DAY 1

The ITV crew missed their connecting flight so they were delayed by an hour, then their baggage didn’t arrive so they were delayed even longer but we eventually met up Surprised Fred, and started our journey to Rakai which took us 4.5 hours. The journey was an experience, letting us get a good grasp of the size of the area to be covered and the size of the task in hand of supporting orphans and vulnerable children in the Rakai district. We visited 3 schools where some of our sponsor children are educated and we had amazing greetings from all the children, singing and dancing.

It was so heartwarming and welcoming and amazing to witness such happiness and humanity amongst such poverty. The headteacher from each school told us what an amazing difference The Denise Foundation is making to the children’s education, their wellbeing and their lives. Fred and Lisa delivered speeches at all three schools, an emotional experience charting the history of the foundation, the achievements so far and of course the connection to the beloved Denise.

We visited the shallow wells we have installed this year providing clean and safe water to the district, which are next to the ponds where they used to get their water from, which was full of bacteria, dirt and disease. It was heartbreaking to learn where they used to access water from. The really sad thing was the first school we visited didn’t even have any toilets so that has been defined as our next project here, with the money that we raised in February from our charity ball, to build toilets for the school.

Despite the condition of the classrooms and facilities there, the children are all very happy and most walk 5 km to and from school every day - some don’t even have shoes, and as you can imagine to see this was all very humbling. We had 38 sponsored children at that point, but many orphaned children are waiting for sponsors just like you it only costs 66p a day to change their lives forever...