How it Started
A volunteer medical trip lead me (Tonya) to the Dominican Republic where I met these amazing women. We changed lives on that trip, and I knew that this is where my heart belonged; helping others.
The volunteer trip to the Dominican Republic in 2017, was the initial impetus for the creation of Ubuntu Hope Charity (although I (Tonya) didn't know it at the time). After two weeks of setting up mobile medical clinics in the mountains of the Dominican Republic and caring for the underserved and marginalized communities, I returned home, and was immediately planning my next trip. I wanted to make a tangible difference to local and/or global communities. I started by sponsoring children going to school in Munoz, Puerto Plata. I made two more trips to the Dominican Republic, and then decided I wanted to go back to Africa. My son, Jaxson, who was 13 years old at the time, and I, signed up with a volunteer agency and we went to Nairobi, Kenya to teach at the Agape Hope Children's Centre (orphanage).
Jaxson and I, saw that the children were fed bread and tea for breakfast and beans for lunch and dinner. They were not given a fruit or vegetable. Fruit and vegetables are expensive.
In 2020, we established a fruit and vegetable program at the orphanage that continues to this day. The 144 resident children receive fruits and vegetables twice a week that provides them with needed vitamins and minerals to grow.
But we wanted to do more, so in 2020, I went to Ghana with my teaching partner and friend, Leisha, and we teamed up with the head Nurse (Madam Christine) at the Frankadua medical clinic, and have since built 4 new rooms onto the clinic, creating a Maternity unit, including a bathroom. The rooms will be dedicated to labouring, postpartum, and antenatal women and their babies (check out our completed projects page for updated photos). The old rooms and equipment were in much need of renovation and repair, see below.
Covid prevented us from going to Africa in 2021, but this past May (2022), we went to Ghana to see the finished clinic, and to perform a community needs assessment. This trip lead us to start the water and food projects in Ghana.
Making real connections within the communities we are serving, is very important to us. We were gifted these hand made dresses, and we wore them with pride and gratitude.
