FRIENDS OF RUWENZORI FOUNDATION

In 2001, on a trip to visit sponsored orphans in Uganda, Karen and Gil Gleason along with others from their church in Oakland, CA, witnessed a whole community of rural villagers making hundreds of bricks in hopes of someday using them to build a clinic to serve the many people they knew affected by HIV/AIDS. They were inspired to do this by a local Anglican priest and his wife, Rev. Ezra and Marjorie Musobozi. The Musobozis shared their plans to transform and empower a whole community of people who were currently poor, sick and without hope. The dreamed for clinic was eventually built with small amounts of support from the Gleasons and their church members. This success encouraged both parties and led to the birth of a nonprofit and a deep friendship and partnership between people living in the US and in the Ruwenzori foothills. Now in 2015, KIDA operates not only a clinic, but a fully staffed community hospital, a vocational school, a micro finance cooperative and programs to serve the vulnerable and HIV-infected rural villagers.