Manuela Project

A project for children with special needs, unique in Moyo District. This is the outcome of a process started in 2016, after the visit of a couple of expatriate voluteers for the Vura Music Project (even prior to the creation of our NGO). In one of the regular visits the couple was doing to the Moyo Babies Home orphanage, the volunteers identified a girl called Manuela with evident signs of mental disability.

After some deep analysis together with Moyo District authorities, Babies Home Management and other stakeholders out of Moyo, the decision was taken: A project to help children with special needs would be designed to help Manuela and many others like her.

This project doesn't only aim at improving the conditions of those children affected with the various conditions that generate disabilities. It goes much deeper and targets the biggest problem around disabilities, the stigma that comes with them. In Uganda, many communities look at disabilities as a course and a burden, which leads to very nasty scenarios in some extreme occasions. Under Manuela Project, families and communities will understand that these are members of our communities and, with the right input, they can achieve great goals beyond their imagination.

Started in October 2021, this part of Langeti also accommodates the three core values of the holistic initiative:

Synergy

The different families that show up in our premises participate in the activities, joining efforts and creating bonds between them, from village to village, from one family to another.

Integration

The same way our music project integrates the two genders, the different actions will help on the integration of the children with disabilities in their communities.

Empowerment

This project works directly on people with challenges beyond the majority of the society. It will not only provide them with critical technical knowledge in different fields, but also generate a support that will make possible the acquisition of the technical skills.

To make the core values work and generate a real impact, Manuela Project works through two different ways:

Therapy

For the youngest children, from newborn to 12 years old, the projects offers physiotherapy and occupation therapy to try to improve their cognition and psychomotricity. This therapy is offered form the Bilinyo Cultural Centre and, despite we offer transport to the venue, it is also delivered home for those families with the biggest mobility challenges.

Occupational Therapy Workshops

For the rest of them, from 13 to 18 years old, we use different workshops to skill them and also integrate in their families, communities and society at large. To be more effective, parents are also invited once a week to join their children in the following areas:

Music: Some of the children join the regular students of Vura Music Project
Agriculture: We have a small garden of vegetables, on which the children with disabilities can work under the supervision of specialists of Manuela and the advise of the professional farmers from our third projects (Ruddu Hwe)
Handcraft making: With a dedicated teacher, the beneficiaries and their families learn how to make different crafts that later on are marketed

This is already a very charismatic project, to the extent that soon after the opening, the different District stakeholders who knew about it started referring children to our premisses.

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