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This website was borne out of a lifelong passion to make a difference in the lives of people who are poor and marginalized, and a frustration with trying to find humanitarian partners for community led projects in poor communities. I realized there was a vast gap between these local community initiatives and large humanitarian organizations. Partly this is because these large organizations get many requests every day. However, sadly, many are also turning away from supporting Non-Government-Organisations (NGOs) and are pouring large sums of money into the pockets of corrupt government officials who manage Government social service budgets. The Governments themselves, in their struggle with internal corruption, recognise the value of small NGOs dealing directly with social needs. For this reason most so called "developing" nations have accountability structures with reporting requirements for registered NGOs which we can use to protect ourselves from con artists, scammers and fraudsters.
Befriending and giving to unregistered organisations and individuals is more dangerous. The larger the gap between the richest and poorest in a nation the more people turn to crime to survive. Criminals from poor nations abound on Social Media. They may be working as part of organised crime groups or may be working alone or with a few others. They each have a narrative they have developed to build "friendship" or romantic attachments to the point of unquestioning trust. They then use that trust to manipulate compassionate hearts and empty other's pockets to fill their own. These people do not care what suffering they cause any more than a farmer loses sleep over slaughtering the animals they care for. The deception involved is simply a skill they develop in their daily criminal work. Even for those experienced at working in this space it is extremely difficult to know whether one is dealing with such a person or a genuinely needy friend.
Befriending and giving to unregistered organisations and individuals is more dangerous. The larger the gap between the richest and poorest in a nation the more people turn to crime to survive. Criminals from poor nations abound on Social Media. They may be working as part of organised crime groups or may be working alone or with a few others. They each have a narrative they have developed to build "friendship" or romantic attachments to the point of unquestioning trust. They then use that trust to manipulate compassionate hearts and empty other's pockets to fill their own. These people do not care what suffering they cause any more than a farmer loses sleep over slaughtering the animals they care for. The deception involved is simply a skill they develop in their daily criminal work. Even for those experienced at working in this space it is extremely difficult to know whether one is dealing with such a person or a genuinely needy friend.
A rat in the pantry
Mr Segawa Ephraim, Director of Foster Friends Uganda (formerly Center for Child Advocacy and Planning) noticed that one of the young men at Extreme High School was particularly bright and had a lot of fundraising ideas. Mr Ephraim gave the young man a phone and a laptop and set him loose to see what he could achieve. This fundraising project was called Uganda Nutrition Schools Feeding Program (UNSFP). Hindsight is 20/20. This young man became very secretive about his fundraising processes and kept all knowledge of his success from Mr Ephraim and the board so that both assumed he was not successful. In fact he presented himself on Social Media as the Co-ordinator of "UNSFP", implied this was the new name of CCALP, and spoke of Mr Ephraim as his mentor and the Director. The relationship between him and Mr Segawa Ephraim remained vague. However, while Mr Ephraim seemed very busy and difficult to connect with this young man made sure he was always available to chat. He contacted many people including me (Nicola Sian) and gained their trust. One of the people he contacted was the US fundraiser Michael Kantor who set up what became his main fundraiser. I (Nicola) accepted a friend request from him and arranged for a friend, James Kiige, to visit and interview him at Extreme High School. Kiige videoed the interview. I checked out the history of the project through the links on Michael Kantor's fundraiser. It all seemed legitimate. In hindsight there were red flags I ignored, things he kept vague, things which weren't quite consistent. However I grew to trust him as a personal friend. I was devasted to find, through a chance conversation with Mr Segawa Ephraim, the founder and director of the organisation, that he had no knowledge of the funds I had given through the fundraiser. Many others gave to the work and very little of this money reached the young people. The young man was stripped of his position and immediately fled and set up afresh using another "charity" as his front. This was a hard lesson for me. If something feels odd, it generally is. If there are red flags, we need to tug at them and keep tugging at them and see if they remain red flags or change colour to orange or green.
Mr Segawa Ephraim, Director of Foster Friends Uganda (formerly Center for Child Advocacy and Planning) noticed that one of the young men at Extreme High School was particularly bright and had a lot of fundraising ideas. Mr Ephraim gave the young man a phone and a laptop and set him loose to see what he could achieve. This fundraising project was called Uganda Nutrition Schools Feeding Program (UNSFP). Hindsight is 20/20. This young man became very secretive about his fundraising processes and kept all knowledge of his success from Mr Ephraim and the board so that both assumed he was not successful. In fact he presented himself on Social Media as the Co-ordinator of "UNSFP", implied this was the new name of CCALP, and spoke of Mr Ephraim as his mentor and the Director. The relationship between him and Mr Segawa Ephraim remained vague. However, while Mr Ephraim seemed very busy and difficult to connect with this young man made sure he was always available to chat. He contacted many people including me (Nicola Sian) and gained their trust. One of the people he contacted was the US fundraiser Michael Kantor who set up what became his main fundraiser. I (Nicola) accepted a friend request from him and arranged for a friend, James Kiige, to visit and interview him at Extreme High School. Kiige videoed the interview. I checked out the history of the project through the links on Michael Kantor's fundraiser. It all seemed legitimate. In hindsight there were red flags I ignored, things he kept vague, things which weren't quite consistent. However I grew to trust him as a personal friend. I was devasted to find, through a chance conversation with Mr Segawa Ephraim, the founder and director of the organisation, that he had no knowledge of the funds I had given through the fundraiser. Many others gave to the work and very little of this money reached the young people. The young man was stripped of his position and immediately fled and set up afresh using another "charity" as his front. This was a hard lesson for me. If something feels odd, it generally is. If there are red flags, we need to tug at them and keep tugging at them and see if they remain red flags or change colour to orange or green.
At the time of writing this update in January 2025, my colleague Ritah and I have now investigated two such people whose needs seemed dire and genuine yet turned out to be con artists. I am currently investigating a third. This is a very slow and meticulous process. In each case, right up to the end of our investigation, there remained a possibility the person was genuine and in dire need. AND there was a possibility they were heartlessly inventing or exaggerating needs and acting the part of a genuine friend so that "the law of love" seemed to demand significant sacrifice, even suffering, on the part of the giver. This is the difficulty of working in this space. We may think our intuition is sufficient to know a person is genuine. We do not know until we have eliminated the other possibility through rigorous, independent, investigation. We need to build a healthy, sustained capacity for doubt. Doubt, literally means "faith in two minds". To work effectively and safely in this space we need to build friendships always keeping in the back of our mind the possibility we are being deceived by a heartless and clever con-artist. We need to keep that possibility intact until it has been proven to be impossible or we will become a victim of heartless criminals operation in this space.
John 4:16b
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
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