From Africa to Home Scotland » Housing » 24dash.com

ONE of Home Scotland’s newest members of staff recently returned from a trip to help orphans in a war torn African country.

Margaret McGroggan had only been with the Dumfries-based housing association for nine days before she left on a pre-arranged trip - with the Glen Aros Christian Fellowship volunteer group - to Kagala, a village on the outskirts of the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

The group, which meets in the Stakeford and Summerville Community Centre in Dumfries, sent £5,000 to the orphanage early in 2008 which allowed a well to be installed giving not only children in the orphanage access to clean drinking water but the whole village.

The church group went to the village to see the well in action but also to look at other ways to help the Caring Heart Orphanage, which houses over 300 children, many of whom lost their parents to HIV and Aids or in the civil war that plagued Uganda for many years.

Margaret, who works as a Community Regeneration Programme Officer, took various Home Scotland gifts with her and the children particularly liked the yo-yos, which they had never seen before.

Margaret said: “It was a moving and very humbling visit because so much more needs to be done to help these orphans in Uganda and yet their faces are full of joy will big smiles.

“We hope this is the first of many visits. The main priorities that we are now focusing on are to raise money to buy rice, maize and beds. Firstly, this would ensure that every child would get at least one meal each day as this was not what we experienced when we were there.

“A sack of rice or maize costing £30-35 per sack would feed the whole orphanage one meal per day for two weeks. Secondly, beds are a priority as at present most of the 300-plus children sleep on a hard stone floor. One set of bunk beds with mattresses would cost only £50.”

Home Scotland currently owns properties in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Dumfries areas, and is preparing to celebrate its 3,000th home in management – in the same year it celebrates its 10th anniversary.