About
Born on a roadside stall. Rooted in Makindye.
Mercy For Life Africa is a Ugandan NGO founded in 2013 by Nalubega Fausta. We exist to improve the livelihood of the less privileged — starting with the children and families of Kampala’s slums.
The organisation badge
SERVING: UGANDA
Mercy For Life-Africa
The hand on the badge is the name we use. We work in one country, with both hands: meals, hygiene, beds, medical care, hope, clean water, houses, sanitation, shoes and clothing, education, and the dignity that holds it all together.
Our story
A girl the street knew by name.
In 2000 the Nalubega family lost their father. Relatives wanted the older girls married at fifteen and thirteen. Their mother refused. They became a church family at Santa Agnes Catholic Parish — and a trading family, carrying bananas, avocados and tomatoes on their heads, then selling them from a table by the road.
Nalubega Fausta still tells that season without varnish. She calls herself a street girl, because the family lived by the street for over ten years. A parish priest, Father Dominique Maebe, found her out of school, called her mother, and paid fees from Primary Six. That is the first scholarship this organisation ever knew.
In 2013, in her second year at university, she founded the work. A job with a government institute under the Ministry of Water, in Wakiso, funded the first runs into the ghetto: food, soap, a photograph posted so a friend could see it was real. Dennis O’Donovan, now at rest, began sending one hundred dollars a month. A church in Idaho, through Ross Hoffman, came to see with their own eyes — and later built the head office.
The work was first called Restoration Image. When the Ugandan team and the American partners chose one name, they chose Mercy For Life. The One Together family now sponsors almost all the children in the programme.
Partners
Friends who came, and stayed.
Ross Hoffman, visiting volunteers, and the official poster the house still stands on.
Partners & volunteers
Ross Hoffman at the house
Long-term partner Ross Hoffman with schoolchildren and staff at the Mercy For Life Africa office — the Africa-map on the glass behind them. A church family in Idaho tested the work in person, then stayed. September 2022.
Partners & volunteers
Friends who came to see
A selfie in the yard — local staff, visiting friends, a water tank in the background. Partnership here is not a logo on a banner. It is people who got on a plane, or a boda, and stood in the dust with us.
Partners & volunteers
Together, we can change lives
The official poster: two pupils holding letters, the Africa map of the work, and the line the house stands on — Compassion in Action, Hope for Tomorrow. P.O. Box 34575, Kampala.
Partners & volunteers
Friends under the mango tree
Staff and visiting friends stand in the courtyard of the house in Makindye. Partnership here is not a logo on a banner. It is people who came, stood in the dust, and stayed for the work.
Partners & volunteers
At the office door
A visiting friend stands with a Mercy School girl beside the red pillar and the Education sign. Sponsors who come in person meet the child whose fees they pay.
Partners & volunteers
Walking with the sisters
Director Nalubega Fausta with a religious sister on the red-earth road. The house was born in a parish. The work still walks with the church.
Partners & volunteers
The children found her first
A visiting friend is surrounded on the school steps. Mercy School is not a distant bursary. It is a courtyard of children who know when someone has come to see them.
Partners & volunteers
In the schoolyard
Director Nalubega Fausta, a visiting friend, and the children behind them. The work looks like this on an ordinary afternoon: dust, grins, a wooden cross, a house that is not empty.
Partners & volunteers
Olive and a friend of the house
A learner named Olive sits with a long-time friend of Mercy For Life Africa. Sponsorship here has a face on both sides of the photograph.
Partners & volunteers
Santa at the house
A visiting friend in a Santa coat sits with a child who is holding a new bundle of clothes. Christmas at Mercy For Life Africa is not a catalogue. It is a lap, a gift, and a child who was not forgotten.
Partners & volunteers
A laugh in the chapel
Director Nalubega Fausta and a visiting friend in the Africa-map shirts, under a painting of children in the water. Partnership here has a pew, a microphone, and a laugh that does not need translating.
Partners & volunteers
The porch that says the name
Staff, visiting friends, and children on the steps under the letters MERCY FOR LIFE AFRICA. This is the house in Makindye. If you have been looking for this organisation, this is the door.
Partners & volunteers
A visiting friend, a child of the house
A young volunteer stands with a Mercy School girl in the courtyard. Sponsorship and partnership look the same in this photograph: someone who came, and a child who is glad they did.
Partners & volunteers
A family at the office door
A visiting family sit with Mercy School children under the Mercy Schools stars on the glass. The work is not a remote bursary. It is a morning on these tiles.
Partners & volunteers
Orange uniforms, a visitor on the tiles
A visiting friend sits with two Mercy School girls in the orange dresses. IN GOD WE TRUST is stitched on the pocket. That is the school the fees pay for — a child you can sit beside.
Partners & volunteers
The same afternoon, more arms
Four Mercy School children in orange crowd a visiting friend. The courtyard is loud. The work is this close.
Partners & volunteers
Under the mural of mercy
A visiting friend in a scripture shirt stands with two girls against the Jesus mural at the gate. Come and see is still the invitation. These two already did.
Vision
To improve the livelihood of the less privileged.
To provide good health services and raise the standard of living of the poor and the needy in the slums — through clothing, food, shelter, education, sanitation, and entrepreneurial skills.
Goals
- Provide education to the poor and to orphans.
- Alleviate poverty through technical skills and enterprise.
- Sensitise the community on proper sanitation and clean water.
- Offer guidance and counselling to the hopeless.
A short history
How the work took shape.
2000
A household is broken, then held
Fausta’s father dies. Relatives press for child marriage. Her mother refuses. The family leans on Santa Agnes Catholic Parish and on the roadside stall.
P.6
A priest pays the fees
Father Dominique Maebe finds a girl out of school, calls her mother, and begins paying school fees. The pattern of this organisation is born.
2013
Mercy For Life Africa begins
In her second year at university Fausta founds the NGO in Makindye. A Ministry of Water job in Wakiso funds the first food and soap runs into the ghetto.
Then
Friends across the water
Dennis O’Donovan begins a monthly gift. A church in Idaho, with Ross Hoffman, tests the work in person and later builds the head office. Restoration Image and Mercy For Life become one name.
Now
Mercy School, Makindye
The house runs Mercy School in Makindye — classrooms, a courtyard, a children’s choir, and fees that keep orphans and neighbours in class. Eleven ministries still walk the same streets.
Next
A big school in Mityana
Mercy For Life Africa holds five acres in Zigoti Town Council, Mityana, to construct a bigger Mercy School. The land is ready. Building it is the next mercy.