Two Sisters from Sušice Continue Helping Thousands of Ugandan Children

Kristina works as a cleaner at a primary school. Her sister Marie is a seamstress. Both lead ordinary lives in Sušice, a small town in the Šumava region. Yet they are among the most remarkably generous donors the Caritas Centre for Foreign Aid has ever encountered.

When the sisters paid for the construction of a new kitchen at St. Paul Lubanyi School two years ago, it looked like an extraordinary, one-off gift. It turned out to be only the beginning.

In 2024, two more kitchens were added at schools in Buseera and Kazansaya, replacing dilapidated shelters where cooking was impossible in the rain. Today, thanks to them, several thousand children can count on receiving a hot lunch at school.

Ugandan children spend the entire day at school, with lessons running both in the morning and afternoon. Kristina and Marie were therefore curious what might make that long school day more enjoyable for the children. A suggestion that came directly from the teachers caught their attention immediately. Without hesitation, they equipped the playgrounds of four primary schools with swings, provided footballs and netballs, and added dolls for the youngest girls.

Livestock as a step towards self-sufficiency

The sisters have long been supporting individual children through the Child Sponsorship Programme (Adopce na dálku^®). Through the letters and photographs sent to them by the schoolchildren, they learned about the difficult situation of eight-year-old Janati. The deaf-mute girl lives alone with her grandmother, an elderly woman raising eleven grandchildren on her own.

It was a letter from Janati that prompted Kristina and Marie to act. They bought a cow and three goats for the family. The animals give the grandmother the security of knowing she can feed the children who depend on her.

This was not an isolated case. Over the past year, the sisters donated goats and chickens to a total of eighty families. The animals are a source of livelihood and a promise of greater self-sufficiency. „The goat will give birth to kids, and one day we might have a small herd. Besides milk, we could eventually use the meat or sell the kids,“ says Mrs Shamirah. The children are delighted too: „It’s like having a new friend,“ smiles eight-year-old Elijah.

A gift that changes the lives of generations

Every gift is the result of careful preparation. Local social workers, who know the families and communities closely, advise on who would truly benefit from help, what form it should take, and how to deliver it without stirring feelings of injustice. In a community where almost everyone is in need, this is a delicate matter.

It was the social workers who drew attention to the Ashaba family. They lived in a remote part of the village, far from everyone else, on land that was not their own. The sisters bought them a small plot. The Ashabas are now building a house of mud bricks on it.

John, the social worker who knows the family, was present at the handover: „The mother’s eyes filled with tears and she said: ‚I never thought we would have our own land. God is great.'“

Their motivation is disarmingly simple

Kristina and Marie are changing the lives of people they have never met, while not living in luxury themselves. „We do it because it makes us happy,“ is their straightforward answer, and they add: „Sometimes you feel the urge to buy little things for yourself — but we decided that instead of spending money on things we don’t really need, we’d send it somewhere it will do some good.“

Voluntary simplicity and helping others are the foundation of their life philosophy. „We don’t give because we have — we have because we give.“