Frequently Asked
Questions

A mix, and individuals matter more than people assume. Our funding comes from philanthropic individuals and well-wishers who give privately — sometimes enough to carry a whole programme — alongside corporate sponsors, in-kind partners who donate medicines, pads, fuel or staff time, institutional and government partners, and the small voluntary contributions of families who can afford them. You do not have to be an organisation to fund this work. Several of our most significant supporters are single individuals.

Nothing we deliver is free. Every consultation, medicine, test and sanitary kit has a real cost — it is simply paid for by someone other than the child. Our donors, corporate sponsors and in-kind partners meet that cost in advance, which is why we say the care is fully sponsored rather than free. Even where a partner donates supplies, those supplies were bought and paid for by somebody. We report on every shilling so sponsors can see exactly what their money bought.

Sustainability comes from three places. First, sponsorship: a costed, audited model at $13.21 per child per year that lets a funder see precisely what they are buying. Second, the family contribution: UGX 10,000 per child per term — reduced or waived where a family cannot pay — which covers 61% of our cost per child when paid in full. It is what turns a funded pilot into a programme that lasts, and it means the programme belongs to the community and not only to donors. We plan on 50% collection, deliberately conservative. Third, prevention: health education, screening and early treatment are far more affordable than the illnesses they avert, which is what makes the model affordable to sustain and attractive to fund.

It is a core part of how the programme sustains itself, and it gives families a stake in their own children’s healthcare rather than making them passive recipients of it. Paid in full — UGX 10,000 a term, UGX 30,000 across Uganda’s three terms, about $8.06 — it covers 61% of the $13.21 it costs to care for a child for a year. Sponsors cover the remaining $5.15. It is collected termly, through the school, from families whose children are well at the time — never at the point of care. We expect that many families cannot afford it, and we plan for that. With or without the contribution, care is never withheld from any child. A child whose family contributes and a child whose family does not are screened, treated and given medicines and sanitary kits in exactly the same way, and neither is identified to anyone.

Donations pay for fuel, medicines, consumables, laboratory supplies and reusable sanitary pads. Roughly $13.21 covers the care of one child for a full year.

Write to us with the school name, location and enrolment. Camps are then planned jointly with the district health and education offices, and confirmed with your School Management Committee.

Absolutely. Camps need registration clerks, translators, crowd marshals, photographers, drivers and logistics support just as much as they need clinicians.

Healing Wheels Uganda is a national school health programme. Our first camps are running in Mbale City’s Industrial Division in Eastern Uganda, and the model is built to travel — district by district, region by region — to schools and communities across the whole of Uganda as capacity and sponsorship grow.