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Our work

One project, several focuses

Sikiliza Leo is one programme with several points of focus. Clean water keeps children healthy. Healthy children go to school. Around every vulnerable child stands a family. And those who build an income of their own will, in time, need less outside support.

Field visit July 2025, school grounds in Mulanda
Water Nursery schools Families Local economy The people In the media
Focus 1

Clean water

Clean water is a basic condition for health. It is also the most tangible thing Sikiliza Leo does: a pump is there, or it is not.

Around Mulanda the groundwater is hard and rich in iron. It corrodes the metal rising pipes, so pumps fail after a few years. That is why they are being switched to PVC pipes step by step, and repairs are done by local technicians under the supervision of the District Water Officer.

12water pumps repaired in 2020
2nursery schools with running water and a kitchen
30families with a toilet of their own since 2025
  • 2006 – 2008
    First phase: nine wells installed. Local Water User Committees take responsibility for maintenance, and still do today.
  • 2013
    Together with Humasol, the District Water Office and the community, the Kiyeyi Medical Health Centre gets a solar pump and tap water, for the village too.
  • 2016
    All water points in and around Mulanda are mapped and checked, as the basis for a phased refurbishment.
  • 2017
    A new solar pump at the Mulanda hospital, installed by Humasol volunteers with local technicians. Sponsored by Atlas Copco.
  • 2020
    Twelve broken water pumps repaired, in use since February 2020. Since then the Water User Committees pay for small repairs themselves.
  • 2023
    With support from the City of Antwerp and the Province of Antwerp, the 2023 water project starts. Tororo district, driven by engineer Leo Owora, lays a network for piped water.
  • 2024
    The piped water is connected in both nursery schools. Local craftsmen add a kitchen counter, with support from Aros Hove; the inauguration is a meal for 200 children.
  • 2025
    Hygiene project Lonyo with Humasol: a toilet in the yard of thirty vulnerable families, and a composting site at the Pochowa school.
Who does it on the ground

The Water User Committees of each village manage their own pump: they collect a small contribution, keep the surroundings clean and report breakdowns. Repairs are done by local technicians, in cooperation with the District Water Office of Tororo, led by chief engineer Leo Owora.

Support the water project →
Focus 2

Two nursery schools

The nursery schools of Mulanda and Lwala are the stars of Sikiliza Leo. They lower the threshold to primary school, and for girls in particular that makes a lasting difference.

They are also the platform through which orphans and vulnerable children are reached. Whoever comes to school every day is seen. Besides learning and playing, every child gets a daily meal of millet porridge, regularly supplemented to improve nutrition.

500nursery children in total
250in Pochowa (Mulanda)
250in Lwala
  • 2006
    Sikiliza Leo builds two nursery schools, in Mulanda and in Lwala.
  • 2013
    Two extra classrooms for the youngest, in memory of Hilde Berger, built by a local contractor under the supervision of the project manager on site.
  • 2014 – 2015
    Belgian nursery teachers spend a few weeks working with the teachers of Mulanda and Lwala on new teaching methods.
  • 2020
    600 school uniforms, sewn in Mulanda and paid for by the 2019 benefit. From March 2020 until early 2022 the schools stay closed because of corona; the teachers visit the children at home.
  • 2024
    Running water and a kitchen in both schools. Two cooks prepare food every day for 250 children per school.
  • 2025
    A pedagogical study week in Mulanda, and the hygiene project Lonyo on hand hygiene, sanitation and drinking water at school.
Who does it on the ground

Ten Ugandan nursery teachers teach the classes, led by head teacher Fiona; two cooks take care of the meal. They follow further training, partly funded by a project grant from the municipality of Hove. The schools come under the local board of Sikiliza Leo in Mulanda.

Support the nursery schools →
Focus 3

Care for vulnerable children

In eastern Uganda the extended family takes in children when parents die. It is a fine tradition, but in a region hit hard by HIV and AIDS it runs up against its limits.

Grandparents sometimes care for more than ten grandchildren. The Family Support Initiative supports those households in a targeted way, instead of taking children out of their surroundings. Child monitors, trained by Sikiliza Leo, each follow about ten children: at home, at school and at the doctor's.

150children supported, in their own family
5child monitors, each with thirty children
±80of them in primary school
  • From 2001
    Sikiliza Leo starts with home care, voluntary testing and guidance on living with HIV. Later the Mulanda health centre takes over those tasks.
  • 2010
    Three blind brothers from one family go to the school for the blind in Soroti, sponsored by three Belgian families.
  • 2014
    After ten years the local management is renewed; Charles Opio becomes project leader. The focus: health, children and families.
  • 2020
    Corona. The child monitors visit the 150 families at home with a survival package: flour, sugar and a jerrycan with a tap.
  • 2024
    During the field visit 35 families are visited at home. The hygiene project grows out of that.
  • 2025
    Lonyo: thirty families get a toilet in their yard, built by craftsmen from Mulanda; the carers help out.
Who does it on the ground

Five child monitors, Robina, Eric, Patricia, Joseph and James, each with thirty children, led by project leader Charles Opio, who lives in Pochowa himself. They know the families personally, and that is the whole reason it works.

Support the family project →
Focus 4

Local economy

Those who can build an income of their own will, in time, need less outside support. That is the idea behind this fourth focus, and the chickens of the Mary women's group are its most tangible example.

In 2014 Sikiliza Leo built a chicken house for the Mary women's group. The group manages it itself: the proceeds from eggs and chickens stay in the village. Since then the local board, together with Ugandan sponsors, also invests in vegetable gardens and fruit trees.

2014chicken house built
2women's groups that run it themselves
20Kifaru bicycles for the team
  • 2014 – 2015
    On the initiative of field worker Ursula, the Mary women's group starts keeping chickens. Sikiliza Leo builds the chicken house; the women do the rest.
  • 2017
    A second group, Lweni Gi Chandi (“fighting poverty”), thirty women at the Pochowa school, starts doing the same. The board also invests in vegetable gardens and fruit trees.
  • April 2019
    A sudden storm throws a heavy palm tree right through the roof of the chicken farm.
  • June 2019
    The house is repaired, thanks to quick follow-up by the local team. The group is up and running again.
  • 2020
    Mary counts 20 chickens, 3 goats and a cow; Lweni Gi Chandi 15 chickens and 5 goats. In the evenings parents follow classes in farming and gardening in the classrooms.
  • 2024
    Twenty Kifaru bicycles for the team, paid for by the Fietsvrienden cycling club and assembled with Coop-Africa. Three young people are trained as bicycle mechanics.
  • 2025
    A tuk-tuk collects the compost containers and is hired out with a driver: a first income of the NGO's own.
Who does it on the ground

The Mary women's group and Lweni Gi Chandi manage their chickens themselves, from feed to sale, encouraged by field worker Ursula. Sikiliza Leo helped with the construction and with the repair after the storm; the daily work and the proceeds belong to the group.

Support the local economy →
The people

Who does it every day

Sikiliza Leo is not an office but some twenty people from Mulanda and Lwala. From our newsletter: who they are and what they do.

Charles Opio with his wife Helen and their children in front of their house.

Charles Opio

Project leader

Quality monitor from the start; since the renewal of 2014 the man who directs the schools and the child monitors and reports to the Board. Lives at the Pochowa school.
James Ochola at his desk with a laptop in the nursery school.

James Ochola

Child monitor and bookkeeper

Eldest son of founder Peter Ochola. Supports thirty orphans, keeps the books, oversees school and wells and writes the reports.
James gives a refresher training to the team in a classroom.

Robina, Eric, Patricia, Joseph and James

The five child monitors

Thirty children each, a home visit every week. Every two years a week of district training on child protection, violence, HIV and hygiene.
The team of nursery teachers and cooks in blue polo shirts in front of the school.

Fiona and her team

Head teacher, ten teachers, two cooks

Fiona leads both nursery schools and meets the parents regularly. Her quarterly report counts every child, class by class.

Ursula

Community health worker

The driving force behind the chicken projects of the Mary group and Lweni Gi Chandi, and behind the evening classes in farming and gardening for parents.

Leo Owora

District Water Office, Tororo

Chief engineer of the district. Guides the water committees, repaired the pumps and in 2023 laid the piped-water network the schools are connected to.
In the media

What others said about us

Flying Doctors — VRT The Belgian television programme Flying Doctors (VRT) visited the Mulanda health centre, where students of Humasol were working on the water tower and the water pumps at the time. In the episode one of the doctors briefly explains the project.
Watch the episode (in Dutch)
Humasol For years Sikiliza Leo has worked with Humasol, the organisation of engineering students that brings sustainable energy and water technology to the field.
About the partnership

One programme, one account number

The working group in Belgium is run entirely by volunteers. What you give goes to the work in Mulanda and Lwala.

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