Irene Gleeson Foundation

Trent told us of the Irene Gleeson Foundation, started by an Australian woman who visited Uganda as a tourist and returned there to spend the last twenty years of her life.  She brought hope to thousands of children in need of help and protection during the LRA War.   Twenty-two years after it was founded, the IGF continues to serve the people and especially the children there.

With a staff of 450 Ugandans, most of whom were children raised in Irene’s schools, the Foundation continues her commitment to transform, liberate and empower Ugandans through spiritual development, quality health care and sustainable community development.

What communities need is access to clean drinking water.  Traditionally, it has been the girls’ job to fetch water, which means girls have not been able to go to school.   The traditional equation changes when girls and young women become empowered, when water becomes available, and then education too.

The Irene Gleeson Foundation has been able to make other improvements in traditional life. Orphans, for example, were shunned.  Once they left the family compound and were sent from the village to distant orphanages, these children were told they could not come back because they no longer belonged. 

Now the orphanage and school are right in the village, and the children do not have to be taken out of the home context.  HIV positive patients are also cared for at an IGF Hospice.

Prayer is central to the people working in the Foundation.  They carry on their work through contributions.  More information is available at www.IGFUSA.org.