Our story

It started with one photo, in November 2021

Nothing about this project was planned. It began with a picture shared by a friend — and a decision to go and see for himself.

Dominique Godin spent 25 years travelling in Africa — more than 200 trips, over 30 countries — first as commercial director and then as export director for Africa in the printing industry. Covid, and then retirement in April 2021, put a sudden stop to the work he loved.

In November 2021, a French friend, a tour guide in Uganda, published a photo. He had stopped in the town of Kabale to visit Nahwera Meron, a young woman looking after 36 extremely disadvantaged children. Dominique contacted her on social media and asked her to tell him more. Two weeks later he decided to travel there himself, from 19 to 27 January 2022.

"This first trip was both a shock and a trigger. I know the continent, but I had never been directly confronted with this level of misery: empty bellies, no financial resources at all, and hope at absolute zero."
Dominique Godin, founder

The situation in early 2022

36 children, one dilapidated house, four meals a week

36 children living in a dilapidated house with some of the mothers, without water and without electricity.
Only 10 children had been able to go to school since 10 January 2022, when schools reopened after two years of Covid closure.
Children malnourished — on average four meals a week — and often ill, mostly because of the water they drank.
Nahwera worked as a waitress six days a week, 6am to 11pm, for 100,000 Ugandan shillings a month (about €25).

The dilapidated mud-walled house in Kabale where the children lived in early 2022 — The house the children lived in: mud walls, dirt floors, no water, no electricity.

A small house with a tin roof and mud walls in Kabale — Tin roofs that leaked during the heavy rains — and a few rats here and there.

Murky standing water with a sandal floating on the surface — The water the children fetched — far from home — and drank.

A worn mattress on the floor where two children slept — The mattress on which two children slept.

The person on the ground

Nahwera Meron

Nahwera comes from a family of seven children. Her parents were poor, but her father sacrificed everything so that his children could go to school. She is the only one who was able to study after high school, and holds a bachelor's degree in Land Use Planning and Management from the University of Kabale, obtained in March 2019.

The Covid crisis made it impossible for her to find work matching her studies, so she worked in a restaurant while caring for the children. She has a son, Abaasa Elvis, born in June 2022.

Our long-term aim is for Nahwera to be employed full-time by the association — this is the work she truly wishes to do.

The association

Founded in April 2022, in France

Children of Kabale — Les Enfants de Kabale — is a non-profit charity created under the French 1901 law in April 2022 by Dominique and Corinne Godin. A bank account was opened at LCL in France at the same time, so that sponsors who are understandably cautious about transferring funds to Africa can donate in Europe.

We are honest about our status: we do not yet have official recognition of public utility in France. In the longer term we intend to establish structured associations both in France and in Uganda.