Timeline
We have made a lot of progress since the beginning in 2011. With huge perseverance and determination you will see how our story has progressed to bring us to where we are today, thanks to our many supporters.
June 24, 2011 Back in 2011, Martin Male started Chances for Children. Martin is an HIV orphan and after doing an IT diploma, he was inspired to return to the streets and help the children less fortunate than himself, by giving them a chance. He started by helping at soup kitchens in the slums and helping to run social aid programs for children
August 2, 2014 On 2nd August 2014, Martin connected with Gabrielle and Russell Crump for the first time! He had a young English couple of volunteers called James and Kat staying for a couple of weeks and they put an appeal on Facebook through James’ family. Gabrielle and Russell came forward to offer help and through James and Kat, they connected to Martin, and began to follow
October 18, 2014 In October 2014, Russell and Gabrielle got married and raised 6000€ for the organisation by asking guests to donate instead of giving gifts. This was the beginning of their fundraising journey! They used the money to buy 3 acres of land and equip it as a farm in the countryside near Kampala, able to grow crops to feed the children.
December 15, 2014 As Gabrielle and Russell became more involved in the organisation, they decided to take over helping Martin to run and fund it. This was a major turning point and one of no return! Up until that point Martin had relied on very sparse and irregular funding through small Facebook campaigns, mainly through
December 25, 2014 In December 2014, the children enjoyed their first Christmas ever. They enjoyed Christmas dinner, sweets, cake, met Father Christmas and enjoyed a fabulous day of fun and games. Each boy was given a ball and each girl a teddy bear! They then had their first dental checkup in their lives for many, which caused chaos and many hid as the next bus came to collect them! The great news was as they had never been given any sugar, most of their teeth were in fabulous condition! At this point the children lived in the village of Bussunju, around 1.5 hours from central Kampala.
January 20, 2015 We hosted our very first event for Chances for Children in Valbonne, South of France! We started to share our enthusiasm with our friends and they all asked the same question… ‘When are you going to visit?’
February 4, 2015 As we had rented a very basic building very close to the living accommodation to start our own school, we were able to put our children back into full time education with 5 small classrooms and teachers! This was a huge milestone for us and the children were super excited to be learning, for some of them this was the first time they went to school! We had a 400€ donation from some friends in Monaco which enables us to buy desks and blackboards to get started. The children followed the national curriculum and sat exams and tests at
February 23, 2015 Russell and Gabrielle jumped on a plane from Nice and went to visit Martin and the children for the first time, which was a very emotional experience! Their living conditions were far more basic than expected, and they were in severe need of running water and proper sanitation. They were all sleeping on the floor like sardines on old mattresses that smelt of urine. They were using pit latrines to go to the toilet and water was brought bicycles from a nearby bore hole surrounded by cows. The children were however welcoming and extremely happy to be given the clothes that that had been donated by friends in Monaco. Gabrielle and Russell also took much needed school supplies which were used by the teachers. They made a decision there and then, the children needed to move to a house with running water, electricity and flushing toilets as soon as possible. They flew home after a week with this goal in mind as their first priority. For more photos click Here
May 5, 2015 In May 2015 we found a new house in Wakiso district on the outskirts of Kampala and moved house! The children finally had proper facilities, with running water, electricity and flushing toilets! We had one bedroom for the boys and one for the girls with the children sleeping on the floor at
May 25, 2015 May was a big month, we also finally registered the charity in Monaco as an Association, thanks to the help of our new General Secretary Laetitia Noyon Zwaans! We also opened our bank account in Monaco which was a long a drawn out process! This made us able to accept cheques and wire transfers, as supposed to the prehistoric method of taking cash from our growing supporter base! At this point we registered the organisation in Uganda as an NGO, ( non governmental organisation.) We were making fabulous progress and very proud of this. For more photos please click here
November 18, 2015 In November 2015 a team of 5 friends visited the children in Uganda, spending a week with them, and helping to deal with basic issues as well as setting up relationship with local partners, including KISU (Kampala International School of Uganda) http://www.kisu.com They subsequently gave us plenty of help, down to donating all their un reclaimed lost property to us! We still have many of KISU hoodies and polo
December 25, 2015 The children enjoyed their first Christmas in town, with father Christmas coming to visit them again and most importantly this time we had help from Rachel at KISU, by bringing a shoebox of gifts for each child, with their own name on it! Rachel and Martin organised a Christmas party for the children in December too, and they had huge fun. For more photos of this click here
March 3, 2016 We finally bought our own minibus thanks to a generous donation from a supporter! It meant that we could then take the children to school and back without paying for expensive rented transport options. The children were very excited as you can see from the photo!
April 23, 2016 On 23rd April 2016, we held a large fundraiser event, and raised 20,000€! We held a raffle and an auction with a gourmet BBQ in a beautiful garden, lent to us by a friend in Cap d’ Ail, South of France. The event was a fabulous success with The Soul Club playing jazz to our guests on arrival, as well as Anthony Calligagan followed by DJ Max Avril on the decks as the sun set! We would like to extent a big thankyou to Pippa at Currencies Direct as well as Boucherie Fabre, Mirabeau Wines and a whole host of other companies that made it possible. To see loads of great shots of the day Click here
September 1, 2016 After a couple of years of running the charity purely on funds raised from events, we decided to look for individual sponsors for each child! This idea met with great enthusiasm and our friends and supporter that had seen us grow came forward to offer to help! The sponsorship cost is 2,50€ per day or 1.25€ for a co sponsorship and as the child grows up the sponsor is able to have follow their progress by exchanging letters, seeing school reports and photos.
September 28, 2016 We always say that every cloud has a silver lining. In this case our neighbours were complaining about the noise our children made and we were forced to find a new home to move to. The great news was that the new place was much closer to the centre of Kampala, the rent was lower and it was much bigger! They would have space to each have their own bed! It was a lot of upheaval but the place was really worth moving to, much easier access for staff and
November 5, 2016 Our team of friends and supporters all ran and walked the No Finish Line and for every lap they also raised 1€ for the organisations chosen cause so it was win win! It is an event that takes place in Monaco every year with people talking and running around track through the streets with a tracker on, and they can do as many laps as they like! A huge thanks to the Delaney family who decided to raise all the funds needed to buy beds, mattresses, bedding and pillows for all our children, they finally stopped sleeping on the floor! We had enough space for every child to sleep in a bed, and they were triple deckers! The children were thrilled to finally have a small space to call their own. We also raised 2000€ for musical instruments as
January 7, 2017 In January, having invested in our first instruments for the music and dance troop, we chose the 15 children that would practice regularly and perform in public to raise money for the organisation. This is our first step to self sustainability, meaning the children would no longer rely 100% on donations and sponsorship. For more photos click here
February 7, 2017 This was a big step for us! We jumped through many hoops thanks to our very patient lawyer in the UK and have finally registered in UK. As soon as the UK bank account is open C4C UK will be able to have a one click Donate button, as well as being able to register on various crowdfunded website as well as donate as you shop sites. This is an exciting step!
February 24, 2017 Due to the success of a Facebook appeal in February, we raised the funds to pay for a metal case for every child to keep their personal belongings in! This was the first time that any of these children had any space to call their own to store books, clothes, letters from their sponsors and all their other personal possessions. It was
March 3, 2017 Our Monaco team headed off once again to Uganda to see the children in their Kampala home. This was a great trip, meeting new staff members, Rachel from KISU, visiting the headmaster of the local school and watching many a dance rehearsal. It was an action packed week full of fun, emotions and hard work!
March 9, 2017 After having battled hard, we had managed to obtain a visa for Martin to visit Monaco, and he flew back with the Monaco team to meet the supporters. This was also Martins’ first trip outside Africa, and he had a fantastic time meeting all the wonderful people that have helped us to make such great progress. During his stay the Bradley Mitton at the Club Vivanova hosted a fantastic gala event during which 4,000€ was raised to help us purchase more musical instruments and costumes. For more photos click here
May 24, 2017 One of our girls Esther was the first child at Chances for Children to obtain a passport! This was a huge victory as administration in Uganda to obtain passports for orphan children is extremely time consuming and requires extreme patience and persistence. Esther will be joining another dance troop that will that plans a fundraising tour Canada in September.
August 20, 2017 Our great friend Cassidy Woods trained super hard and raised most of the funds for our children to go on their USA fundraising tour! He did an Iron Man! For those that do not know what an Ironman is it is an extreme Triathlon consisting of a 3.8 km swim followed by 180km
Humble beginnings – 2011
Connecting to Gabrielle and Russell – August 2014
A wedding gift – October 2014
Chances for Children was born – December 2014
The children’s first Christmas and a visit to the dentist!
Our first fundraiser event – Valbonne January 2015
We opened our own school – 4th February 2015
Gabrielle and Russell’s first visit to Uganda – February 2015
Moving to Kampala – May 2015
Registering in Monaco – May 2015
Another visit to the children – November 2015
Another fabulous Christmas – December 2015
We bought our own Minibus! – March 2016
Raise the roof – Our largest fundraiser
We launched our Sponsorship program
Moving again to a bigger house – September 2016
No Finish Line – new beds and musical instruments!
Our children auditioned to become part of the dance troop
We registered as a UK charity!
Personal trunks for all the kids!
Monaco team visits Uganda for third time
Martins first trip to Monaco
We obtained our first passport!
Cassidy Woods – Our very own Iron Man!