Former street kid Elijah went to Mbale Secondary School, paid for by a local charity called Child Restoration Outreach (CRO). However, his funding ended at the equivalent of ‘O’ level, which didn’t give him a qualification for employment. So, at the age of 18, Child of Hope initially employed him as a classroom assistant in the nursery. He spent two years there, and then transferred to classroom assistant in the primary department for one year, which he really enjoyed.
However, Elijah always wanted to be an electrician, repairing appliances, so we paid for him to attend a three-year course with Christian Childcare Project (CCP) which includes vocational training. He is now in the middle of the second year and is already making great progress.
So, when the washing machine at Bex and Moses’ home stopped working, Elijah dismantled it and – with help from his tutor – got it working again. While there he also fixed a table lamp and a kettle, both of which had also stopped working; and at the church he dismantled an old electric piano keyboard and managed to repair the keys on it that had broken. That is now being used alongside a new one that was recently donated to replace it.
We love this… a young man originally with little or no prospect of a future has been transformed by the intervention of CRO and Child of Hope… and he is well on his way to becoming equipped to earn a good, honest living in his adult life.