Ottawa woman to sky dive in a pledge for Ugandan charities

When Debbie Damron and friend Dianne Jamison first joined a church group from Naperville going on mission to Uganda in 2008, they weren’t sure what they’d experience.

Both women had done mission work locally in Ottawa and then in Guatemala, but this mission was to be different.

After choosing Ugandan families to sponsor and buying special gifts for them, they joined the team and flew into the unknown.

Once they met the village families and entered rural homes, their eyes were opened, and their hearts broken as they gazed upon happy children lacking even basic needs.

They were soon looked upon as the answer to villagers’ prayers, as game changers.

People on short-term missions often go once, check it off their list and never return.

Not Damron and Jamison. They vowed to return to Uganda year after year and bring others with them. And they have.

Damron and Jamison have joined hands and partnered with Ugandan nonprofit “Innovations for Transformation Initiative” or ITI, and its director, Milton Tusingwire. The nongovernmental agency lends support and credibility to work being done across Uganda.

From day one, Damron-led teams have served the poorest of the poor in Uganda’s most remote villages.

“As a team member, it was impossible to return home to Ottawa without wanting to share what we’d seen with as many like-minded people as we could reach,” Damron said in a news release from Starved Rock Country Community Foundation.

More than a dozen teams of 4-10 members each have witnessed “what God has placed on their hearts to serve his undersourced people,” Damron said.

Damron and Jamison rebuilt Glory Primary School, the only school in the region, after it had been destroyed. They also restocked the school library, replaced the playground and added a maize milling machine to feed hungry school children and villagers. Today, 220 children attend the school; 85% of the pupils have lost one or both of their parents.

Damron recently created, Believe In Uganda or “BIUG,” a field of interest fund with the Starved Rock Country Community Foundation in La Salle.

Damron said she “couldn’t be more thrilled to join SRCCF to help establish BIUG as a donor-friendly way to support the work we’ve been doing in rural Uganda for 16 years.”

BIUG has its hands in many projects but the most in need of funding are:

Family sponsorships: connecting those who have with those in need. Uganda’s impoverished households, often headed by widows, the elderly, or children, are linked to a family in the U.S. or Europe for support.

ITI’s Village Savings and Loan Association enables individuals in the same village to pool their money in a fund from which members can borrow. Loans are paid back with interest, causing the fund to grow. The project encourages entrepreneurship and business startup.

Revolving Seeds and Livestock program enhances corn and bean production by local farmers and provides families with pigs, goats and chickens in male and female pairs. When the animals produce offspring, they’re shared with other families to continue the cycle.

Amagara Ga’Boona (Health for All) Medical Clinic provides care for common illnesses such as malaria, tuberculosis, and waterborne diseases. The clinic is in urgent need of equipment to provide expectant mothers with care from conception to delivery. Childbirth typically occurs in primitive, unsanitary family homes with an untrained midwife. Too often, the mother, baby or both do not survive, Damron said.

The Power of One Book project seeks to eradicate illiteracy by providing reading books and libraries to rural Ugandan schools.

Damron is going above and beyond in her quest to raise money for BIUG. She’s collecting pledges for a jump at 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 28, at Skydive Chicago north of Ottawa. It’s the second jump for Damron who said she gets scared climbing a ladder.

She’ll be joined in tandem jumps by BIUG supporters Rebekah Felty and Elizabeth Wenzel. Proceeds will pay for maternity medical equipment.

“Medical conditions in Uganda are dire and the clinic is not self-sustaining,” Damron said. “Need is so great.”

To donate, visit srccf.org/fund/believe-in-uganda-field-of-interest-fund.