Back in 2007, Melanie Olorenshaw came to Uganda to train local health workers on interventions with children with special needs. When she arrived she met Charles, Mawazi, Emma, and Moses and fell in love with their program and the children they were working with. She returned again in 2008 to do more staff training and felt that the program was severely underfunded. After returning to Calgary she started doing annual fundraisers through her company (Brilliant Beginnings). After the team started Kisaakye Rehabilitation in 2012, she knew that her annual fund-raisers wouldn’t be enough as they were having a hard time generating other fund raising support. In June 2013, Melanie along with her husband Brad organized a group of individuals to discuss doing a “partnership” model of support for this organization where instead of doing fundraising, individuals would commit to supporting them on an annual basis. The partners would solely be the funders and that we trusted the staff in Uganda to best serve the families there. The common goal identified was to support a Ugandan organization where the funding goes directly to the families vs. a North- American agency. Kisaakye believes in equal volunteer opportunities to every one regardless of region, race and sex or marital status