Mercy For Life-Africa
Donate

Stories

What mercy looks like up close.

Each post is a cluster of photographs from the week’s work — a ward, a classroom, a green bag, a choir in robes — written the way the house tells it.

See the photographs
Three smiling young women at Mercy School hold a black backpack and a stack of new exercise booksA group of Mercy School students stand on the office steps holding new backpacks and exercise booksPiles of new backpacks, exercise books and a box of black school shoes on the tiled porch of Mercy SchoolMercy School girls in uniform stand on a tiled porch holding new black school shoes, a small child sitting in front

Education · clothing · a term packed

Bags, books and black shoes

Backpacks, exercise books, a carton of black school shoes on the Mercy School porch. Fees keep a child in class. A bag and a pair of shoes keep her there through the term.

6 photographs in this post

A smiling woman in a graduation gown and hijab stands in front of the Mercy Schools office doorA graduate in a cap and gown stands on the Mercy School porch surrounded by smiling children

Mercy School · the adults the courtyard raises

A graduate among the children

A Mercy Schools teacher in her graduation gown stands at the office door, then on the porch, buried in children. The ones who stay in class grow into the ones who keep the house.

2 photographs in this post

A visiting friend dressed as Santa sits with a smiling child holding a bundle of clothes at Mercy For Life AfricaFive Mercy School children in white and maroon shepherd costumes hold wooden staffs at a school doorwayMercy School children perform a nativity play in a church: a shepherd, Mary holding a baby, and a child in a zebra costume

Choir · partners · a feast day

Christmas at the house

Santa on a bench with a child holding new clothes. Shepherds at the school door. A nativity on a church floor. Christmas at Mercy For Life Africa is a lap, a song, and a child who was not forgotten.

3 photographs in this post

A before-and-after collage of seven children, first in a compound and then in school uniform holding report cardsMercy School pupils in cream uniforms stand in the courtyard holding letters and wearing backpacksA group of laughing children pile together for a photograph in a Kampala courtyardFive small children sit on the ground against a black metal gate playing with toy cars

Education · sponsorship

The children who came in

Seven children, numbered. First a compound with no uniforms. Then the same seven holding result slips in Mercy School shirts.

4 photographs in this post

Najjemba Betty holds a handwritten thank-you letter after her 2025 UCE resultsNassolo Latifah holds a handwritten letter to Mercy For Life Africa after her UCE resultsNantongo Shanitah smiles holding a handwritten thank-you letter after her UCE results

Education · February 2026

UCE class of 2025

Najjemba Betty, Nassolo Latifah and Nantongo Shanitah hold their letters after the Uganda Certificate of Education. First grades. Thank-yous. A-level next.

3 photographs in this post

Pupils sit at wooden desks in a timber classroom while a teacher in a white Mercy Schools polo helps a studentPupils in Mercy Schools shirts write in exercise books while a teacher stands at a chalkboardA Mercy Schools teacher leans over a green desk to help two boys with their exercise booksMercy School children in orange uniforms sit on the floor of a classroom facing a wall of colourful charts

Mercy School · building & desks

Classrooms rising

Timber walls, packed-earth floors, a chalkboard that says favourite subject. The children are already sitting in rooms we are still building.

13 photographs in this post

Mercy School children in orange shirts and aprons cut biscuit dough at a tableTwo Mercy School children in aprons and chef hats hold red plates of biscuits

Skilling · Mercy School

Baking day

Orange shirts, grey aprons, star cutters, a bowl of dough. A trade a child can taste — and later sell.

2 photographs in this post

Mercy For Life Africa staff and visiting friends smile together under a mango tree in a Kampala courtyardA visiting volunteer stands with a smiling schoolgirl outside the Mercy For Life Africa officeNalubega Fausta smiles beside a Catholic sister in a blue habit on a dirt roadSchoolchildren crowd around a smiling visitor on the steps of Mercy School

Partners & volunteers

Friends at the house

Under the mango tree, on the school steps, at the office door. People who got on a plane — or a boda — and stood in the dust with us.

13 photographs in this post

A schoolboy in a white uniform holds a handwritten letter to Mercy For Life Africa

Education · August 2026

Thank you for paying my school fees

A boy at Mugwanya Preparatory, Kabojja, and Ssekitoleko Timothy at Mercy Schools–Makindye, hold letters to the house that kept them in class.

2 photographs in this post

Women and children celebrate as Mercy For Life Africa staff hand out green food bags in a streetMercy For Life Africa staff kneel to give a green food bag to an elderly woman seated with her family beside bananas and greensA boy in an orange Mercy For Life Africa shirt holds a green food bag beside his mother and a smiling staff member outside a brick houseA Mercy For Life Africa staff member holds a green food bag among children in front of a wooden house with a corrugated iron roof

Food ministry

A green bag at the door

Director Nalubega Fausta walks compound to compound with a hamper — maize, greens, a greeting, a hug. Hunger in Makindye has an address.

19 photographs in this post

A hospital bed and drip stand at Kibuli Medical Centre

Medical care · Kibuli Medical Centre

Please pray for me

From a ward a child looks into the camera: she had an accident, and she asks for prayer. The drip is behind her. So is the bill.

Nalule Maria in a cream uniform holds a Mercy Schools report card and a handwritten thank-you letter

Education · Mercy Schools Makindye

Maria writes home

Nalule Maria holds her report card and a letter to Ross Hoffman — eleven years old, Primary Seven, and still becoming.

4 photographs in this post

A masked staff member holds a toddler under a corrugated iron roofTwo Mercy For Life Africa staff in branded shirts stand with a man after a medical dressing in a dusty yardA mother holds a toddler on her lap in a hospital waiting room while a staff member reviews papersA Mercy For Life Africa staff member smiles with a mother and newborn on a hospital bed

Medical care

A hospital night

A toddler carried under an iron roof. A boy on oxygen. An infant after surgery. Medical mercy is a hand that stays.

29 photographs in this post

A Mercy For Life Africa staff member embraces a woman in a village compound while two boys sit on plastic chairs nearbyA Mercy For Life Africa counsellor sits with a boy and an elderly man on a wooden verandaA smiling boy in a mustard shirt sits beside an elderly man against a timber wallA counsellor in a red Mercy For Life Africa polo holds an elderly man’s hand on a wooden bench

Guidance & counselling

Sitting with the old man

A counsellor in a red polo, a boy in mustard, an elder on a timber veranda. Guidance is a stool in someone else’s house.

15 photographs in this post

Bananas, avocados and tomatoes on a Kampala roadside stall at dusk

A founding story

The street that raised a founder

After her father died in 2000, Nalubega Fausta sold bananas and tomatoes on the roadside for ten years. That road is why Mercy For Life Africa exists.

A young woman in school uniform studying at a wooden desk in Kampala

Teenage mothers ministry

A desk after delivery

We do not ask a girl to choose between her baby and her education. We walk her back into class.

Children in white choir robes with gold trim stand at a church doorwayMercy Schools children and teachers sing together in a paved courtyard beside a colourful climbing frameA child in a Mercy Schools shirt kneels before a statue of Mary on a chairA Mercy Schools girl in a cream shirt holds a lyric sheet while singing in the courtyard

Children’s choir

They preach by singing

The Mercy For Life Africa Children’s Choir is not a sideshow. It is how the children give back — in public, in worship, and on film.

6 photographs in this post

Community members gathered in a Makindye courtyard

Prison ministry

Mercy inside the gate

With government authority we enter Ugandan prisons — not as tourists of suffering, but as neighbours with counsel and sanitary pads.