd close — uniforms, grins, a lesson they will remember with their hands.

Education

Najjemba Betty, UCE 2025

Najjemba Betty holds her letter to the house after the 2025 Uganda Certificate of Education. Geography an A. A first grade. The child a sponsor kept in class is now a candidate who passed.

Education

Nassolo Latifah writes home

Nassolo Latifah of Stella Maris College, Nsuube, holds her UCE letter dated 15 February 2026. She thanks the house for the fees that carried her through senior four, and she is aiming at A-level.

Video · Education

Maria writes home

Nalule Maria of Mercy Schools–Makindye holds her end-of-term report and a letter to Ross Hoffman. She is eleven, in Primary Seven, sitting her leaving examinations in November. She thanks him for caring for her since she was small, and says she wants to come and see the family she has only known by faithfulness.

Education

Nantongo Shanitah, first grade

Nantongo Shanitah holds her own page: a first grade at UCE, a thank-you to the person who paid, and a promise not to let the house down at A-level. That is what a fee, paid on time, grows into.

Education

Maria, with her letter in her hands

Nalule Maria of Mercy Schools–Makindye holds her report card and the letter to Ross Hoffman. Eleven years old. Primary Seven. The same girl the films are of — still, so a sponsor can see her face.

Video · Education

Thank you for paying my school fees

A pupil of Mugwanya Preparatory School, Kabojja, holds a letter dated 22 August 2026 — Mercy For Life Africa, P.O. Box 34575, Kampala. He looks at the camera and says it plainly: thank you for paying my school fees and taking care of my family.

Video · Education

Ssekitoleko Timothy writes to One Together

Ssekitoleko Timothy of Mercy Schools–Makindye holds his end-of-term result slip and a letter that begins Dear One Together. He thanks them for school fees and for pens. The report is dated 2026. The signature is a heart.

Video · Education

Maria, in the classroom, with her letter

Nalule Maria stands among her classmates holding the report and the letter to Ross Hoffman. You can see the desks, the bags, the room that a sponsorship actually pays for.

Video · Education

The same girl, years on

A short before-and-after: Maria as a small child holding a letter, and Maria now — waving from the school doorway in a white shirt. Sponsorship is not a moment. It is a childhood.

Education

Mercy School sports day

Four boys in Uganda and club kits stand under black and yellow balloons at a Mercy School sports day. Fees are not only a desk. They are a childhood that still gets to play.

Education

Crested crane, painted faces

A girl in a flag-cloth dress and a boy in a crested-crane shirt, faces painted in black, yellow and red. National days at Mercy Schools are part of the same mercy that keeps them in class.

Medical care

Carried to the clinic

A staff member holds a toddler on the way to care — mask on, iron roof overhead, the child looking past the camera. Medical ministry starts with someone willing to pick a child up.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Video · Medical care · Shared with care

A night on oxygen

In the ward a child sleeps under a green oxygen mask, a hand steady on his head. This is the unglamorous middle of medical mercy — sitting with a child until the air comes easier.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

On the infant ward

A baby on a hospital cot, monitor pads on the chest, a caregiver’s hands at the blanket. We take the sick to hospital and stay until the bill and the night are both met.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

Breathing with help

A newborn on oxygen, cannula taped, a hand holding the line. Photos like this are not for pity. They are a record that someone came, and paid, and waited.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

After the dressing

Staff in the Africa-map shirts stand with a neighbour after treatment. The work is practical: a clinic visit, a dressing, a ride home, a bill that would have kept him in the doorway.

Medical care

After the dressing, in the yard

Staff in the Africa-map shirts stand with a neighbour once the clinic work is done. A bandage, a walk home, a bill that would have kept him in the doorway.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Video · Medical care · Shared with care

Please pray for me

At Kibuli Medical Centre a child with a dressed head looks into the camera. She says she got an accident. She asks for prayer. The drip stand is behind her. Medical mercy is a bill paid, and a visit that stays until morning.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

A toddler still in care

A small child recovering from burns sits on a caregiver’s lap. We share this with care — not to shock, but because the clinic bill and the dressings are the work, and they are not finished.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

The dressing still to come

A close record of a burn in healing. It is here so a donor can see why a medical gift matters this week. It is behind a care-gate so it is never a spectacle on the way to somewhere else.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Video · Medical care · Shared with care

Held through the afternoon

The same child, on a lap, through a short visit. Medical ministry is often this unglamorous: sitting still with a family until the next dressing, the next bill, the next morning.

Guidance & counselling

Holding on is the sermon

Director Nalubega Fausta holds a neighbour in a banana garden behind the house. Two boys wait on white chairs. Guidance is not always words. Sometimes it is a back, held, until the person can stand again.

Guidance & counselling

On the veranda

A counsellor in the red polo sits with a boy and an elder on a timber veranda — jerrycan, floral curtain, packed-earth yard. Guidance is not an office hour. It is a stool in someone else’s house.

Guidance & counselling

The boy and the old man

The same visit, closer in. A child in a mustard shirt, an elder in a white vest, the timber wall behind them. Counselling often looks like simply being in the photograph.

Guidance & counselling

Holding a hand is the sermon

The counsellor takes the elder’s hand. No pamphlet. No crowd. A visit that tells a man he has not been forgotten by the house in Makindye.

Video · Guidance & counselling

He wanted to say hello

On a Kampala pavement an elder in a knit cap stops to wave. The clip is short on purpose: dignity does not need a speech. A greeting is sometimes the whole visit.

Food ministry

Green bags in the street

Director Nalubega Fausta and the team hand out green hampers in a neighbourhood lane. Children crowd in. Neighbours lift the bags over their heads. Hunger in Makindye has an address, and on this day the address was full of joy.

Food ministry

A green bag at the mat

Director Nalubega Fausta kneels in the Africa-map polo and places a hamper into an elder’s hands. Matooke in a basin, greens on a sack, family on the brick. Food ministry is a visit, not a drop-off.

Food ministry

Christmas 2019, a green bag at the door

Staff in the Africa-map shirts deliver a food hamper on 25 December 2019. The woman at the centre holds the bag with both hands. Hunger is not seasonal in the ghettos; a feast day is when we make sure the table is not empty.

Food ministry

He carried the bag home

A boy in the orange Africa-map shirt holds the green hamper beside his mother, while a staff member in the grey polo stands with them against a brick kitchen. The child is part of the errand, not a prop in it.

Food ministry

At the timber door

Staff stand with a hamper among children at a timber-and-iron house. A radio on the ground, Crocs in the red soil, a dog at the edge of the frame. Hunger in the ghettos has an address.

Food ministry

A hamper at the hut

Staff kneel at a thatched hut with a green bag, matooke already in a basin. Food ministry is a visit, not a drop-off.

Food ministry

The map on her back, walking

The official shirt, photographed from behind: food, hygiene, beds, medical, hope, clean water, houses, sanitation, shoes and clothing, education, dignity — and a green bag in her hand, walking an elder home through the coffee trees.

Food ministry

A plate, held with both hands

A girl in a red velvet dress holds a blue bowl of rice, matooke, stew and pumpkin. The kitchen is behind her. This is what the food ministry is for — a child who eats, and grins about it.

Food ministry

A plate, held with both hands

A boy in a red España shirt grins over rice, matooke, cabbage and stew. This is what the food ministry is for — a child who eats, and grins about it.

Food ministry

Rice, matooke, a grin

A boy in an orange shirt holds a red plate — rice, chicken, matooke, cabbage. Food ministry is not a speech. It is a child who eats, and looks up.

Food ministry

The pots in the banana garden

Staff lift the lids on two great pots — posho, stew, banana leaves. A meal for a school or a compound starts here, over charcoal, before it reaches a plate.

Food ministry

Another plate, another child

The same kitchen, another neighbour. A red shirt, a red plate, stew and rice. The queue at the gate is how a compound knows the house came.

Food ministry

Waiting at the kitchen gate

Children line the metal gate while a cook works the pots. Food ministry is often this ordinary: a queue, a kitchen, a meal that will be eaten standing in the yard.

Beds, houses & rent

Timber going up

Carpenters carry iron sheets into a classroom of timber and block. Shelter and school are the same mercy this month: a roof a child can sit under.

Beds, houses & rent

The frame before the walls

A man in blue overalls sets a timber ladder against the skeleton of a new room. Building is slow. Children are already waiting to sit inside it.

Beds, houses & rent

Boots in the red soil

Two staff in branded shirts stand on a building site among stacked timber. Shelter ministry is slow: a plot, a roof, a locked door, a family that does not sleep in the yard this month.

Partners & volunteers

Ross Hoffman at the house

Long-term partner Ross Hoffman with schoolchildren and staff at the Mercy For Life Africa office — the Africa-map on the glass behind them. A church family in Idaho tested the work in person, then stayed. September 2022.

Partners & volunteers

Friends who came to see

A selfie in the yard — local staff, visiting friends, a water tank in the background. Partnership here is not a logo on a banner. It is people who got on a plane, or a boda, and stood in the dust with us.

Partners & volunteers

Together, we can change lives

The official poster: two pupils holding letters, the Africa map of the work, and the line the house stands on — Compassion in Action, Hope for Tomorrow. P.O. Box 34575, Kampala.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

A boy on oxygen

In a Kampala ward a child in an orange shirt sleeps under a cannula, a pulse ox on his finger, the concentrator humming beside the bed. Medical ministry is a bill paid and a night someone stayed.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

The same night, closer in

The same child, the same cannula, a taped hand. We keep photographs like this behind a care-gate. They are a record that someone came, not a spectacle.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

On the infant ward

A baby on a cot, monitor leads on the chest, a blue balloon tied to the rail. We take the smallest patients to hospital and stay until the night and the bill are both met.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

After the surgeon’s work

A healing chest, stitches and monitor pads. This is shared with care — so a donor can see why a medical gift matters this week, never as a spectacle on the way to somewhere else.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

The dressing still to come

The same child, another hour on the ward. Medical mercy is often this unglamorous: sitting still with a family until the next dressing, the next bill, the next morning.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

A dressing on a small chest

A toddler sits on a pink sheet with a chest dressing still in place. Recovery is slow work. We pay, we visit, we wait.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

In the corridor, still monitored

A small child on a lap in a hospital corridor, monitor pads on the chest. Care does not always look like a private room. It looks like showing up.

Medical care

A mother, a child, a form

In the waiting room a mother holds her child while staff sit with the paperwork. Medical ministry is a consultation, a signature, a bill a family in the slums cannot meet.

Medical care

On the maternity ward

Staff in the pink polo lean in with a mother and her newborn. The work is practical and close: a visit, a word, a bill, a child who gets to go home.

Medical care

The grin after the ward

The same ministry, a brighter hour: a toddler in hospital pyjamas grinning beside staff. This is what a clinic gift is for — a child who is still here, and smiling.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

Still on the drip

Camouflage trousers, heart socks, a cannula on the foot. Recovery is not a ribbon-cutting. It is a child sitting up, waiting for the next dressing to come off.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

A foot, a drip, a visit that stayed

On a hospital bed a child rests with a bandaged foot, a drip in the hand, staff in the map shirts at the rail. We share this behind a care-gate. It is a record that someone came, and paid, and waited.

Partners & volunteers

Friends under the mango tree

Staff and visiting friends stand in the courtyard of the house in Makindye. Partnership here is not a logo on a banner. It is people who came, stood in the dust, and stayed for the work.

Partners & volunteers

At the office door

A visiting friend stands with a Mercy School girl beside the red pillar and the Education sign. Sponsors who come in person meet the child whose fees they pay.

Partners & volunteers

Walking with the sisters

Director Nalubega Fausta with a religious sister on the red-earth road. The house was born in a parish. The work still walks with the church.

Partners & volunteers

The children found her first

A visiting friend is surrounded on the school steps. Mercy School is not a distant bursary. It is a courtyard of children who know when someone has come to see them.

Partners & volunteers

In the schoolyard

Director Nalubega Fausta, a visiting friend, and the children behind them. The work looks like this on an ordinary afternoon: dust, grins, a wooden cross, a house that is not empty.

Partners & volunteers

Olive and a friend of the house

A learner named Olive sits with a long-time friend of Mercy For Life Africa. Sponsorship here has a face on both sides of the photograph.

Guidance & counselling

A whole household on one mattress

Staff and a visiting friend sit with a grandmother and the children in a single room. Guidance is not an office hour. It is a stool in someone else’s house.

Guidance & counselling

Prayer in a mud house

A family gathers on the earth floor of a mud house — a sewing machine in the corner, children kneeling, a household held. Some wounds are not treated with a food hamper.

Guidance & counselling

Holding a hand is the sermon

Director Nalubega Fausta sits with an elder against a brick wall and takes her hands. No pamphlet. No crowd. A visit that tells a woman she has not been forgotten.

Guidance & counselling

The beads, the children, the visit

The same elder, later, with children at her shoulder. Counselling often looks like simply being in the photograph.

Guidance & counselling

Until she can stand again

Three women hold each other in a compound. Guidance is not always words. Sometimes it is a back, held, until the person can laugh again.

Guidance & counselling

Two children at the brick house

Director Nalubega Fausta kneels with two children in a yard of coffee trees and washing lines. The visit is the ministry. The photograph is only the proof that someone came.

Guidance & counselling

At the stall

Staff sit with a mother and her children beside a basin of tomatoes. Poverty has an address. We go there.

Food ministry

Lifted from the dust

A staff member in the Africa-map shirt lifts a toddler at a tomato stall. Food, hygiene, beds, medical, hope — the map on the shirt is the week’s work, held in two hands.

Education

Lunch in the timber classroom

Mercy School children in orange sit at low desks with plates and soda. Fees keep a child at a desk. A meal keeps them there through the afternoon.

Education

The same table, another day

Plates of posho and stew, bottles of soda, grins. School feeding is not a campaign. It is Tuesday.

Skilling & enterprise

Baking day at Mercy School

Orange shirts, grey aprons, star cutters, a bowl of dough. Skilling starts young: a trade a child can taste, and later sell.

Skilling & enterprise

The biscuits, on red plates

Two bakers in Mercy Schools shirts hold out gingerbread and stars. The lesson is a tray that came out of the oven. The grin is the certificate.

Partners & volunteers

Santa at the house

A visiting friend in a Santa coat sits with a child who is holding a new bundle of clothes. Christmas at Mercy For Life Africa is not a catalogue. It is a lap, a gift, and a child who was not forgotten.

Children’s choir

Shepherds at the school door

Mercy School children in white robes and maroon wraps stand with wooden staffs at the office door. The choir does not only sing. At Christmas they become the story they have been rehearsing.

Children’s choir

The nativity, on a church floor

A shepherd, Mary with the child, a zebra in a white sheet — the Mercy For Life Africa Children’s Choir playing the Christmas story under a tree of lights. They preach by singing, and on this night they preach by becoming the gospel.

Partners & volunteers

A laugh in the chapel

Director Nalubega Fausta and a visiting friend in the Africa-map shirts, under a painting of children in the water. Partnership here has a pew, a microphone, and a laugh that does not need translating.

Partners & volunteers

The porch that says the name

Staff, visiting friends, and children on the steps under the letters MERCY FOR LIFE AFRICA. This is the house in Makindye. If you have been looking for this organisation, this is the door.

Partners & volunteers

A visiting friend, a child of the house

A young volunteer stands with a Mercy School girl in the courtyard. Sponsorship and partnership look the same in this photograph: someone who came, and a child who is glad they did.

Partners & volunteers

A family at the office door

A visiting family sit with Mercy School children under the Mercy Schools stars on the glass. The work is not a remote bursary. It is a morning on these tiles.

Partners & volunteers

Orange uniforms, a visitor on the tiles

A visiting friend sits with two Mercy School girls in the orange dresses. IN GOD WE TRUST is stitched on the pocket. That is the school the fees pay for — a child you can sit beside.

Partners & volunteers

The same afternoon, more arms

Four Mercy School children in orange crowd a visiting friend. The courtyard is loud. The work is this close.

Partners & volunteers

Under the mural of mercy

A visiting friend in a scripture shirt stands with two girls against the Jesus mural at the gate. Come and see is still the invitation. These two already did.

Education

The pile in the yard

A knot of children in the compound, every face a grin, a plastic car behind them. This is what the house is for on an ordinary afternoon: children who still get to play.

Education

A gown at the Mercy Schools door

A Mercy Schools teacher stands in her graduation gown against the office glass — Africa map, blue stars, the house behind her. The children who stay in class grow into the adults who keep the house.

Education

Gown, porch, the whole school

The same graduate, on the Mercy School porch, buried in children. One Together on the mural. Sandals in a pile. A qualification that still belongs to the courtyard that raised her.

Education

A bag, a stack of books

Staff put a black backpack and a pile of exercise books into a student’s hands at the Mercy School office. Fees keep a child in class. A bag and a pen keep her there through the term.

Education

The whole step, new bags

Learners on the Mercy School steps with backpacks, books, and a box of shoes at their feet. This is what a donor’s gift becomes on a Tuesday: a bag a child can walk to class with.

Shoes, clothing & hygiene

Bags, books, a box of shoes

The porch before the handing-over: backpacks, exercise books, satchels, a carton of black school shoes. Dignity is packed, then given a name.

Shoes, clothing & hygiene

Black shoes, a whole class

Girls in uniform hold up new black school shoes on the Mercy School tiles. A child who walks to class barefoot is not lazy. She is waiting for a pair. This is that morning.

Education

The boys, with their bags

Staff clap as the boys hold up backpacks and exercise books on the Mercy School porch. The gift is not a speech. It is a bag that will still be on a shoulder in July.

Education

The whole school, in orange

Mercy School Makindye on a bright morning: orange dresses, visiting friends, the One Together mural, a sign that says education is the greatest treasure. This is the campus the fees pay for — and the reason five acres wait in Mityana.

Education

Fractions, a visiting hand

A visiting friend writes in an exercise book while two Mercy School girls in orange watch. Naming Fractions is on the wall. Sponsorship here can look like a lesson, not only a transfer.

Food ministry

The courtyard, full of matooke

Green bags of bananas cover the tiles in front of the canteen and the mural of mercy. Staff in the Africa-map shirts stand in the middle of it. Hunger in Makindye has an address, and on this day the address was a harvest.

Food ministry

A bowl in a compound

Staff in the map shirts serve posho from a basin while children wait with plates. A timber house, a queue, a green bowl. Food ministry is this close, and this ordinary.

Food ministry

A bunch, a green bag, a gate

A neighbour carries a bunch of matooke. A staff member in the yellow map shirt carries the green bag. The black gate of the house is behind them. The walk home is the ministry.

Food ministry

Rice, held close

A boy in an orange shirt holds a plate of rice and stew. The grin is the whole report.

Food ministry

A plate, a yellow dress, a grin

A girl in a yellow dress holds a plate of rice, chicken and greens. Food ministry is not a speech. It is a child who eats, and looks up.

Food ministry

The same kitchen, another child

A girl in a cream jumper holds her plate and looks straight at the camera. The queue at the gate is how a compound knows the house came.

Food ministry

Head down, eating

The work does not always wait for a photograph. Sometimes a child is already eating.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

A child on the ward

A small child sleeps on a hospital bed, a bandage around the head, a drip on the hand. We keep photographs like this behind a care-gate. They are a record that someone came, and paid, and waited.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

The scar, in a Mercy Schools shirt

A Mercy School child, the wound closed, the orange shirt on. Recovery is slow work. We pay, we visit, we wait until the scar is only a scar.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

After the surgeon’s needle

Stitches across a brow. This is shared with care — so a donor can see why a medical gift matters this week, never as a spectacle on the way to somewhere else.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

After

The same ministry, later: a healing brow, a child who is still here. Medical mercy is a bill paid and a night someone stayed.

Shared with care

This is from a ward or a recovery. It is not a spectacle. View it only if you want to see the work as it is.

Medical care · Shared with care

A line in a tiny hand

A baby’s hand, a cannula, a hospital sheet. We take the smallest patients to the ward and stay until the night and the bill are both met.

Medical care

After the dressing, close in

Staff in the Africa-map shirts stand with a neighbour once the clinic work is done. A bandage, a walk home, a bill that would have kept him in the doorway.

Medical care

Three in the yard

The same hour, the same neighbour, two staff. Care does not always look like a private room. It looks like showing up in the dust.

Medical care

The grin after the clinic

The same ministry, a brighter hour. A neighbour who was dressed, a staff member who walked him home. This is what a clinic gift is for.

Medical care

Walking him home

Staff in the map shirts walk a neighbour out of the yard after the dressing. Medical ministry ends at the gate, and sometimes it walks further.

Guidance & counselling

Hands on a back, in the lane

Staff and visiting friends gather around a neighbour in a Makindye lane. Guidance is not always words. Sometimes it is a circle that will not let a person stand alone.

Guidance & counselling

A child at the doorway

A small child in a red shirt, a mud wall, a hand nearby. Poverty has a face this close. The visit is the ministry. The photograph is only the proof that someone came.

Guidance & counselling

A whole household on one stoop

Staff in the Africa-map shirt sit with a grandmother, a mother, and the children on the step of a small house. Guidance is not an office hour. It is a stool in someone else’s house.

Education

Toys against the black gate

Toddlers of the house sit along the gate with a yellow truck and a racing car. Fees and food keep them. Play is how you know a childhood is still being had.

Sanitation & water

Jerrycans, a bucket named Maria

Three children stand with yellow jerrycans, a blue bucket labelled Maria, rolled bedding and a backpack. Clean water and a bed are the same mercy when a household is starting over.

Walk with us

If a photograph found you, there is a place to put a gift.