Lea’s next thought was that not only a few children should go to school, but all. She sponsored the first child out of her own pocket and began to inspire friends and family in Germany to sponsor kids. Thus, our first core projects came into being in 2020: School Sponsorships and the Food Program. For legal reasons, both projects temporarily became part of the Soweto Youth Initiative, with Lea organizing and managing them.

Learning and eating were thus basic things in the lives of the first children, but what is childhood without fun? Out of this thought, also in the same year (2020) the first Poolday took place, which is still an annual ULT event and highlight for our children.

The projects continued to grow and after a long struggle with bureaucracy, our non-profit organization “UNDER Lea’s TRUST” (ULT) was officially founded in Germany on May 6, 2021, right in the middle of the Corona pandemic, and then also our NGO “UNDER Lea’s INTERNATIONAL” (ULI) in Kenya on September 10, 2021. While the German organization was led by Lea alone, Lea and Bonface joined forces as a team in Kenya. After ULT was a “one woman show” for about a year, Annika and Tine joined the German team in spring 2021, followed by Samira in August. Since then, our team has been growing and the tasks of the individual team members have been more clearly defined and better and better distributed. With this progress we could and can realize more and more projects and actions.

One of these projects is Desired Gifts, where sponsors can give their loved ones a gift that is really needed. This is possible in the form of a donation for example for a school bag, a toy or a menstruation set for our school children in the slum.
Ensuring transparency and to keep our sponsors informed about all projects is also an important point for us. So, a little more than a year ago, from the idea to always offer you updates and to share important information, our newsletter was born. As you surely know, this newsletter is sent out once a month and deals with the different topics in our organization.

With more and more volunteers in the team, we were able to launch the ULT Happy CLUB in the summer of 2022, which sustainably supports the growth of the association and enables various projects for the children.

We would also like to be present in Germany for our sponsors and motivate us together to continue doing good. With more and more support in the organization came more creativity and therefore the idea of a charity event in Berlin developed. So in July last year we had our first benefit open air “TECHNO SCHAFFT BILDUNG”, which will be planned yearly from now on. At this Open Air we were also able to present you our merchandise for the first time, which is now even available in our new online store.

The sponsorships, the ULT Happy CLUB, and our events, such as flea markets and open air events, are important pillars for our currently largest project: our future ULT school in Nairobi, with which we want to ensure the best possible support for the children. This mammoth project will demand a lot of work and energy from us and of course we will not neglect all our other projects.

Phew! That’s already a lot of projects and even more are planned!