Inspiring a smile of hope on abandoned children's faces

By John Agaba

You may walk a good part of Uganda but still fail to meet a woman of her character. Unique, you could say. She speaks in a tender soft voice which immediately inspires a gut feeling that she is one of those typically warm grandmas we know of.

But for 54-year-old Jolly Penninah Tumuhairwe, it’s just that her eyes are full of compassion and love, like those of grandmas. Little wonder she chose a path of looking after abandoned children.

She lovingly receives children who have been denied parental love, children who have been starved or wounded, and those who have been abused (physically and psychologically) in their former lives.

“I get the children from anywhere. At times it is the Police who call after they have found an abandoned child. Other times, it is other people who bring to me the children,” she reveals.

But the rescued children don’t stay with her forever.

“After we have rescued them we search for their real families. If we don’t get their real families or relatives we get them foster families,’’ says Tumuhairwe.

“At times we have to opt for legal adoption when all options fail.’’

A door for comfort, hope

Tumuhairwe adores children, especially the unprivileged ones, so much that she even founded an organization to do with the hurting child – Action for Children (AFC).

Besides the NGO, she has built a home – Queen Esther Palace – where she settles rescued children as she works on getting them new families

According to her, the home and its name was inspired by the biblical Queen Esther. “My intention is to bring joy, hope and comfort to the hurting child,’’ she says.

Also, the humanitarian has a toll-free helpline that on which any child in need can contact her. On average the helpline receives 40 calls in a week.  Out of these, she handles about 20 cases.

Having started her work seriously in 1998, Tumuhairwe today resettles about 1,500 children from all over Uganda every year.

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Jolly Nyeko, with some of the children at the Queen Esther Home. PHOTO/John Agaba

‘A hardworker’

Faith Kembabazi of the Children at Risk Network (CRANE) describes Tumuhairwe as a hardworking and compassionate woman.

“She is so honest and loving. She believes children belong in homes where they have love. Every single child they take to her, she accepts with open arms and starts searching for his/her family,” Kembabazi says of Tumuhairwe.

The journey

Born in Rukungiri district, Tumuhairwe attended Karukata Primary, Nabisunsa Girls and Mt. St Mary’s College Namagunga before joining Makerere University where she graduated with a degree in Sociology.

Thereafter she worked in the gender and social development ministry as probation and social welfare officer. It was while here in 1991 that her journey of caring for the unprivileged started.

She was tasked to start the first ever national council for children. It is just that her child welfare work was slowed down by her pursuit of higher education. It was around time that she left for the UK to study social development on a Masters scholarship at the University of Swanzi, now University of Wales.

 After her postgraduate studies abroad, she was back at the gender and social development ministry in a more senior position. But she would leave two years later for Feed the Children International as country director, a position she held from 1996 to 2002.

In 2004, she enrolled for another master’s program in leadership at Azusa Pacific University, USA, before finally settling down to child welfare.

Tumuhairwe, who also holds a postgraduate diploma from the Uganda Law Development Centre, says she loves it when people talk to her about child issues.

“Working for government didn’t give me enough time to reach out to suffering children. So, I had to look for money to see to the wellbeing of these unprivileged children.’’

Following an earlier advert she placed in the New Vision daily asking any child who was troubled to just call a toll free number and share his/her troubles with her, Uganda saw its first ever child helpline.

It is this brainchild that eventually metamorphosed into Action for Children.

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Jolly with some of the pupils at the Jolly Children Educational centre. PHOTO/John Agaba

Call centre

She started with one employee who was to stay at her real home to receive calls from whoever called needed help.

In case they received many cases, they handled some by counseling both the children and their parents. But if the cases involved abandoned children, Tumuhairwe would take the children to her home as she worked on reuniting them with their real or foster families.

But as the helpline became popular, the numbers also expanded. Tumuhairwe had to do something.

“I had a farm house in Biika, Masulita. I thought I could turn it into a home for these children,” she remembers. It is this idea that marked the beginning of the Queen Esther Palace.

The first time she opened the home on March 25, 2009, Tumuhairwe recalls that her first intake was a six-year-old child who had been abandoned at Mulago Hospital.

Today, 18 toddlers take refuge at the home, and more have passed through the same home to get other families.

Still, she did not stop at that. Driven by the number of children in Masulita that were not attending school, Tumuhairwe has also built a school – the Jolly Children’s Educational Centre.

The school that started with only 22 pupils in 2004 now has over 250 pupils. The pioneer Primary Seven class sat their national exams last year with 14 registered candidates.

Despite being rocked by several obstacles, Tumuhairwe has always stood true and strong to her cause. Her initiatives that started with only one employee have since grown and currently AFC employs over 44 people, and has about 70 community volunteers and 110 zone leaders.

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Miriam Ssubi being comforted by Jolly. PHOTO/John Agaba

Inspiration from her roots

Tumuhairwe’s mum and dad passed on in 1983 and in 1986, respectively. But they motivated her to be the woman she is today, she says.

Her dad was rich. The man had too much cattle. But because he was drunk almost all the time and had a couple of women, where Tumuhairwe’s mum was the unloved one, her childhood was difficult.

She grew up in what you would call a poverty-stricken home. She says it is because of this background that she can’t stand seeing children suffer.

Then, well aware of the fact that many unprivileged children are a result of impoverished homes, Tumuhairwe started a ‘small micro finance company’ that lends money to members at subsidized rates.

“We have about 1,000 clients whom we give out loans to so they can start projects and elevate themselves,’’ she explains.

She recalls that her greatest challenge since she started her mission of helping unprivileged children was when a baby she could have rescued instead died in her arms.

“We received a call from the Police that a two-day-old baby had been abandoned in a banana plantation, but by the time we reached her she was already sick, almost dying. It had rained all night and the little girl had a serious fever. Before we reached Mulago [hospital] she had died.’’

Shortage of funds still stands in the way of her projects. They have to write proposals and ask friends and people to help.

The woman who spends most of her leisure time in Bible classes, prayer meetings and visiting friends is so into children she will do anything for them.

Also, she has started a PhD program in Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria BC, Canada, which she hopes to complete this year.