A contribution by Stefanie Reska, 1st Chairwoman Friends of HOREMI e.V.
In spring 2025, I visited HOREMI for the second time together with my HOREMI e.V. colleagues Karin and Stefan. As there are no rooms for guests on site, we usually stay in one of the few hotels in the town of Iganga, about 25 kilometres away. This time, however, I had the opportunity to stay overnight at HOREMI and get to know the lives of the children and the HOREMI team even better.
After Karin and Stefan had travelled to western Uganda to exchange ideas with another social project (“Give a goat Africa”), I stayed with Naume, Kenneth and the children at the orphanage for another three days. Without the comforts that are available in the hotels in Iganga, I shared one of the children’s rickety bunk beds with Naume. The room with its unplastered brick walls and corrugated iron roof was locked at night for security. Not only the door, but also the windows, so it was incredibly hot. It only cooled down a little towards morning.
When I walked to the walled area next to the latrine shortly after 7am with my toothbrush, where a bucket of water was waiting for me as a shower substitute, I realised that I had obviously had a pretty good rest anyway and had slept through the sounds of 30 children getting up! Lessons had already started and the children were all sitting in their classrooms, freshly washed and in their school uniforms, repeating in loud voices the content given by the respective teacher.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Brian — who is responsible for the farm — bakes fresh pancakes in the morning. He sells them from the small brick store at the entrance to the schoolyard to all the villagers who pass the school on the footpath at this time of day. And the delicious African pancakes sell like fresh pretzels. My breakfast consisted of two of these warm crêpes and a cup of instant coffee. I remember this Ugandan ‘petit dejeuner’ sitting on the stairs of the dormitory in the morning sun, with the voices of the students in the background, as a very peaceful moment.
In general, that was the impression that has stayed with me: how peaceful and grounded the atmosphere on the HOREMI grounds is. When the older kids were playing football on the large meadow in the late afternoon after lessons and the smaller ones were playing on the swings or the slide, it was in such a relaxed atmosphere that I haven’t experienced with children in my home environment for a long time. Despite all the difficulties of everyday life and the mostly traumatic biographies of the children, the mood during these afternoon hours was peaceful and carefree. It was so good to see that HOREMI means something to these children that is normal for us: safety.
Over the three days, I was able to experience the evening atmosphere on the village square and the starry sky over the peanut fields and saw large hornbills running through the manioc plantations in the centre of the village. Watching the concentrated faces of parents registering their children for school and being counselled by Kenneth in the headmaster’s office. With Bumali, the boy in the wheelchair who struggles with severe spasticity, practising targeted grasping and releasing under the guidance of a physiotherapist friend. The animal figures he had actually brought along for his natural history lessons were a great motivation for him to get involved.
As far as the development of the project is concerned, there is still a lot to do. But HOREMI is on its way thanks to the vision and tenacity of the people there, as well as the support of the people here in Germany. And it is already in a much, much better place than ever before.