Our History
The Grail Masaka OVC programme was initiated by Imgard Grassel (May her soul rest in eternal peace) who came to visit the Grail in 1992. Through Community Based Health Care (CBHC) programme she was taken to see the work of the Grail members in the communities.
CBHC programme was a programme meant to help the rural people in Lwaggulwe Catholic Parish. The Diocese of Masaka had allocated the Grail to run CBHC programme in the above Parish in 1979. Un fortunately Aids broke up in that area and killed many people. When Imgard came to visit Uganda in 1992, she was taken to see the work of the Grail in Uganda especially Masaka. She was touched when she saw what AIDS scourge that had left orphans without a helper and some houses were closed because all people had died. children left without parents and others were caring for their fellow children without any hope for the future. When Imgard Grassel went back to Germany, she contacted Aktion Canchanabury who has supported the programme to the present.
The programme was majorly supporting children for primary school only and then a course. We requested them to push them to Senior four since primary seven was not enough. In 2003 they accepted the request. After senior four they join vocational schools which are not expensive.
One of the major problems that counsellors face is the overgrowing number of orphans. Patients are aware of the coming death but they are worried about who will care for their children when they die. They wish that at least if one child is educated, he/she would be able to care for the other orphans in the family in future.
We started with very few children only in Primary school until Aktion Canchanabury allowed us to let the children join Secondary school. So far 768 children have benefitted from the programme.75% of those who were reached managed to get basic skills. 40% of those who attained their professional are independently working. At the moment we have 244children.