Chances for Children began with a simple belief: every child deserves safety, love, education, and the chance to build a better life. Since 2011, C4C has supported vulnerable children in Uganda by providing a caring home, access to education, healthcare, daily support, and long-term guidance.
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast
There live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast. Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia,
Far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast. Far far away, behind the word mountains,
We have made a lot of progress since the beginning in 2011. With huge perseverance and determination you will see how our story has progressed to bring us to where we are today, thanks to our many supporters.
Back in 2011, Martin Male started Chances for Children. Martin is an HIV orphan and after doing an IT diploma, he was inspired to return to the streets and help the children less fortunate than himself, by giving them a chance. He started by helping at soup kitchens in the slums and helping to run social aid programs for children that had been abandoned. He set up
On 2nd August 2014, Martin connected with Gabrielle and Russell Crump for the first time! He had a young English couple of volunteers called James and Kat staying for a couple of weeks and they put an appeal on Facebook through James’ family. Gabrielle and Russell came forward to offer help and through James and Kat, they connected to Martin, and began to follow the organisations progress.
In October 2014, Russell and Gabrielle got married and raised 6000€ for the organisation by asking guests to donate instead of giving gifts. This was the beginning of their fundraising journey! They used the money to buy 3 acres of land and equip it as a farm in the countryside near Kampala, able to grow crops to feed the children.
As Gabrielle and Russell became more involved in the organisation, they decided to take over helping Martin to run and fund it. This was a major turning point and one of no return! Up until that point Martin had relied on very sparse and irregular funding through small Facebook campaigns, mainly through people with strong religious views. When changing the name to Chances for Children, the charity took on a new lease of life, now
In December 2014, the children enjoyed their first Christmas ever. They enjoyed Christmas dinner, sweets, cake, met Father Christmas and enjoyed a fabulous day of fun and games. Each boy was given a ball and each girl a teddy bear! They then had their first dental checkup in their lives for many, which caused chaos and many hid as the next bus came to collect them! The great news was as they had never been given any sugar, most of their teeth were in fabulous condition! At this point the children lived in the village of Bussunju, around 1.5 hours from central Kampala.
As we had rented a very basic building very close to the living accommodation to start our own school, we were able to put our children back into full time education with 5 small classrooms and teachers! This was a huge milestone for us and the children were super excited to be learning, for some of them this was the first time they went to school! We had a 400€ donation from some friends in Monaco which enables us to buy desks and blackboards to get started. The children followed the national curriculum and
May was a big month, we also finally registered the charity in Monaco as an Association, thanks to the help of our new General Secretary Laetitia Noyon Zwaans! We also opened our bank account in Monaco which was a long a drawn out process! This made us able to accept cheques and wire transfers, as supposed to the prehistoric method of taking cash from our growing supporter base! At this point we registered the organisation in Uganda as an NGO, ( non governmental organisation.) We were making fabulous progress and very proud of this.
On 23rd April 2016, we held a large fundraiser event, and raised 20,000€! We held a raffle and an auction with a gourmet BBQ in a beautiful garden, lent to us by a friend in Cap d’ Ail, South of France. The event was a fabulous success with The Soul Club playing jazz to our guests on arrival, as well as Anthony Calligagan followed by DJ Max Avril on the decks as the sun
This was a big step for us! We jumped through many hoops thanks to our very patient lawyer in the UK and have finally registered in UK. As soon as the UK bank account is open C4C UK will be able to have a one click Donate button, as well as being able to register on various crowdfunded website as well as donate as you shop sites. This is an exciting step!
Our great friend Cassidy Woods trained super hard and raised most of the funds for our children to go on their USA fundraising tour! He did an Iron Man! For those that do not know what an Ironman is it is an extreme Triathlon consisting of a 3.8 km swim followed by 180km bike ride and finishing with a full Marathon run at the end!! Here is the link to his fundraising page! https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/cassidy-woods A huge thanks to Cassidy, these funds will have paid for the children vaccinations, travel consents and most importantly passports to allow them to travel the world in years to come. Not only will this broaden their horizons but enable them to develop disciplines and life skills.
OUR STORY begins with the adoption of a boy in Uganda. When that boy grew up, he decided to give back by helping children less fortunate than himself.
Martin Male was adopted after both parents died from HIV. Thanks to his new family, he was able to have access to a good education and on completing a diploma in IT, he was inspired to return to the streets of Uganda to help other orphans.
Martin started by volunteering in the slums’ soup kitchens. He then joined a social aid program for children that had been abandoned.
In 2011 Martin set up a charity called “His Mercy’s Outreach Centre”, allowing him to take in orphaned children one by one with the help of his adoptive mother Jane Nassuma.
They started to give these children a very humble home and one meal a day. All the children were from the streets, hospitals or had been abandoned by other organisations that had been shut down due to corruption, lack of funding or due to misconduct.
Social Worker
Senior Caregiver
Programs Director
Volunteer
