About us

Good Samaritan Association was founded in 1999 to support the work of Sister Dorina Tadiello, a doctor and Comboni missionary working in Gulu who assisted AIDS patients, cared for orphaned children and promoted and protected the rights of women.

MISSION

Good Samaritan, in Gulu, in northern Uganda, supports children, young people, and women in situations of poverty and marginalization, enabling them to build a future for themselves through education, professional training, and work.

Every day, we work to create opportunities for vulnerable communities, to combat poverty and inequality and sustain them towards self-sustainability.

Good Samaritan initially focused on supporting children who were orphaned due to the HIV pandemic or suffering from serious illnesses.

Thanks to the support of many donors and the “long-distance support” project, the association has enabled thousands of children to receive education, health and psychological support to protect their physical and mental integrity.

VISION

Good Samaritan aims to be a point of reference for the community of Gulu, especially for vulnerable and needy people. It wants to promote education, women’s empowerment, skills development, the protection of children and women in fragile situations and access to medical care.

Good Samaritan strongly believes that people should live and build their future in their own community, contributing to the development of their country.

The Wawoto Kacel Cooperative has been and still is a place of work and therapy where every woman can find hospitality, protection, and dignity.

Good Samaritan’s mission focuses on the individual in a context where the vulnerable are left behind, have no access to a dignified life and is exposed to the risk of total marginalization.

HISTORY

Good Samaritan Association was founded in 1999 to support the work of Sister Dorina Tadiello, a doctor and Comboni missionary working in Gulu who assisted AIDS patients, cared for orphaned children and promoted and protected the rights of women.

In the early years of our presence in Gulu, Good Samaritan focused on assisting orphaned children and people with AIDS, as well as the population forced to live in refugee camps due to the ongoing civil war. In 2006, hostilities ceased and the association followed up its initial intervention with support for autonomy and sustainability, working on a shared long-term development strategy.

THE CONTEXT

Uganda, as emerged from colonial partition, is composed of many ethnic groups, which has led to objective difficulties in building a common history and national identity. Independence, which came in 1962, was unable to prevent a succession of military dictatorships that resulted in violence and systematic human rights violations. In 1987, an attempt to overthrow the government of Yoweri Museveni failed and, in northern Uganda, a group of rebels, the Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), began a guerrilla war involving massacres, rapes, kidnappings of children and raids. The war ended only twenty years later, leaving two million displaced persons, at least 30,000 dead, and 40,000 children kidnapped and turned into child soldiers. During the war years, Good Samaritan felt a strong commitment to denounce the systematic violation of human rights, especially against children, who paid the highest price for this terrible war.

THE LOCAL PARTNER

For the development of its projects, Good Samaritan collaborates with the Ugandan NGO Comboni Samaritans of Gulu, an organization belonging to the diocese of Gulu, promoting interventions tailored to the needs of the local population. The first nucleus of the local NGO was formed in the late 1980s, during the war, thanks to Father Paolo Ottolini and Sister Giovanna Calabria, who began pastoral work to raise awareness and assist the local community in addressing the problems caused by the HIV/AIDS.

In 1992, the group was formally established and the NGO was officially registered, with the aim of supporting the suffering population by offering health and psychological, economic and social support to the most disadvantaged people, especially those with HIV/AIDS, orphans, war veterans, and people with disabilities.

Good Samaritan works side by side with the Comboni Samaritans of Gulu to implement and monitor activities in support of vulnerable populations through projects carried out by local staff.