We use a Holistic Approach to Education
In addition to our Child-Sponsorship Program we run additional programs throughout the year benefitting all children and their community.
Nutrition
Entrepreneurship
Computer Literacy
Music
Health
Nutrition Program
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CHALLENGE
Among the communities we work with, there are many issues which heavily impact the quality of everyday life, one of the most devastating challenges is climate change and its effects on farmers and food security. Over the last 10 years, there has been an increase in the frequency of droughts which has led to a rise in food prices, making it even more difficult for families to feed themselves. As our projects are in poverty-stricken parts of a city, there is no nearby ground available for farming, which makes food expensive. Due to the high food prices, 29 % of Ugandan children under five years old suffer from chronic malnutrition. Families often struggle to have enough food on the table. Investing in better nutrition, especially for children, adolescents, and women are proven to be one of the best means we have to transform a child’s health, education and livelihood.
SOLUTION
Our solution is sending the sponsored children to good schools, where they also get a meal during school days. And organize every weekend a nutritious meal for them, especially during their holidays. We started to serve weekly meals from october 2016 onwards. Our warm meals consist of vegetables, meat and or fish to make sure the children receive a healthy varied diet. The weekly meals also are a great social occasional for the children, giving them an opportunity to play and connect. By buying our supplies locally we make sure that the donations are being reinvested into supporting the community as a whole. To become more cost efficient, we started to rent and harvest a field for Maize production since 2020. The Maize field allows us to deliver twice a year 1000 kilos of maize to our projects in Kampala and Jinja, which then will be stored and used during the weekly meals and additional program activities. We also provide “emergency meals” for families who have barely anything to eat, especially during the pandemic we started extra fundraisers to keep the families fed during lockdown.
GOAL
As our number of children keeps growing each quarter, so does our demand for nutritious weekly meals. Our current goal is to keep going with the weekly meals for all our 475 sponsored children. For this we need to raise €12.350 euro a year, which comes down to €1030,- per month. With extra donations we would love to expand our Maize field. 1 Meal for a child is about € 0,50, with the current exchange rate and higher food prices this means we give a child rice and beans with fruits or vegetables and once a month they also get a meal with meat or fish.
Entrepreneurship Program
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CHALLENGE
We work in the communities of Acholi Quarter, Kampala and Danida, Jinja. Both areas are one of the poorest in the region, where many people live on only $1 a day. We realised many of the people living here couldn’t grow their business due to illiteracy, poor time management and a negative outlook regarding business growth. In Acholi Quarter many men and women are working foremost in a stone quarry, which brings them barely enough money to survive and worse, is even dangerous for their health. And in Danida, many people were working long days in nearby factories without having any employment contract. Lasting growth depends on the empowerment of communities through education, skill-building, control of natural resources, and effective interaction with society and their governments. The best way to move forward is to ensure that the families of the children we work with can become self-sustainable.
SOLUTION
The 22STARS Foundation originated as the 22STARS Jewellery business in 2013, as we always believed that making people self-sustainable through entrepreneurship is the best way to end poverty. We co-designed and marketed the women's jewellery on the Western Market. Already back then we used the profits to also focus on growing the local businesses of the women, so that they would become independent from our selling techniques.Hence when we established the 22STARS Foundation in 2017, it was for us a natural step to focus besides the Child-Sponsorship program also on the Economic Development of the parents of the sponsored children. We at first partnered up with Entrepreneurs Hands Uganda (EHU), to give Entrepreneurship training to the parents and caretakers, mostly women, of the 22STARS sponsored children. Every new member of our Entrepreneurship Program received an intensive four-week training from EHU, then they created in-depth personal profiles for each participant to see how to help them the most. By providing microloans, setting up a saving system, and monitoring ongoing progress these people were able to start small business such asfood stalls, hospitality, clothing (tailoring and thrift stores), and local transport (mototaxi).
In 2022 we have decided to change this formula, in order for our community to be self-sustainable, and we created a local committee, formed by some of the beneficiaries of our program. The committee is in charge of disbursing and recollecting the loans, monitoring the progress of our members, and making sure that the loans are paid back and are restributed within the community. The loans are issued every 6 months and are paid back on a monthly basis by our benficiaries.
GOAL
Our goal is helping our local committee to have access to more fund to be able to enlarge our impact within our communities. Availability of small, but repeated loans is, in the long-term, expected to positively impact the lives of our beneficiaries. In order to keep our Entrepreneurship Program running, be able to hand out larger loans and add new beneficiaries to the program for this year 2023 we are looking into raising €5.000.
Computer Literacy Program
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CHALLENGE
Most of the people living in the 22STARS communities have no access to a computer, since computers are very expensive and also most houses would not provide secure electricity and storing places for computers. The teenagers and wom(en), who like to use a computer often need to walk long distances to town to access an internet café. And even then, they most of the time lack the basic computer knowledge skills. As Computer Literacy is not part of the school program, most kids will only learn about computers at a very late age. ICT can provide unlimited opportunities for economic development and social engagement through new innovative thinking and tools. In today's information age, it is critical to be computer literate.
SOLUTION
We took it upon ourselves to fill the gaps in knowledge provided by the public school system to enable our kids to receive a more holistic education. When the Covid Lockdown started in 2020, and long-distance schooling became the only way for our children to receive an education, the importance of having computers and computer knowledge became even more clear to us. For this reason, back in June 2020 we set up our Computer program and also installed solar panels to make sure we would have electricity for the computer classes. We have now 31 laptops available for the children (16 Kampala and 15 in Jinja) and started with basic computer training. We plan to give also advanced courses to students so that they can have better career perspectives, but for now all laptops are occupied for the beginner training. Our computer trainings are 8 to 12 hours a week over a period of 4 months. One group consist of 24 students in Kampala and 30 students in Jinja.After every 4 months, kids do their exams and graduate and then a new group comes in. Hence we will have per year 90 children in Jinja and 72 children in Kampala graduating. When the laptops are not used for classes, the children come to our office to practice and learn with them.
GOAL
We have a dream of making every sponsored 22STARS child proficient in using computers and survive in today’s digital world. We are strongly advocating the building of knowledge societies where the power of information and communication helps people access the knowledge, they need to improve their lives and achieve their full potential. To pay our computer teachers in both Kampala and Jinja and print the exercise materials, we need each month €350,- which is €4.200,- a year. With extra donations we would love to add more laptops to our program, which cost around €375,- per laptop with all accessories.
Music Program
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CHALLENGE
Within the communities we work, music has traditionally been considered essential for educating, communicating, and imparting discipline to the younger generation. However, access to music instruments is extremely limited because instruments are very costly and there is no music school or center close by. Parents and elders have played the role of instructors, transferring the skills to children through riddles, storytelling, myths, traditional dance, playing local instruments and proverbs. The communities believe that these artistic skills prepare children for adult life. What the communities lack is a center where music and dance can take place.
SOLUTION
Especially our project leaders in Jinja, David and Aidah, stressed for the importance of having a music program. Hence 22STARS took it upon themselves to fill the gaps in knowledge provided by the public school system to enable our kids to receive music and dance classes within our community centers. In April 2021 we set up our music program andbought our first musical instruments: bass guitar, bow harp, solo guitar, classic guitar, acoustic guitar, drum set, keyboard, micro phones, and speakers. We had a music trainer from the USA, Alex Valencia, who helped us for a couple of months to set up the music classes with our local teachers. Besides learning new skills, the music classes also help the children with stress and kept them motivated. We enrolled three Ugandan music teachers to start teaching the first four groups of 20 children intensively. Additionally, we have groups of 40 children who participate in our dance and music note classes and had already the possibility to get already familiar with some of the instruments. We offer music classes every day of the week, from 2PM to 4PM.
GOAL
The program has been running smoothly since its inception and we are seeing a great improvement in our children. We are now seeking further support to cover our recurring costs. We pay for our three music teachers, exercise materials and the maintenance of the instruments, for this we need €250,- a month, which is €3.000,- a year. With extra donations we would love to expand our program bits by bits to Kampala.
Health Program
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CHALLENGE
Health care is expensive, especially in the communities 22STARS operates in that are struck by poverty. As a developing country, Uganda struggles with multiple intractable diseases that kill millions of Ugandans every year. HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, espiratory tract infections, and diarrheal diseases are among the top five causes of death in Uganda. Additionally, many children have no access to eye health care, which causes them to drop out of school due to bad vision. Especially in Acholi Quarter eye health care has been a huge problem, as many children are crashing stones in the quarry. Not only do stones fly into the eyes of the children, leaving them blind for the rest of their lives, also the dust and lack of clean water to wash their eyes causes many eye infections. Uganda has a scarcity of trained eye care professionals available to provide accessible care, this is particularly evident in optometry services which impact on an adult’s capacity to earn and a child’s capacity to learn. Early eye examinations are crucial to make sure children have normal, healthy vision so they can participate better at school and in play.
SOLUTION
With our Health Program we pay for the medical bills for children, whose situation is life threatening, and whose parents are not able to pay for it. We believe strongly that malaria should not be the reason anymore for a child to die. Whenever we bring children to a hospital, we usually also bring their parent or caretaker along, pay for transportation and also meals during the day, since a hospital visit can take easily take up to 10 hours. As a subcategory of our Health Care Program, is our Eye-healthcare Program, which we launched thanks to a partnership with WirHelfenSehen E.v, who visited us in 2018. Within our Eye-care program we have been able to send two students to an Optician School to become Optometrists. Several times a year, we take children and their families to the eye hospitals and opticians to get their eyesight checked and get medication, or glasses where needed. We even were able to pay for the operation of several children and young people who had a damaged eye due to the stone quarry work. Additionally, we are spreading awareness about blindness prevention and conduct eye health education programs in the local communities.
GOAL
Within the Eye-care Program we are planning that our recent graduates from the Optician school will help conduct eye testing in the communities we work in and expand to other communities. We have 459 sponsored children now, where possible their parents or care takers also pay for medical costs. However often the costs are too high for the parents and hence we need to help out. Whenever an operation of a child is very expensive, we set up a specific emergency fundraiser for the child. As the money raised for our Health Program is supposed to cover the basic medical needs of all our sponsored children. Our goal is to raise each month €250,-. That is €3.000,- a year, so that we can take care of the basic health care needs of the children.
Nutrition Program
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Nutrition Program
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CHALLENGE
Among the communities we work with, there are many issues which heavily impact the quality of everyday life, one of the most devastating challenges is climate change and its effects on farmers and food security. Over the last 10 years, there has been an increase in the frequency of droughts which has led to a rise in food prices, making it even more difficult for families to feed themselves. As our projects are in poverty-stricken parts of a city, there is no nearby ground available for farming, which makes food expensive. Due to the high food prices, 29 % of Ugandan children under five years old suffer from chronic malnutrition. Families often struggle to have enough food on the table. Investing in better nutrition, especially for children, adolescents, and women are proven to be one of the best means we have to transform a child’s health, education and livelihood.
SOLUTION
Our solution is sending the sponsored children to good schools, where they also get a meal during school days. And organize every weekend a nutritious meal for them, especially during their holidays. We started to serve weekly mealsfrom october 2016 onwards. Our warm meals consist of vegetables, meat and or fish to make sure the children receive a healthy varied diet. The weekly meals also are a great social occasional for the children, giving them an opportunity to play and connect. By buying our supplies locally we make sure that the donations are being reinvested into supporting the community as a whole. To become more cost efficient, we started to rent and harvest a field for Maize production since2020. The Maize field allows us to deliver twice a year 1000 kilos of maize to our projects in Kampala and Jinja, which then will be stored and used during the weekly meals and additional program activities. We also provide “emergency meals” for families who have barely anything to eat, especially during the pandemic we started extra fundraisers to keep the families fed during lockdown.
GOAL
As our number of children keeps growing each quarter, so does our demand for nutritious weekly meals. Our current goal is to keep going with the weekly meals for the children and to raise € 11.960 euro a year, which comes down to € 995,- a month. With extra donations we would love to expand our Maize field. The goal meter indicates how much we have raised for the current month.
We use a Holistic Approach to Education
In addition to our Child-Sponsorship Program we run additional programs throughout the year benefitting all children and their community.
Nutrition
Entrepreneurship
Computer Literacy
Music
Health
This Privacy Policy describes how and when the 22STARS FOUNDATION collects, uses, and shares information when you make a donation, contact us, or otherwise use our services through foundation22stars.org or its related sites and services. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that we do not own or control. You are able to enjoy our blog posts, and visit many areas of our websites without providing us with any personal information. However, we do collect personal information when you sign up to become a long-term sponsor of one of our 22STARS kids, a monthly sponsor of our causes or subscribe to receive email alerts. By making a donation to our cause and/or by using our website, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions, which you acknowledge that you have read and understood and that you agree to be bound by these Terms & Conditions. 1. Personal information 22STARS FOUNDATION collects Information We Collect To sponsor a specific child long-term, you must provide us with certain information, such as your name, email address, payment information, and the name of the child that you like to sponsor. This is necessary as we will send you regular updates with regards to the child that you sponsor and or our ongoing project. You may also choose to provide us with additional personal information if you contact us directly. We treat your information very confidential. If you like to be an anonymous sponsor of a child, or make an anonymous donation to one of our causes, we will not publish your name related to the cause or specific child anywhere. If you like to sponsor a child publicly we will put your name on our website and social media in relation to the specific child you sponsor or cause you made a donation to. We don’t publish any other details of you and don’t give your contact details to anyone outside of our organization, neither the child that you sponsor will receive your contact details. To make a general donation, you do not have to provide us with any data and hence can send us money which we treat as an absolute anonymous donation. 2. The legal bases we rely on to collect, use, and share personal information Why We Need Your Information and How We Use It We rely on a number of legal bases to collect, use, and share your information, including: • as needed to provide our services, such as when we use your information to send you emails and updates with regard to the child that you sponsor, to settle disputes, or to provide support; • when you have provided your affirmative consent, which you may revoke at any time, such as by signing up for my mailing list; • if necessary to comply with a legal obligation or court order or in connection with a legal claim, such as retaining information about your donation if required by tax law; and • as necessary for the purpose of our legitimate interests, if those legitimate interests are not overridden by your rights or interests, such as providing and improving our services. We use your information to provide the services you requested and in our legitimate interest to improve our services. 3. The third parties with whom we share personal information Information Sharing and Disclosure Information about our sponsors is important to our foundation in order to send regularly reports about the sponsored children and in order to send out the new payment for future school terms. We share your personal information for very limited reasons and in limited circumstances, as follows: • Service providers. We engage certain trusted third parties to perform functions and provide services to our website. We will share your personal information with these third parties, but only to the extent necessary to perform these services. • Foundation transfers. If we stop or merge our foundation, we may disclose your information as part of that transaction, only to the extent permitted by law. • Compliance with laws. We may collect, use, retain, and share your information if we have a good faith belief that it is reasonably necessary to: (a) respond to legal process or to government requests; (b) enforce our agreements, terms and policies; (c) prevent, investigate, and address fraud and other illegal activity, security, or technical issues; or (d) protect the rights, property, and safety of our customers, or others. 4. The length of time we keep personal information Data Retention We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to provide you with our services and as described in our Privacy Policy. However, we may also be required to retain this information to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce our agreements. We generally keep your data for the following time period: 4 years. 5. If we transfer personal information outside of Europe, we will handle the transfer as following Transfers of Personal Information Outside the EU We may store and process your information through third-party hosting services in the US and other jurisdictions. As a result, we may transfer your personal information to a jurisdiction with different data protection and government surveillance laws than your jurisdiction. If we are deemed to transfer information about you outside of the EU, we rely on Privacy Shield as the legal basis for the transfer, as Google Cloud is Privacy Shield certified. 6. Our donor’s rights regarding our use of their personal information and our contact details Your Rights If you reside in certain territories, including the EU, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal information. While some of these rights apply generally, certain rights apply only in certain limited cases. We describe these rights below: • Access. You may have the right to access and receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you by contacting us using the contact information below. • Change, restrict, delete. You may also have rights to change, restrict our use of, or delete your personal information. Absent exceptional circumstances (like where we are required to store data for legal reasons) we will generally delete your personal information upon request. • Object. You can object to (i) our processing of some of your information based on our legitimate interests and (ii) receiving marketing messages from us after providing your express consent to receive them. In such cases, we will delete your personal information unless we have compelling and legitimate grounds to continue using that information or if it is needed for legal reasons. • Complain. If you reside in the EU and wish to raise a concern about our use of your information (and without prejudice to any other rights you may have), you have the right to do so with your local data protection authority. 7. Our Sponsor Child Privacy Respecting the privacy of our sponsor children and their families is a key element of our work. 22STARS Foundation extends the same attitude of respect and confidentiality to our sponsor children as given to their sponsors. How to Contact Us For purposes of EU data protection law, I, Stella Airoldi, founder and project manager of 22STARS FOUNDATION, am the data controller of your personal information. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact me at info@foundation22stars.org. Alternately, you may mail me at: Stella Airoldi, Kasteelplein 73, 4811 XC, Breda, Netherlands
Thank you for visiting www.foundation22stars.org These are our terms and conditions for use of the website and apply whenever you access the website, on whatever device. By using the website, you are deemed to have accepted these conditions. 1. General Conditions You are able to enjoy our blog posts, and visit many areas of our websites without providing us with any personal information. However, we do collect personal information when you sign up to become a long-term sponsor of one of our 22stars kids, a monthly sponsor of our causes or subscribe to receive email alerts. By making a donation to our cause and/or by using our website, you (also called the “sponsor”) are agreeing to these Terms and Conditions, which you acknowledge that you have read and understood and that you agree to be bound by these Terms & Conditions. For more information, see our privacy policy. 2. Use of material appearing on our website All pictures on www.foundation22stars.org are taken by the 22STARS Foundation with permission of the children and their parents and care-takers. In keeping with our mission, we welcome sponsors to share the picture of their sponsored child and our projects for the purpose of sharing our story with their friends and to encourage others to also participate in our causes. This does not cover commercial use of our materials. Unless otherwise stated, the copyright and other rights on all material published on www.foundation22stars.org belongs to the 22STARS Foundation. Requests for any other use or reproduction of our content, including commercial use, should be sent to Stella Airoldi through the following email address: info@foundation22stars.org 3. Disclaimer of liability Every precaution has been taken by the 22STARS Foundation to ensure that the content of this site is accurate, legally correct and ethical. Whilst all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of content, no responsibility can be taken for any error or omission, nor can the 22STARS Foundation assume any liability for the content of websites linked to our site. Should the 22STARS Foundation receive any complaint with regard to third party material on our site, we will review the matter and remove material at our sole discretion. We will have no further liability to either party in such instance. Material on our site is given for the purposes of information or reporting only and should not be relied upon. Independent advice should be sought on financial and medical matters. 4. Payments 22STARS Foundation accepts PayPal payments, direct bank transfers and donations through the specific campaigns set up for the 22STARS Foundation on Donorbox and GoFundMe as acceptable methods of payment. 5. Data protection and privacy Please see our privacy policy for details of how personal data may be processed. 6. Long-term sponsors of a child If you like to become a long-term sponsor of one of our children we require your name and email address in order to send you all the information with regards to your child. Unless you like to be anonymous we publish your name on our website and or our social media channels. 7. Cancellations of long-term sponsorships of the children You can cancel any time your donation subscription to us and stop sponsoring your child. We would appreciate if you let us know immediately when you have the attention to stop the sponsorship, so that we are able to find a new long-term sponsor for the specific child. If 22STARS FOUDNATION has to stop the sponsorship with a certain child we will inform you straight ahead and we will find another child for you that you can continue sponsoring through his/her education. 8. Right to reallocate funds The 22STARS foundation reserves the right to reallocate funds when necessary. Funds designated towards the support of a specific sponsor child or towards a specific project may at times need to be redirected. For example, if a change in the security situation makes the completion of a project unsafe, funds will be reallocated as appropriate. We work to avoid the reallocation of funds and only do so when necessary. 9. Gofundme Campaign By setting up a GOFUNDME campaign for the 22STARS foundation and using pictures and text of the 22STARS foundation, you must have prior agreement and approval of the 22STARS foundation to do so. If you like to set up a fundraiser campaign for us, please contact Stella Airoldi and send an email to info@foundation22stars.org 10. Communication If you contact us via our website or have opted in other circumstances for us to contact you via e-mail, we will communicate with you using the e-mail address you have provided. We will assume that your e-mail address is correct and that you understand the risks associated with using this form of communication. 11. Applicable Law Dutch law governs these Terms and Conditions to the fullest extent allowable. Any disputes in connection with the 22STARS foundation or these Terms and Conditions will be initiated in the Courts of Breda where exclusive jurisdiction and venue reside. If a court or any other appropriate authority finds any portion of this document to be invalid, the remainder will remain in full force and effect. If you do not accept these Terms and Conditions in full, you must stop using this site immediately. We reserve the right to prevent you accessing this site, without prejudice to any of our other rights, if we consider that you have contravened our Policy on Privacy and Use of Information or any of these Terms and Conditions. From time to time, the 22STARS foundation may need to change its Terms and Conditions because of changes in its foundation, or in its attempts to serve your needs better. 22STARS foundation will always publish the current terms on our website and notify you of this. The 22STARS Foundation is a registered charity number KVK nr: 68437870 | RSIN 85744249. It is registered in The Netherlands, Kasteelplein 73, 4811XC, Breda.