Seniors and their grandchildren in Uganda and Ethiopia face hopelessness every day. Will you consider being a special friend to make a difference? Senior Friendship is only $38 a month. A Senior like Joyce needs you!
How Does Sponsorship Work?
For only $38 a month, ROTOM Uganda and/or ROTOM Ethiopia will offer free medical treatment, monthly food support once per week, regular at-home visits, and provide teaching skills to improve their daily living. In addition, your Senior will also have access to safe, secure housing and the ability to attend fellowship gatherings that meet bi-monthly where they get to be with other ROTOM seniors to share their stories of similarity in this season of life!
GET TO KNOW JOYCE, SHEMERI, AIDAH & MARGARET
Age, 77 Joyce lives with her 14-year-old grandson Sentongo in their brick and cement home. She is widowed and has 4 children who are all alive. Lubanga, Mayombo and Semuwemba are her sons; she has 1 daughter, Agnes. They live their own lives and rarely give their mother any help. Selfishly, her children sold off most of her land to care for their needs. So now she struggles to pay for her grandson’s school and often has to beg his parents to support her care for their boy. The home she shares with her grandson has 4 rooms with an old tin roof, wooden doors/windows and her bedroom is in fair condition. The pit latrine is older but clean. She only has a very small piece of land in which to grow their food and produce.
There are extensive medical needs, too. She cannot afford medical care and often looks for wild herbs to use for relief of the on-going pain of chronic ulcers, high blood pressure and terrible pain in her legs.
Joyce makes mats with palm leaves to earn a living – selling them to meet some of her needs. Unfortunately, it is very hard to get buyers for her mats and when the buyers do come, they offer very little for them. The land she farms on is not large enough to grow an adequate amount of food. Will you kindly become the one who makes a difference in her life!
Meet Shemeri, a widow who moved from the countryside in Ethiopia now living alone in a one-room rental, made of mud and wattle that is older and has a leaky tin roof. She doesn’t have a mattress or covers to sleep with and her neighbors help pay her rent. When her daughter left for Saudi Arabia, she moved her mother to live in the city.
She is the mother of 7 children; 1 boy and 6 girls. Her son and 4 daughters have all died. The other daughters live far away and do not visit or support her in any way. Some of the health ailments that Shemeri experiences includes; walks with a limp and has occasional back pain. She cannot seek medical help because of no money. She says, she “wishes to get treatment and live a better life.”
When she was much stronger, Shemeri worked as a day laborer. Now, she cannot work due to her weakness and pain. Willing neighbors lend her support, and begging on the street. Do you want to sponsor her?
A widow, Aidah is a caretaker to two of her grandchildren, who survives by four living children. Amon is 32, married with 6 children. Medius is 29, married and lives far away. Hildah is 26, married and has 5 children and lives nearby. Phionah is 22 and married and lives in the same village. Her children try to help out as much as they can but have their own families to support and only do manual day labor for a living. Aidah is the full provider of her grandchildren, providing them with their school needs and food supplies. The children help her by fetching water and cleaning and sweeping the house.
Being much older and weakened, she often complains of general body weakness. She depends on painkillers that she gets from the nearby government health center.
She used to work as a farmer, on projects consisting of a large-scale to produce food for her family as well as selling the surplus to help with family needs. Now, being older and mostly weak she can no longer work and survives on the little she can grow and what her children give her.
Margaret lives with her two grandchildren Sadiq and Amiina in her son Richard’s house after being forced out of her house after it collapsed. The house she resides in now is much better; it has 3 bedrooms and a decent living space. The bedroom overall is in good condition – except for the bedsheets. She shares the room with grandchildren and they all sleep in separate beds. Their family’s pit latrine is fair; the kitchen shelter is in pretty good shape. She is thankful and reliant on her son Richard for most things.
A widow for the past 25 years, Margaret and her late husband Yoronimu have 10 children total who all try very hard to provide for their mother but are struggling to make ends meet. Her grandchildren she now lives with helps out tremendously with the household chores because she suffers from peptic ulcer disease and does not have access to medical treatment. When Margaret was younger, she used to be a peasant farmer now that she’s older, the garden work is no longer an option. It would be a blessing for you to help her seek the medical care necessary in her old age.
Would you decide to bless one of these beautiful elder persons who live in abject poverty with your monthly support?
“I came that they may have life and have it to the full.” John 10:10 (NIV)