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. 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. Filter by ministry above. The rawer medical frames stay on the health stories.
From the field
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.
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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.
From the field
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.
From the field
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
From the field
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
From the field
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
From the field
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The beads, the children, the visit
The same elder, later, with children at her shoulder. Counselling often looks like simply being in the photograph.
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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.
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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.
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At the stall
Staff sit with a mother and her children beside a basin of tomatoes. Poverty has an address. We go there.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The same table, another day
Plates of posho and stew, bottles of soda, grins. School feeding is not a campaign. It is Tuesday.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The same afternoon, more arms
Four Mercy School children in orange crowd a visiting friend. The courtyard is loud. The work is this close.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Rice, held close
A boy in an orange shirt holds a plate of rice and stew. The grin is the whole report.
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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.
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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.
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Head down, eating
The work does not always wait for a photograph. Sometimes a child is already eating.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Mercy Daycare and Kindergarten
The road front of the school: Mercy Daycare & Kindergarten, under the words In God We Trust. Registration is in progress.
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Administration block
Mercy For Life Africa painted beside the office door. This is the house of the organisation, already standing.
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One Together Inc Block
The storeyed house already over the courtyard. This is not the new classroom block.
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The same block, from the yard
Balconies, the stair, and the paved court in front of the classrooms already in use.
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The play yard
A merry-go-round, a spring horse, brick paving. The children already play here.
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Canteen and water
The canteen, the water tank, and the play frame beside the painted walls.
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Year 3
“At school we care one another.” A classroom already in use on the painted compound.
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The courtyard
Brick paving between the classrooms. A child crossing the yard the school already has.
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A temporary room, from the corner
Plywood, timber and iron sheet on the land next door. A block wall beside it. This is shelter for a lesson, not the permanent block.
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Children already inside
The temporary classrooms on the new land. Desks are in. Children are seated. Class did not wait for the permanent block.
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A walk along the temporary rooms
The row of temporary classrooms on the neighbours’ land: plywood walls, iron sheet, red soil, and children at desks.
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A teacher at the board
Science on a green board, in a room of timber and block. The lesson is happening while the permanent block is still a drawing.
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An exercise book open
A Mercy School pupil writing in class. The desk is real. The room around it is temporary.
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Geography of Africa
A map of Africa on the board, under an iron roof. The children are studying in the rooms that hold them until the block stands.
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Marking, then the class waves
Books open, a teacher marking, then the children of the class turn to the camera. Lessons are already underway.
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A peace lesson under iron sheets
Mercy Schools shirts, a packed-earth floor, a peace lesson on the board. This is class in the rooms we have.
Walk with us
If a photograph found you, there is a place to put a gift.
