Teddy Nakanwagi, a qualified secondary school teacher, has been running the Anne Namuddu Motherhouse in Masaka since 2013, where 60 to 70 ‘vulnerable’ children have found a home. ‘Vulnerable’ refers, on the one hand, to orphans or half-orphans from families affected by HIV and other illnesses, and, on the other hand, to children from families who, for other reasons, are unable to care for them. In addition to providing a bed, regular meals, a Christian upbringing and a structured daily routine, Teddy and her team ensure, above all, that the children attend school. She selects the right school for them, ensures the children have everything they need for school – such as school uniforms and learning materials – arranges for school fees to be paid on time, maintains contact with the school administration and teaching staff, and checks their school reports. The older children attend their respective boarding schools and only return to the Motherhouse during the holidays between terms (three per school year). The younger children attend nursery (pre-school) on a day-school basis and return home every evening.

The costs of schooling are funded by donations from Germany. In addition, there are a large number of school sponsorship schemes organised by individual donors or organisations such as schools, nurseries, clubs, church parishes or foundations, which raise the necessary funds. Coordination of this has so far been in the hands of an association in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg, the ‘Aalener Freundeskreise für Uganda n.e.V.’. From the start of the year, our foundation will take over this organisational role. The same applies to the donations required to cover the Motherhouse’s running costs. Part of these running costs is covered by agricultural produce generated by the Motherhouse’s ancillary activities, such as chicken farming and the sale of eggs, or the cultivation of bananas and maize.

Since 2021, we have been using our project budget to cover school expenses, initially for 16 children and young people. The number has since grown to 23 children and young people (as of 2025). On our annual trips to Uganda, we visit the children and young people at their schools. At the end of each term, Teddy sends us the school reports and updates on the children’s progress. Every two to three years, Teddy, who speaks fluent German, comes to Germany to visit the many donors and funding organisations.

Pius, aged 23, lived in a small village south-west of the capital, Kampala, with his grandmother and four half-siblings. He was involved in a school group within the Catholic Diocese of Masaka. After successfully completing his school-leaving exams – something he had to work extremely hard for and fight hard to achieve due to his family’s lack of financial resources – he began a degree in agricultural management at Uganda Martyrs University in Nkozi. Without financial support, this would not have been possible for him. We are covering his tuition fees through a scholarship. In spring 2026, he completed his second year of study with excellent grades. A few weeks ago, we were able to provide him with a laptop to support his studies, which he was very pleased to receive.

Teddy, from the Motherhouse in Masaka, sent us the following email in December 2024:

Dear Thomas,

As we had previously discussed, in the event that anyone would like to give us another Christmas present, I would like to introduce you to the girl pictured above, who was born into a family with ten siblings. The mother has mental health issues. Although the name of the child’s father is known, we are not sure whether he is the biological father, as the mother is being taken advantage of by many different men due to her mental state. The child lives in the same village as us and frequently comes home to sell various items, such as amaranth (green leaves), to provide for and support her family. She attended school (Year 3 of primary school) but does not have a school report because she could not afford the fees. To help her, however, we believe she needs to change schools and that we must send her to a boarding school. We would be grateful if the T+H Hoene Foundation could help. If you have any questions about her, please get in touch. Warm regards once again from sunny Uganda. Mary Teddy

In Uganda, Agnes – who helped her mentally ill mother and her 10 siblings survive by selling vegetables at the market – would have had no prospects in life without a proper school education, and might well have ended up facing the fate of a ‘teenage pregnancy’. A school where she could learn what she really wanted to and where she was given something to eat every day was the most important way we could help her. We found sponsors for Agnes who have committed to covering the long-term costs of her education through donations to our foundation. Having changed schools, Agnes now attends Ssenyange Public School in Nyendo, Masaka, where she is in Year 5 and her academic performance is constantly improving.

Lisa applied for our scholarship programme with an email containing the following:

"I am Lisa Brenda K., a 15-year-old Ugandan girl. I live in a suburb of Kasese, an urban area in western Uganda. I completed Year 7 of primary school when I sat my primary school leaving examinations in April 2021. These examinations are set by the Uganda National Examinations Board and, according to the government calendar, were originally due to take place in November 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything. The results of the exams we sat in April were published at the end of June 2021. I was one of the lucky candidates in our class who achieved an impressive overall mark of 7 across four subjects (Mathematics, Science, English and Social Studies), placing me in the enviable Upper Division One. I passed all four subjects with distinction: Maths D2, Science D2, English D2 and Social Studies D1. By God’s grace, I found a former benefactor who funded my studies for Senior 1 and now Senior 2. The sponsor has run out of money, and I am now at risk of having to drop out of school. My three sisters and I live with our unemployed mother in a half-finished building in Kisanga A cell, Nyamwamba Division, in the municipality of Kasese. Our father left home many years ago and moved away with a new wife. Even if he were nearby, it would be of no use, as he has devoted his life to excessive alcohol consumption and no longer cares about our well-being. As recently as April 2021, just before my exams, my mother developed a mental health problem and was taken by family members to a Buhinga referral hospital in Fort Portal City, where she stayed for several days. She was discharged in early May 2021, but has not yet fully recovered."

In collaboration with the registered NGO Kasese Young Single Mothers Association (Kiyosima), we have accepted Lisa into our scholarship programme and will fund her school education. At the end of 2025, Lisa sat her secondary school final exams with very good marks, despite her illness. This enabled her to gain a place at one of Uganda’s leading colleges, Our Lady of Africa SS Namilyango, on the outskirts of Kampala. The first term of her first year there was not easy for Lisa, as she had contracted a stomach illness. However, she has now settled in better. We will visit her again in October 2026.

Since our trip to Tanzania/Uganda in November 2022, we have been supporting the St. Jude Nursery & Primary Day and Boarding School in Kikondo-Kyotera, approximately 30 km southwest of Masaka, Uganda. The school was founded in 2019 by Jude Kayiwa to give 118 children from poor families, who are usually unable to pay school fees, the opportunity to receive a proper education. The school has defined its goal as educating young citizens with proper social behaviour, equipping them with knowledge, skills and values for a sustainable life. Its vision is holistic education for sustainable development. In the four years since its establishment, the number of students has risen to over 400, of whom approximately 120 live at the school as boarders during term time. During our visit in November 2022, we took the children into our hearts, just as they took us into theirs. As a sign of a planned long-term partnership, we planted an avocado tree on the school grounds. However, we also saw that there is much to be done with the school's very sparse facilities.

One of the first tasks to be tackled was to ensure that the school had a clean source of drinking water. Until now, the schoolchildren had to fetch the water needed for school operations from a distant water hole and carry it in canisters on their heads across a busy road to the school. The water fetched in this way was not sufficiently clean. With the support of the Solidarity and Justice Foundation Our Agenda - Solidarity and Justice Foundation (stiftungsolidaritaet.de) and thanks to many donors, we were able to raise the funds to dig and construct a drinking water well on the school grounds. A company from Masaka specialising in well construction dug a well within a month and installed an elevated tank on top of it. The well can pump up to 5,000 litres of fresh water per day. As long as the water is not needed for daily washing and cooking at the school, it can be used in future for a small agricultural business that is to be set up for the school. The surrounding population will also benefit from this new source of fresh water. The 402 schoolchildren are delighted. They and we would like to thank all supporters from the bottom of our hearts.

A little later, we were able to take another step forward by financing a minibus for the school to transport pupils on a daily basis. Especially during the rainy season, it was almost impossible for many children who live up to 5 km away from the school to walk to and from school every day through mud and slush. This often made it impossible for these children to attend school regularly. With the school's own bus, this is no longer a problem.

With our financial support, the school buildings were completely renovated during the long holidays after the 2024 school year. Roofs were replaced, windows were replaced or installed for the first time, and the facades of the buildings were renovated.

The latest development is the construction of a new toilet block on the school grounds. We have been awarded a grant of €25,000 for this from the EZ Small Projects Fund of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). We are financing the required contribution from our own funds together with the Hans Mendel Foundation from Wernau in Baden-Württemberg. By the start of the 2026 school year, the new sanitary block was complete and was greeted with great enthusiasm by the children on their first day back at school. As part of the project entitled ‘Cleaner Means Healthier’, hygiene education is now being delivered at the school throughout the school year by specially trained mentors, with the lessons learnt being passed on to the schoolchildren’s families.

At the start of the school year, another new school building was also inaugurated. Two new school buildings, which can be combined to form a large assembly hall (Main Hall), were inaugurated in February 2026.

The origin:

Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world with a population of approximately 47.5 million, whose average age is 16.7 years. This makes Uganda the country with the youngest population in the world. On average, every woman in Uganda gives birth to 4 to 5 children. According to statistics from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics and UN aid organisations, almost a quarter of children born in 2018 were to mothers aged 18 or younger. The number of so-called ‘teenage births’ has risen sharply since 2019, particularly under the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic. (Factsheet on Teenage Pregnancy, 2021http.//uganda.unfpa.org)

Street prostitution and forced marriage of young underage daughters were and still are a last desperate resort for parents in Uganda to escape poverty and hardship. From birth, or often even earlier, young mothers, who are often children themselves, are left alone and do not know how to help themselves. Family ties in Uganda are often fragile due to poverty and large numbers of children. Far too many adolescent girls are still treated as sexual objects rather than as people who can make their own decisions about their lives.

Stephen Kabuye, Gorreth Namganda and Benita Lovisa Byakatonda know these fates only too well from their own experience.

Benita Lovisa (28) was born in eastern Uganda, in the Luuka District, one of the poorest regions in Uganda. She has a total of 19 siblings, most of whom are half-siblings. After she was born as her mother's second child, her father left the family and had several other wives, with whom he had a total of 11 children. Her mother had four more children by another man, but also suffered two miscarriages. Benita's stepfather felt there were too many children in the house, so her mother had to give her away. With a lot of luck, she found someone who would take care of her like a parent.

Steven (35) grew up in Bombo, about 30 km north of the capital Kampala, as one of his father's 21 children from a total of five wives. During his childhood, he was passed from family to family. No one paid his school fees. The fact that he was able to become an excellent teacher despite this is solely due to his outstanding achievements as a schoolchild.

Gorreth (23) grew up in the Anne Namuddu orphanage in Masaka. The orphanage is home to 60 to 70 children, most of whose parents have died of HIV or are so seriously ill that they cannot care for their children. The director of the orphanage often hears about neglected or sick children, and frequently about very young single mothers who have to give their children away so that someone can take care of them. They find a new home in the orphanage in Masaka, where they receive support with school fees and are accommodated in boarding schools.

The idea:

With outside help, all three were able to go to school, graduate successfully and complete equally successful training as teachers or childcare workers. During their training, the three got to know each other, shared their respective pasts and jointly decided to use their modest means not only to to work hard to give the many young mothers and their children, who like them had no help and no hope in their childhood, a chance, a chance and hope that would bring smiles to the faces of the children and mothers. This is how the idea of ‘Smiling Angels’ came about. They themselves describe the core idea of ‘Smiling Angels’ as follows:

Every child is a gift from God and every child is unique. In Uganda, we believe that children are angels and gifts from God. We restore the smiles that have been lost and forgotten by young teenage mothers, orphans and vulnerable children in order to create a sense of togetherness with those who have had and continue to have the privilege of growing up in better circumstances, bridging the otherwise immeasurable gap. That is why we chose the name SMILING ANGELS DAY CARE AND NURSERY, to put a smile on the faces of these angels and their mothers.

The beginning:

This is the name of a kindergarten and primary school founded in 2023 by three wonderful young people with big hearts in Katalemwa/Wakiso.

The first step has been taken – a roof over their heads to protect them from the sun and rain

In June 2025, we received the following message from Stephen, Gorreth and Lovisa:

"Dear Thomas and all our friends at Smiling Angels, we hope you are well.

Thank you very much for all the work you do for us. We cannot forget the wonderful time and the beaming faces you gave us during your last visit.

We apologise for the late notification. The second half of the school year has started well and, of course, we have welcomed some new students to our community. Currently, the youngest child with us is 1.5 years old. We have some children in the daycare centre who are picked up by their parents in the evening. Unfortunately, we still have limited space and would now like to raise money for a sunshade so that these little children have a shady, safe place where they can play and, of course, learn without being exposed to the sun or rain. This group (daycare centre) always includes children aged 6 months to 2 or 3 years, depending on the child and, of course, the parents. These children later come to our nursery school to learn.

In the daycare centre, they mainly learn how to interact and play with others.

Best regards from the entire Smiling Angels family.

Best regards and have fun

Stephen, Gorreth and Lovisa"

Just a few weeks later, we were able to put this idea into practice together. Since 29 July 2025, a sturdy tent has now been standing on the centre’s grounds. Stephen, Gorreth and Lovisa – but above all the children – are delighted. The first lessons and the morning breakfast together have already taken place in the spacious tent. This has brought smiles back to the faces of these children and their mothers, who had so little to smile about before they came to this wonderful Smiling Angels centre.

A great deal has happened since our last visit to Smiling Angels. The space required to expand the school to cover Years P3 to P7 presented a major challenge. The original idea of adding an extra storey to the existing school buildings on the relatively small plot was finally abandoned during our visit in October/November 2025. At the same time, a new option presented itself. Right next door lies the previously derelict site of a former primary school. Acquiring this site and renovating the dilapidated school buildings on it – which lack basic infrastructure such as toilets and a supply of clean drinking water – represents a significant undertaking for us too. However, we have not allowed ourselves to be discouraged. The first major steps have been taken. The plot of land has been purchased. The first half of the purchase price of €70,000 has been paid; we will finance the second half in early 2027. The first buildings for the school classes have been renovated by teachers and parents, who have contributed a great deal of their own labour. With the support of the Georg Kraus Foundation in Hagen, we have been able to have new toilets and water tanks for rainwater harvesting installed.

The school in Matugga, which is now also authorised to call itself the “Junior School”, is also the home of the T&H Education Foundation Uganda, which sees itself as a centre for the transfer of expertise in modern teaching methods in Uganda. The model of modern teaching methods already practised at Smiling Angels serves as an excellent practical example for this purpose.

“CoRe” stands for “Cooperation & Responsibility”. Teamwork and taking responsibility for decision-making are the key learning objectives of this educational project, which was originally developed by the German association ADEPT e.V. https://adept-africa.de/ and the Masaka Diocese Education Secretariat (MDES). The Diocese of Masaka runs 750 schools within its district. These schools are overseen and supported by the Diocesan Education Secretary (MDES – Masaka Diocese Education Secretary). The CoRe project, first launched in 2024 at four secondary schools, consists of three elements. Across three progressive modules, pupils in Years 8, 9 and 10 (S1, S2 and S3) learn, in small groups, through playful activities, problem-solving tasks, decision-making processes, reasoning to justify decisions, and the fundamentals of entrepreneurial thinking and action. In the third and final stage (STEP), they set up small businesses (‘start-ups’) and put entrepreneurial thinking and action into practice. From the school year beginning in 2027, we will be joining this project as a partner of ADEPT e.V. In addition to funding our share of the costs for the three-year project, we will be involved – including through on-site project visits – in shaping the content and further developing this project at five further schools within the Masaka Diocese’s school network.

With our support, three qualified educators from Uganda – Teddy Nakanwagi, Samuel Kazinda and Deburah Nabukalu – founded an NGO (a non-profit, non-governmental organisation) at the end of September 2024, the purpose of which is to promote modern school and vocational education in Uganda. The NGO is state-recognised and authorised to operate throughout the whole of Uganda within its remit. It serves as our local project partner for the Smiling Angels school project in Matugga, where the NGO is also based. Furthermore, the three dedicated educators – who have since been joined by Peter Mutyaba and David Mwebaza, both of whom bring specialist expertise – aim to develop the NGO into a nationwide centre of excellence for modern school and vocational education in Uganda. In spring 2026, they had already organised two training workshops for this purpose: one on the topic of “teenage pregnancies” and one on “Montessori school education”. Both events were well attended, with over 60 participants, and met with great interest from parents, teachers and headteachers. Further details about the NGO can be found at https://www.th-foundation-uganda.com/.