Quicken Trust was founded as a registered charity in 1996 with no intention of working in Uganda. It started as a support to help develop new UK based charities.
Following a visit to Uganda in 1999 and a further visit in 2000 its focus changed to assisting the community of Kabubbu ~ 'The Forgotten People' ~ in their search for a way out of poverty, destitution, death and despair to self-determination and hope for their future.
They did this by advertsing themselves through schools and colleges and workplaces so as to make themselves known and to inform people about what it is that they do. They take small groups of volunteers out to the village of Kabubbu in Uganda, and set them jobs to do whilst out there. Some jobs may be building houses, building orphanages, teaching children subjects in their schools or going to the local market to buy families essential supplies.
In 2004 it re-registered with the Charity Commissioners (Registered Charity No. 1102474) and as a Trust Company Limited by Guarantee (Registered Company No. 5047081). Their focus is to partner with the lives of those in need.
Among the population there are over 1,500,000 children who have been orphaned because their parents have died of AIDS or HIV. Some have one parent remaining, although in most cases this parent is also ill with AIDS or the HIV virus with only a short amount of life left to live and a large family to bring up and support.
In 1906 in his book 'My African Journey' Winston Churchill called Uganda 'The Pearl of Africa'. And it was. But since then and particularly during the 1960's and 1970's under the regimes of Presidents Idi Amin and Milton Obote the pearl lost its lustre. And it has been struggling to find a new future for itself from those terrible years of devastation.Landlocked Uganda sits across the equator. It is about the same land area as the UK and has a population of over 30,000,000. It is a population racked with AIDS. Tens of thousands of people die from this disease each year and for many years now the country has been recognised as the worldwide epicentre of AIDS.Over 5% of the children in Uganda are living without a future. In Kabubbu alone there are more than 400 impoverished orphans.
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