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Saturday, November 11, 2017

The journey of 7 years ago in a flash.


Home study completed;
House bought;
Paperwork filed;
Fly to Uganda;
Meet my girly every day but each day she returns ‘home’ and not to me;
Court room drama - judge says no;
Judge offers a lifeline, we grab it;
So. Much. Waiting.
We wait. 
Days seem endless. 
And then, the call comes through...
Judge says yes!
Scared little girl leaves friends and carers and moves in with me. 
I get to put her to bed and know she’s safe for the very first time in her little 9 years. 
And there’ll be bedtime stories, and singing, and fun, and laughter, and days out, and lifelong friends made along the way. 
Finally a family......a forever family! 
7 years ago today we became a family. 
Happy Gotcha day precious girl. 
I love you just as you are. 

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Swansea City Football Fans Fundraiser

Firstly I have to start by saying a massive thank you to Kate Rees and the whole of Swansea City Football Club for kindly donating this wonderful prize that we have to raffle!

A signed football from all the team!



It has been kindly donated to help us raise funds for our activities while we're in Uganda.  Football is such a big thing in Uganda too, with many of the young people supporting premier league teams.  Seems quite fitting that we get to raffle off this premier league team football and support the young people in Uganda who are massive football fans.

So how do you get to be in with a chance of winning this ball?  Simply buy a raffle ticket strip.  It's £1 a strip.  Every penny will go towards our work in Uganda.  Any excess money will be donated to Cornerstone Uganda, the charity that is close to our heart as they work with the young people post 18, when most charities turn their backs on young people.


Lutaaya is looking at all the signatures on the ball.  I have a funny feeling she'll be buying some tickets herself.  If you live local to me, just ask me for tickets when you see me, or drop me an email at natashas.africa@gmail.com or on facebook.  If you live further afield, let me know via email or facebook and I'll send you my paypal details and give you a photo of your tickets so you know what numbers to look out for on the draw night.  The draw will take place on Friday 23rd June 2017 around 19:00 BST and will be live on facebook with an update on here shortly afterwards.  So you have a few weeks to get your tickets.  The more the buy, the more chances you get!


Africa.....We'll be seeing you soon!

Yes you read that right!  We'll be flying back to Uganda this July and we can't wait!

The blog has been a bit of a forgotten thing as there's not been much happening in regards to us going back to Uganda after our dreams being trampled on in 2015 and 2016 when flight prices were just too high for us to get back.  I promise there'll be more action on the blog this year as we'll be fundraising and raising awareness of different things in relation to our trip as they happen.  If you're new to our blog, then have a look through our older posts that will take you right back to the start of my trip in 2010 to bring my daughter home.

WiFi access permitting, we also hope to keep the blog up to date, during our time in Uganda.

Already there are lots of things I want to share but this is a brief outline of our trip so you get a flavour of it. We'll be going for two weeks in July.  Flights have been booked in advance so we got good deals and our accommodation is all sorted too.  We have covered the cost of our flights and accommodation ourselves, through lots of saving over the past year.  There are five of us heading to Uganda: me, Lutaaya, my parents and our friend, Sarah.  It'll be my Dad and Sarah's first time to experience Uganda and we're so excited to share in this first time with them.

Sarah has been part of almost every fundraising activity I have organised since 2005 when I first ventured to Uganda.  She feels that now is the right time to join us on this African adventure and we agree.
She loves a microphone and musicals, so you can just imagine how much she'll enjoy hearing all that Ugandan music and voices.  (Yes, she'll probably shout at me for the photo!)

We'll arrive at Kampala for a few days and then travel to Mbale, via Jinja.  After a few nights there, we will be heading back to Kampala for the last stretch of our time.  There are lots of things planned for the time we are there and as always happens, things keep cropping up, showing us where we are needed most and giving us opportunities to do more.

One big part of our trip will be to deliver all the shoe cuttings we made in 2015.  They have been kept safely in my garage until now.  So the final part of their journey will be to pack them and take them with us.  Sole Hope have already received our donation for the shoes, we just have to deliver them.  We'll do this on our way to Mbale.  Due to your time and effort, we will be putting shoes on the feet of over 100 children who wouldn't have them otherwise.

I'll add some more details over the next few days and weeks leading up to our trip.  We will be fundraising and we hope you'll support us in events and digging deep.  There'll be plenty of fun along the way.