Since 1993
A story that grows together
In 1990 a nurse from Wierstorf went to Uganda. Three years later, members of the church in Hankensbüttel founded a circle of friends to support her work. It has grown into a hospital, schools in the villages on Mount Elgon and an education for thousands of orphans.
- founded in Hankensbüttel
- 1993
- orphans through school or training
- 3,000+
- schools built or extended
- about 60
- village clinics
- 7
Timeline
The milestones of more than 30 years – from Elisabeth Mwaka's reports and the local press.
1990
A nurse from Wierstorf
In October 1990 Elisabeth Schulze from Wierstorf near Hankensbüttel goes to Uganda as a nurse, to a health centre run by the Salem brotherhood. There she gets to know local Christians – among them Erasmus Mwaka, her future husband.
Together they visit the remote villages on Mount Elgon. The Bamasaaba, who live here on both sides of the border with Kenya, are among the least developed peoples in the country. From her parents' farm in Wierstorf, Elisabeth organises the first relief shipments.
1993
The Freundeskreis is founded
Members of the church in Hankensbüttel found the “Freundeskreis zur Förderung Christlicher Sozialarbeit in Uganda” – a circle of friends to support Christian social work in Uganda. Manfred Wardin is there from the start. Elisabeth moves to Butiru for good.
The orphan programme begins: sponsors in Germany pay school fees and training for orphaned children. To this day the Freundeskreis looks after every sponsorship – as volunteers.
1996–2000
A hospital for Butiru
The Freundeskreis pays for the building of the Butiru Chrisco Hospital with 50 beds. Today it is a referral hospital for the whole south of Mount Elgon – patients come from as far as Kenya.
Butiru Chrisco Hospital 2001
The first school
A nursery and primary school starts in Butiru, with the Mwakas' own children among its first pupils. In 2002 Horst Zilmer, chairman of the Stiftung Kinder in Afrika, visits the hospital – the start of a close partnership. With the foundation's help, the buildings of the Butiru Christian Schools go up over the following years. Today about 750 children learn here.
The nursery and primary school in Butiru 2007
Clinics and schools in the villages
Many villages on the mountain are far from the nearest hospital. From 2007 the Freundeskreis builds small clinics – seven so far, from Rokho to Musinga.
The same year, with the Stiftung Kinder in Afrika, school building begins across the region, starting in Bushiyi. It has grown to about 60 schools, run by the Catholic and Anglican churches, by village communities and by Butiru itself.
One of the schools in the hills of Mount Elgon 2008
The secondary school
The secondary school in Butiru is founded. Today about 1,400 young people learn here, and another 350 are in vocational training. Around this time Manfred Wardin becomes chairman of the Freundeskreis.
The secondary school in Butiru 2016
Teachers from our own ranks
In early 2016 Butiru starts training primary school teachers. The same year the mountain village of Bunango asks for a school: two former orphans from the programme, now teachers, teach the first two classes in an old goat shed.
By the end of 2018, 364 children learn there in five classes. In 2019 they get a school building with six classrooms – made possible by a donation of €40,000 from within the Freundeskreis.
The first days of Bunango Primary School Bunango Primary School today May 2018
Farewell to Manfred Wardin
In memory of Manfred WardinOn 28 May 2018 Manfred Wardin dies – a founding member and chairman for ten years. Karsten Wolpers becomes the new chairman. The donations given at Manfred's funeral pay for a school building in Buwakoro that bears his name.
October 2018
The landslide on Mount Elgon
In early October 2018 a landslide at the Bukalasi market, not far from Butiru, buries three villages. More than 150 children lose parents; 53 orphans with no relatives left are taken in by the schools in Butiru and Bushiyi.
Help comes from Germany: in January 2019 the Freundeskreis's first big benefit concert, in Neudorf-Platendorf, raises €5,300, and the Heide-Bäckerei Meyer raises €3,000 by selling bread. With it, 25 families who lost their breadwinner each receive a dairy cow.
April 2019
The Federal Cross of Merit
In April 2019 the German ambassador, Dr. Albrecht Conze, presents Elisabeth Mwaka with the Bundesverdienstkreuz, Germany's Federal Cross of Merit, in Butiru – for decades of work for the people of Mount Elgon. The Anglican and Catholic bishops give speeches.
A group from the Freundeskreis is there, and in these days they open the new school in Buwakoro, the Heinrich-Müller-Bau with dormitories for pupils in Butiru, a primary school in Luwa in the “forgotten valley”, and the school building in Bunango.
The board in 2019 with Elisabeth Mwaka: Karsten Wolpers, Christel Wardin, Silke Schönfisch, Evi Evers and Antje Krummel 2020
Help in the pandemic
In March 2020 every school in Uganda closes, and travel there stops. The team in Butiru hands out maize and beans to widows and grandmothers, sews masks and drives through the villages with loudspeakers to explain Covid in the local language. The hospital sets up a quarantine area.
Günther Jauch, who had already played for Butiru four times on TV quiz shows, sends €5,000 in emergency aid.
2022–2023
Cows, springs and small loans
More about the small loansThe women's loan groups grow: in 2019 they are in about 20 villages, by 2023 in 129. From early 2022 the “More Milk” initiative of a Hamburg businessman brings cows to the groups – 489 animals by mid-2023.
The benefit concert “Wasser ist Leben” (“Water is life”) in Hankensbüttel in May 2023 pays for ten protected springs, each serving up to 150 people. And since 2022, with the Bingo-Umweltstiftung Niedersachsen, the Freundeskreis has been building schools itself, starting in Mabale.
Today
Where we stand today
About 750 orphans are in the programme, and 260 women's groups run their businesses on small loans. Many of the people who carry responsibility in Butiru today were once sponsored children themselves. And the Freundeskreis is still what it was in 1993: a group of volunteers – with sponsors, donors and friends far beyond Hankensbüttel.
From sponsored children to professionals
The circle closes
Many of the orphans whose school fees were paid by sponsors in Germany now work in Butiru themselves. Richard Gidongo runs the hospital's administration, and Dr. Francis Busiku is a doctor there. The midwife Annet Mukite takes the family planning programme to the villages, and Derrick Mungoma works as a clinical officer.
Others teach in the village schools they helped to build, or train young people without a school certificate in the “On Skill” courses. And every year former sponsored children come back to help with the work in Butiru.
The story goes on
“You'll manage it.”
That's what Manfred Wardin always used to say. Every sponsorship and every donation writes the next chapter of Butiru's story.
Who is behind it todaySources
Elisabeth Mwaka's reports “Butiru Christian College” (April 2019, November 2024) and “Microfinance in Masaabaland” (October 2026); articles in the Isenhagener Kreisblatt, Aller-Zeitung, Gifhorner Rundschau and Wochenanzeiger from 2018 to 2023; the Freundeskreis's former website.