a Message from Cro country director.
Thank you for being part of the vision, mission and goal of CRO to reach out, rescue, rehabilitate, reintegrate and empower former street children to become responsible and fruitful citizens in our nation.
2022 was unique as marked 30 years since the founding of CRO Uganda in 1992 in Mbale by Ms Ingrid Wilts, Bishop Simon Peter Emiau and Pastor Benjamin Otim (RIP). We celebrated God’s faithfulness in providing for, blessing and sustaining the interventions of CRO under the theme in 1Samuel 7:2 “Ebenezer” meaning “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us”.
The year 2022 saw CRO recovering from the adverse effects of the Covid 19 pandemic and the suspension of child related activities of Mbale branch in 2021. Volunteer staff were approved as full time staff- raising the number of fulltime staff from 14 in 2021 to 30 in 2022. We thank this team for job well done in 2022.
I thank the Board of Directors of CRO chaired by Bishop Simon Peter Emiau, that has steered this precious institution through the storms and kept it afloat.
Great thanks to our funding partners; Eriks Development Partners, Elma Philanthropies, Suubi ly’abana Germany, CROSO, CRO Foundation Netherlands and individual fundraisers like Uta (Berlin, Germany), Miriam, Wout & Decknonic among others for the timely financial support.
Our national & local partners in Mbale, Lira, Jinja and Masaka, we are proud of you and appreciate your support. Our local and central government and non-governmental partners who through their community development departments as well as child welfare programmes have provided technical guidance and supervision to CRO branches to ensure safe service delivery.
This year, we were able to provide services to a total of 947 children (525 boys and 422 girls) in addition to several caregivers as indicated in this report.
We applaud our children, some of whom are now CRO alumni for taking advantage of available opportunities to come out of oppressive street conditions and climb the ladders of development. Thank you all for not wasting the resources invested in you.
CRO as a learning organization has grown through various experiences and challenges which have enabled it to refine her vision, mission, goals and objectives as well as strategies to be able to continue addressing evolving issues propelling children to the streets.
Despite all the developments and achievements, CRO is still experiencing several challenges which include: reduced external funding, understaffing due to limited funds; increasing number of children on the streets as well as low local stakeholder involvement in addressing the plight of children living in streets situations.
To address these challenges we are; increasing local resources mobilization and stakeholder involvement in the protection and promotion of children rights, strengthening parenting and caregiver programming as well as holding key duty bearers accountable using the Rights Based Approach to development.
We therefore appeal to everyone to join us in this noble cause to save the future generation. We appeal to faith-based institutions, school, business community and government departments to partner with us in this noble cause. Let us work together to get children off the streets into safe nurturing environments. We welcome every technical, financial, moral and material support towards this noble cause. Together we shall manage this social challenge
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2023!
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