Life is tough in Luweero. Unemployment in the district is as high as 80% and most people cannot ensure a daily meal. Children are forced to drop out of school because their parents fail to pay school fees. Many babies and toddlers die before the age of five from preventable diseases as there is no clean water and no adequate health services.
Yet, in this forgotten place of Africa, a man has dedicated his life to create a better future for hundreds of poor children. Father Antonios Mutyaba, together with his wife Charitini, and with the support of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Kampala, is working hard to provide a chance in life for the children in Luweero. Although Father Antonios was born in Uganda, he was adopted in 1980 by a Greek family and moved to a small village in Crete. He first studied Agronomy at the University of Athens but his dream in life was to become a priest. He joined the Seminary of St. Matthew in Chania, where he was ordained a priest with the blessing of His Eminence Amphilochius. In Greece he met his wife Charitini, also Ugandan but born and raised in Greece, and in 2004, together with their 4 children, they decided to return to Uganda. The family settled in Wakiso, a small town of 50.000 people in the outskirts of Kampala.
For the last five years Father Antonios gets up at 5 o clock in the morning to visit the destitute villages in Luweero. Thanks to private donations from Greece, he is managing 3 boarding schools that provide education, medical care, food and shelter to more than 1200 poor and orphaned children, instilling hope and dignity to their lives. In this difficult task, he has the help of Charitini, who on her turn, is trying to support the families of the children by teaching their mothers and sisters sewing and weaving in order to generate a small income for their communities.
Father Antonios struggles hard to provide food for the children and ensure their education. He had to restrict the daily food to beans and corn porridge, as this was the only way to offer at least 2 meals per day for the children. He is trying to organize a small farm hoping to purchase some chickens and a few cows so he can provide eggs and milk at the schools. He also hopes that he will soon find the necessary money to drill a bore hole so that the community and the schools can have access to clean water.