As part of “Soccer Day” in March 2023, students also attended classes in feminine hygiene and reproductive health.
2023
In keeping with the theme of running that underscores our history and much of our work, we say that in 2023, AUCF hit its stride.
With the security of two consecutive very successful fundraising years, we made the formal decision to transition Kristina Health Center to a “Level IV” facility, meaning that by the end of 2024, our team will be able to conduct surgery, including Caesarian sections. Already in 2023 we hit one monthly high water mark after another: while just a few years ago our team often treated just 100 patients in a month, by expanding services into the surrounding communities they frequently treat 1,000 or more; “treatment” might mean mending a broken bone or providing antibiotics, but it also might mean providing education, vaccination — or in dozens of cases every month, labor and delivery services.
Even as KHC grew in 2023, our other work expanded as well. One exciting area of focus has been youth sports programs, which now encompass dozens of schools in Otuke District, primarily through soccer coaching and tournaments. Look for this aspect of our program to expand further as we extend beyond essential treatment to ensuring that Northern Ugandans can live rich, healthy lives.
2022
While COVID’s immediate impact on Uganda was indeed quite light, its economic was profound and devastating: With trade and tourism slowing dramatically, jobs became even more scarce — especially in the North, far from the capital Kampala, which in 2022 began once again to buzz.
AUCF responded to this economic crisis in several ways, starting with expansion of the Cents for Seeds program, through which women-farmers earn an opportunity to move beyond subsistence farming. Additionally, we focused on basic needs, building and repairing wells so that more Ugandans might enjoy access to safe, clean drinking water. And we expanded Kristina Health Center’s services well beyond its four walls to villages throughout Otuke district, serving hundreds of thousands of people.
While on its own AUCF cannot save an entire region from economic hardship, these services made a significant impact, and played a key role in ensuring that a difficult situation did not become an impossible one.
2021
COVID’s impact on Uganda was mercifully light in 2020. However, cases began to spike in May of 2021, just as much of the world was beginning to feel relief from the pandemic.
AUCF entered this challenging new phase well prepared: Our Kristina Health Center staff members were among the first vaccinated people in the entire region, and they were trained in identifying and handling COVID cases, and furnished with protective personal equipment.
Meanwhile, KHC staff mobilized, making use of the clinic’s ambulance to travel to outlying areas, to educate residents on social distancing and to distribute masks. While life in Uganda is generally lived outside, and while the population is among the youngest in the world, the lack of sophisticated medical care and equipment — there is just a handful of ventilators in all of Northern Uganda — make facing this pandemic particularly daunting. The support of our donors in the U.S. and around the world not only funds our work, but also serves to encourage our on-the-ground team.
2020
This year brought AUCF, Northern Uganda, and the world a profound new challenge: COVID-19. And while the impact on sub-Saharan Africa has not been as harsh as many expected, this disease has nonetheless imposed new challenges as we seek to grow our impact.
Fortunately our staff in Uganda has risen to this challenge, skillfully managing operations while adhering to social distancing and other COVID-imposed restrictions. Kristina Health Center now provides an isolation unit for patients who may have contracted coronavirus, and our staff has been trained in working with all patients amid these conditions. Cents For Seeds, meanwhile, faces its own challenges, as much of our work is conducted among large groups of women, but we have managed still to grow the program, and are aware of none of our members becoming ill.
Fundraising in 2020 also faced challenges, as events proved impossible, including the most significant one we had ever envisioned: The Freedom Run, a recreation of Julius’ famed 40-mile run from Awake to Lira. We look forward to holding the Freedom Run one day, hopefully in 2020, and this year are thankful for the band of supporters who took on the 20+20 Challenge, raising nearly $30,000 in support of our work.
2019
Seeking to expand its work beyond the walls of its facility, Kristina Health Center launched an outreach program. KHC staff travel throughout the region, teaching healthy habits, good hygiene, and even about nutrition and exercise, all in hopes of not only treating illness and injury, but preventing them as well.
Meanwhile, our US-based fundraising and oversight team launched a new means of generating support for AUCF, known as Run With Julius. Our first crowdfunding operation, “RWJ” invites supporters to run the Portland Marathon or Half-Marathon — or to take on the challenge of their choice — as they raise money for AUCF. We are happy to incorporate the spirit of running, such an important part of our history, into our fundraising efforts.
2018
Recognizing our shared purpose and mission, AUCF formally joined forces with Love Mercy, and since has supported its flagship program, Cents For Seeds.
2017
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, and responding to an acute need in Otuke County, Uganda, this year AUCF has taken on construction of a maternity facility, and by fall of this year will provide full maternity services, including labor and delivery. Having already begun to provide pre- and postnatal care in recent months, our new, experienced midwife will provide that most vital of services: enabling expectant women to bring health babies into the world.
2015-2016
Living now in Uganda, Julius Achon coordinates all local initiatives, supported by the tireless efforts of brother Jimmy and the AUCF team. Meanwhile, a team of committed supporters, including the Jim Fee family, continue the work of raising money and providing guidance from the U.S., while partner organization Love Mercy Uganda’s generosity enables AUCF to spearhead new projects. Among those projects is growth of the Kristina Health Center; to treat the hundreds of monthly patients and accommodate their families as well as the KHC staff, AUCF has expanded both the facility itself, as well as the scope of its work. In 2015, completed important work, ranging from bringing running water directly to KHC to hiring an experienced Clinic Manager.
This video depicts our recent work and the impact it is having on the residents of Northern Uganda.
October 2013
AUCF sadly lost its Executive Director when Jim Fee died after a bicycle accident in California on October 4, 2013. But we picked up the pieces and continued his work, spurred on by his vision to provide health care, education and opportunities to the people of Northern Uganda. Soon after Jim’s death AUCF opened the James Fee Memorial Patient Ward, which houses overnight patients at Kristina Health Center, and raised the funds necessary to bring running water to the KHC.
October 2012
Kristina Health Center opens its doors and begins treating patients providing primary healthcare to the community. A full time resident staff of 5 including clinic manager, senior clinical officer, comprehensive nurses (2) and lab technician/HIV counselor provide medical care, including consultation and treatment, counseling, inoculations, education and triage of seriously ill patients to Lira Regional Hospital.
August 2012
Kristina Health Center dedication takes place on August 25, consisting of a 10 room clinic (lobby, consultation and treatment rooms (4), emergency room, pharmacy, laboratory and office), four individual living quarters for permanent medical staff and two pit latrines for the clinic and staff. The campus includes a bore-hole well donated by Lifewater Int’l providing essential water for the health center. KHC includes a solar power system providing electricity to both buildings – the first electricity in the village. The electricity powers lighting, medical equipment, a computer system and refrigerator/freezer for storing vaccines.
April 2011
Ground breaking of Kristina Health Center (KHC) in Awake. Materials and labor, when possible, are provided by the community of Awake providing jobs for over 20 people.
February 2010
AUCF announces the commencement of planning and fundraising for a health center in Awake village. A plot of land is acquired.
January 2010
Achon Uganda Children’s Fund partners with Australian counterpart, Love Mercy Foundation, to improve the lives of the children of Otuke County.
August 2009
Water is flowing! For the first time in the history of Awake village, residents do not have to walk 3 miles or more to obtain clean water. Thanks to Care International, who located and drilled for water, a permanent well is now operating. This has made a tremendous impact on the lives of all the people of the village.
August 2009
The first church/community center and pit latrine in the village have been built with the help of donations from Grace and Julius, members of the True Life Fellowship Church in Beaverton, Oregon, as well as friends from Australia.
April 2009
AUCF received Internal Revenue Service tax exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
2004 – 2009
The eleven orphans remain under the care of Julius’ brother, Jimmy Okullo, and are attending school in Lira. Achon Uganda Children’s Fund has provided the funds to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, and provide health care to them.
Julius (right) poses in May 2011 with Chris, the sport master who brought Julius from Awake Village to the capital city of Kampala, where he ran on athletic scholarship at Makerere HS.
2004
Julius joined the Nike Oregon Project in Portland, Oregon, where he paced and trained elite US Olympic athletes under the direction of Alberto Salazar. Despite his modest salary, Julius and his wife Grace continued to help support the orphans and other members of his village, wiring money directly to his brother for the purchase of food, seed, oxen, clothing, shelter, school tuition and uniforms. When other members of Julius’ community in Portland began to take up the cause, he decided to formalize the effort by establishing the Achon Uganda Children’s Fund.
2003
While in Uganda in 2003, Julius came across a group of children who were sleeping under a bus in Lira. These eleven orphans had escaped from the same Otuke village where Julius was raised after their parents were killed by the LRA, and were then living and begging on the streets. Touched by their suffering and grateful for his own blessings, Julius decided to adopt them.