Text Box: Dear Partners in Child Development,  We wish to thank you for your support for the vulnerable children of Uganda whose lives you are transforming. The schools second term ended on August 15, 2008. So many lives have been blessed and transformed that this gives us a smile. However, it is unfortunate that some of our children drop out of the program. Due to some unavoidable circumstances we find ourselves unable to reach them any more. The circumstances include the following:  Death of parents or guardians. We have had some children disappear from our communities after the death of either their parents or guardians. This has occurred mainly due to the HIV /Aids scourge which has claimed many lives of Ugandans. Such have left behind helpless orphans. The children’s relatives, unknown to us, tend to take them away to where we dont know and without notifying us.   Financial constraints and to poverty. This has caused many families to shift to the Text Box: countryside after failing to meet the cost of their livelihood in the city. Poverty has also forced some men to abandon their families as to avoid responsibility. As a result, mothers fail to feed the children and to pay for housing. They are eventually chased away by the landlords thus forcing them to take the children to the hard to reach areas. We have also had cases where the father disappears and the mother also abandons the children to God! As poverty worsens some guardians withdraw their help from children. Displacement. Many families have been displaced after selling off the land they occupied illegally. The government sold off the land their families used to live on.  Family breakdown and divorce. Some children have disappeared when their parents separate and say the mother leaves the children to their father. The father finds it hard to look after the children and at the same time go to work and hence he either stops the elder child from schooling to remain at home looking after the younger ones, or takes them away to their grandparents and other relatives without notifying us.  In cases like this, it becomes hard for us to find the child. On the other hand, some mothers Text Box: divorce and take custody of the children out of the community.      Differences in religious beliefs. We love to create relationships with all people regardless of their religion beliefs. We have at times found it hard to deal with some Moslem sects. In most cases, its the mothers who come to ask for sponsorship, but it seems they are not always in agreement with their Moslem husbands. Often as soon as the child gets a sponsor and the father gets to know about it, the child disappears from school and community. We have made follow-ups for such children but the mothers have told us that the fathers do not want their children to be helped by Christians.  The above circumstances among others are the major cause of child transfers. However, we are working hard to reduce the rate of drop out through several meetings we are holding with parents/guardians for sensitization and counseling, encouraging parents to accept Christ and trust God with their families. But again we still see a need for an orphanage to protect and bring up some of the helpless children that we see.