Six years ago Jen Gash started an organization called Sweet Sleep after seeing the conditions of children’s beds in an Eastern European orphanage. Today, Sweet Sleep provides beds and bedding for orphaned and abandoned children around the world.
One week from today Jen will leave for Uganda where she’ll spend several weeks in the northern region of Gulu. This region has been in a brutal and senseless war for the last 22 years. A rebel army known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been terrorizing the North, attacking villages during the night. During an attack, LRA soldiers kill anyone they want and force the children of these villages to kill their parents or be killed themselves. The children who are left alive are then kidnapped into the LRA army and forced to become child soldiers. These children have lived through tremendous atrocities.
Recently this war entered into a time of peace. However, there are 1 million people still living in displacement camps in Gulu; three-quarters of those people are children living in child-headed households. These children have lost their parents and their grandparents – two generations of people to protect and care for them, to tell them stories about who they are and who they could be, and to tell them bedtime stories.
This Christmas, while Jen is in Uganda, Sweet Sleep hopes to give beds to 450 children. If the children can lie in their new beds and know they are loved and protected, they can begin to have little victories over the fear that grips them. That’s when peace and hope and love can slowly come to their little hearts.
As of today, 218 more children still need beds ($88 each). Together, we can work to change and save lives. Here’s what is still needed, you can determine which opportunity suits you best:
- 218 mosquito nets. Malaria kills more people in Uganda than HIV/AIDS. Treated nets are $8 each.
- Mattresses for 218 children so they will be able to sleep up off of the ground for the first time in their lives. Mattresses are $50.
- Can you imagine not having a blanket to warm you during these chilly nights or sheets to sleep in? 218 more children still need to be able to be warm and snuggly. They can for just $30.
You can make a gift right now online (put the word “Gulu” in the special comments box). All gifts are 100% tax-deductible. If you still need a great idea for a Christmas gift, you can even make this a donation in honor or memory of someone and they’ll receive a card from Sweet Sleep.
