Trip Check List!

Here is a summary of the upcoming trip to Africa, June 24-July 7, 2009.

We will have two nurse practitioners (who are almost like doctors) and one nurse on this trip so will be able to work with the nurse and the children. How many of the children have the head fungus? I am trying to get enough medication to cure that.

In planning the trip, here is our itinerary for the entire time.

* Wednesday, June 24, leave Newark, NJ @ 6 pm
* Thursday, June 25, arrive Entebbe @ 9:45 pm
* We will be staying at Ivy House that night. Ronnie from Churchill Tours will be picking us up.

* We will leave Kampala no later than 8 am on Friday, June 26, as we are visiting Brigitte's school and seeing the women's cooperative. You had said you would like to join us. Could you meet us in Masaka and we will take you with us? (We are staying at the Hotel Zebra.) Three of the people from our group ... Jeroen, Tony (my son) and Kristen ... will come down to your school after we are dropped off at Tekerah because Jeroen, who is the children's dance teacher, wants to see the facility and what he will be working with. We can take you back when we go to pick them up.

* Saturday, June 27, I will take the group to the Equator and the Drum Factory and take those that came to your school on Friday to Tekerah on Saturday. They will be tired and will want to get some sleep.

* Sunday, June 28, we will come to your church. Do you want us to meet you around 9:30 in front of the Petrol station, as in the past? Then, you can return with us, have lunch and get to meet everyone. They will probably have questions that I have not been able to answer.

* Monday, June 29 through Friday, July 3 we will be at the school. Following are activities that we would need to do in the week:

1. Jeroen and Kristen want to produce a dance special with all the children. They would like to have one hour per class during the week to do this with the opportunity for a rehearsal on Friday morning (July 3). Can this be arranged?

2. Tony is writing music for this dance special and wants to teach the children how to play it. Tuesday he would like to be able to have a rotating schedule, as he did during the summer of 2007, and then have Wednesday and Thursday, all day, with the 30 children that will be playing guitar and the drums for the performance on Friday.

3. Friday we would like you to allow us to perform this work "in the square" (the same way the children march around before "moving up") and, if you wish, you could invite the local politicians you had at Christmas time and the parents. The dance Jeroen is planning combines the African and American cultures and demonstrates our working together. I am assuming you will allow us to serve the children again for a party on Friday afternoon?

4. We are currently undertaking a shoe drive in one of the schools so we can bring one pair of shoes for each child. We already have enough socks to give each child a new pair of socks. We will need to determine the best way to distribute these shoes and socks. We are doing whole sizes (no half sizes) so some of them may be a little big but they will grow into them.

5. We have 500 T-shirts from Home Away From Home Academy for the new children and for some of those whose shirts are worn out. We will need to distribute those.

6. Several of our group are teachers and want to sit through some classes.

7. We will also need to update the orphan children's photos for our files. Would you please send me a complete list of the orphan's names to I can make sure we have a form ready for them? Make sure you put their ages and what grade they are in.

8. We will have the very large safari bus this time and don't know if it will be possible to visit people's homes. 14 people is a lot and that bus is VERY big! I do think, even if we don't visit homes, that I want to have the people walk through the village, as we did before, so they can experience ... albeit briefly ... the walking that the children do.

Sylvia Allen
732-946-2711/cell 732-241-1144
89 Middletown Road
Holmdel, NJ 07733

Summer Project 2009

June 26th - July 3rd Artist in Residence Jeroen Mourik will spend one week at the Mbiiriizi Primary School in Masaka (Uganda) creating a Festival Spectacle with the 1,000+ pupils of the school.

The spectacle will celebrate Uganda and American culture on behalf of Sylvia’s Children, a charity based in the USA. Continue reading...

Physicians Needed!

Exciting news! We have the beginnings of a consortium of doctors who will be helping us raise money for the health clinic. We only need $40,000 to start a clinic and these doctors think that is reasonable.

We have an OB-GYN, a Dermatologist, an internist and a health educator. We need doctors who have experience with STD's and AIDS as well as tropical diseases such as malaria.

We are planning a trip in March 2010 to go over there with a medical staff and determine the health of all the children at the school. And, if we are successful at building the clinic we will have a space in which to work.

Are you a doctor? Would you like to go? Call Sylvia @ 732 946 2711 or e-mail her at sylvia@sylviaschildren.org.

It could be the trip of your lifetime as you will be saving lives....

Trip Vaccinations!!

You should have all your shots done by mid-May so you can then apply for your Visa (VisaHQ via the Internet is the easiest).

Great News About Our Trip!

We are at our limit for the trip! Still waiting for a confirmation from Chris Arnold but he will be coming from South Africa so I don't have to worry about airfare! Eileen: You will be pleased to know the lights are up! We have a new nurse and it seems to be working out well. Lastly, I will send another reminder, but we will be doing a 12 noon conference call on June 6 for "last minute" stuff.

Thanks to Jeannie MacDonald, Village School is doing a shoe fund raiser so we have 1,002 pairs of shoes when we go. Carmine (Home Away From Home Academy) already has the socks. On Sunday, June 7, from noon to 4 pm we are having a shoe "bagging" party. Any and all that can come are welcome! Just let me know ... some other things in the works but don't want to jinx them by talking too soon so ... stay tuned!

CJ's performance of "What a Wonderful World" at a fundraiser for Sylvia's Children, a charity that raises money for an orphanage in Uganda, Africa.

Movers & Shakers: Sylvia Allen in Africa

"Make a difference, one child at a time." This is the philosophy that Sylvia Allen, of Holmdel, N. J., has most notably embraced since she traveled to Africa in 2003 as part of a volunteerism trip with World Vision, and which she implores others to think about taking part in everyday.

A powerful businesswoman, published author and president of Allen Consulting, her own award-winning PR and Integrated Marketing Communications firm, which has arguably become a cornerstone in the reinvention of many of New Jersey's downtowns, Sylvia started up her own nonprofit organization Sylvia's Children six years ago.

She founded the philanthropic organization following a life changing journey to Masaka, a small village in the African country of Uganda, where she met hundreds of children who had been left only to their own devices after losing one or both of their parents to the devastating AIDS pandemic wreaking havoc on their community.

For more of this story, click here.