By Ashley M. Casey
Associate Editor
Imagine having to haul buckets of water to your home each day just to bathe or brush your teeth. Imagine having to share a communal toilet with dozens of people and contracting diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
That is the reality for 2 billion people living in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Lack of access to improved sanitation facilities, clean water and hygiene practices contributes to the death of 827,000 people each year.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, only 19% of households have access to improved toilet facilities — that is, bathrooms that safely separate waste from human contact to reduce the spread of illness.
Baldwinsville resident Kevin Candee has seen firsthand the hardships many Ugandans face. Candee, a consultant with Aqua Energie, travels to Uganda every six weeks as part of his job. While making the nine-hour drive to his current project site on the border of South Sudan, Candee’s driver told him about St. Menas Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s Home in Mityana, which is about an hour and a half outside the capital city of Kampala.
“Mityana is a town like Baldwinsville — not as prosperous, a little bit bigger maybe. There’s 10 orphanages there. There are thousands of kids that are homeless on the street. You just cannot imagine the depth of need that they have there,” Candee said.
St. Menas — founded in 2000 by Fr. Azariah Kabanda Mukasa, Mary Mukasa and Masagazi Joel Yawe — is home to 133 children.
“They use chamber pots, which they have to empty and they don’t have enough to go around,” Candee said. “So you can imagine the sanitary conditions are not great.”
Calling on his business and personal contacts, Candee has helped raise $6,000 for the orphanage to build new bathroom facilities. He began his GoFundMe campaign in October 2019, and contractors broke ground on the facilities at St. Menas in February. The total cost for the facilities is $11,000.
“We’re building a dam for hydropower up in the northern part of Uganda and the contractor is Italian,” Candee said.
The Italian contractor has pledged construction materials toward the project.
“Bathrooms aren’t a very romantic thing to say you’re investing in,” Candee said, but access to sanitary facilities is fundamental for the children’s well-being.
Candee’s focus for St. Menas is “books, beds and bathrooms.” In addition to collecting donations toward the bathroom facilities, Candee has brought books, school supplies and games to Uganda for the children at St. Menas. His friend, Baldwinsville resident and former teacher Tish Evans, donated textbooks for the kids. Candee’s cousin, a teacher, donated an anatomy skeleton model (complete with internal organs) and a planetarium projector.
St. Mary’s Academy in Baldwinsville, which Candee’s 10-year-old daughter attends, has donated between 100 and 150 pleasure reading books as well.
Candee’s involvement with the orphanage has provided an opportunity for him to teach his own family about the importance of giving back.
“[My daughter] bought a whole bunch of different flashcards,” Candee said. “Even the littlest tykes … started raising their hands and knew the answers.”
Masagazi, one of the founders of St. Menas, is head of the education department at Uganda Christian University. Education is a priority for the children served by the orphanage.
“What’s really encouraging about this is they have such a positive attitude for these children not only to learn how to read and write but to go to a university,” Candee said. “I asked [Mr. Masagazi] if any if these kids would go to university and he looked at me like, ‘What do you mean? All of these kids are going to university.’”
GoFundMe takes 2.9% plus 30 cents of each donation as fees. Candee is matching GoFundMe’s take so people’s donations will fully benefit St. Menas.
To donate to St. Menas Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s Home, visit gofundme.com/f/vulnerable-children-of-mityana. For project updates, visit facebook.com/pg/St-Menas-Orphans-and-Vulnerable-Childrens-Home-100940047989651/.
