A project trip to Uganda in the summer of 2017, which had the aim to complete a school build and to visit her sponsored child Owen, was the reason for the Austrian entrepreneur Monika Koczi founded the private initiative “Stream of Life”. Together with Sigrid Reymaier, she set up a professional fundraising organization dedicated to the sustainable promotion and support of underprivileged, disabled and orphaned children in Uganda, giving them hope for the future.

Amidst crumbling corrugated ironworks in the slums of Kampala, Monika Koczi saw a blue, dilapidated house with a small terrace where many cheerful children danced to an African beat and sang gospel songs. It turned out to be orphans cared for and musically taught by their foster father, Frank, to earn some money to survive.

What Monika got to see on a tour of the home, shook her to the core. Sad, damp dormitories, a stove without equipment, a storage room in which stood a single bean bag. The 25 to 50 children had to sleep on steel beds, some without mattresses, and share a stinking hole in the yard as a toilet. You could see from the swollen bellies from lack of hunger and the empty eyes of the children that everything was inadequate. Frank did his best, but had no means to pay the monthly costs of electricity, water and food. Nevertheless, the children were happy about their guest and always had a new song to sing.

Help for Self-Help.
Monika was deeply moved. For her, the decision was clear. She had to help. So Back in Austria in autumn 2017 she founded the association “Stream of Life”. Shortly thereafter, she got energetic support from Sigrid Reymaier and other people from her circle of friends who, like them, were willing to fight selflessly and with passion for the cause.

The focus of the association is on sustainable local aid. Children without parents in Uganda should be given quality of life and the opportunity to build a future in their own country through education, a healthy diet, basic medical care and improved living conditions.