Center Days Bridge the Gap During School Holidays

When schools break for the holidays, our program office space becomes a hub for students and their mothers or guardians to come for hot meals, games, crafts, and mentor meetings. 

What Are Center Days?

Center Days are when the Peter's Heart children visit our office area for daytime activities. Designed to be times for play, life-training lessons, meal sharing, and relationship-building, Center Days give the children a sense of community and belonging. Our mentors meet with the children regularly to foster close relationships. Because we now serve approximately 120 children, we divide them into groups and set up different activities and mentor stations. Our mentorship curriculum focuses on rebuilding social-emotional skills, developing cognitive skills, healing from trauma, cultivating leadership, and fostering spiritual development. Our mentors also work with two churches, each in a slum, that have larger facilities where the children sometimes gather. In these settings, there are often more adults involved, which is beneficial for the children. 

“During Center Days, we get to know the children that we are mentoring really well. It is a time when they truly feel the belonging and acceptance,” says Program Mentor Geoffrey Galiwango. One Peter’s Heart student said, “The mentors help us in different situations. We get to have personal talks with them and discuss issues that pertain to us, solve them, and get to know what life really means.”

One activity that the team and children have grown to love is reading stories aloud in small groups. Our mentors and older Peter’s Heart kids enjoy reading to the younger children. These relaxing sessions allow participants to listen, imagine, and develop a love of reading as they build their vocabulary, deepen their understanding of new concepts, and broaden their experience of the world beyond the slums. Reading aloud has strengthened relationships between the children and their mentors, which is a win-win for everyone.

Why Our Centers Play a Critical Role 

Many of the children in the Peter’s Heart program don’t have a safe place to go. There are three terms in each school year, and the holiday period between each term is 1 to 2 months long. This creates a lot of unstructured time, which can be a balancing act for the Peter’s Heart team mentors. The hope is that children in boarding schools reunite with their mothers, guardians, or extended family during holidays, and our mentors help facilitate strong relationships among the family members. We recognize that we are not a foster-care program. The only children who stay with Peter’s Heart mentors during holiday are those who need this provision for safety or health reasons. 

“Our team of dedicated staff and trained volunteers provides what these children love most…guidance,” says Aidah Nakalembe. She adds, “We have the opportunity to train our older children in income-generating opportunities during their school holidays to nurture their entrepreneurial skills.”

Center Days are an important component of our program and contribute to our mission to rebuild and transform the lives of the most vulnerable children in Uganda's slums. Our mentors do a great job, and the smiles on the children’s faces are proof that we are making a difference. Program Mentor Geoffrey Seruwu says, “I’ve seen how these children were before. I know their stories. But when I meet with them and they smile, sometimes I cry because of happiness. I’ve seen the changes. I’ve seen children who were down, deep down, in the ditch, able to smile and laugh and play. You see now they have hope.”