KAMPALA – Singer Moses Ssali aka Bebe Cool has received a grant of close to $400,000 (about Shs1.4b) from donors to help TB patients.
The funding was received under his Amber Heart Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports activities aimed at finding missing TB patients in the districts of Kampala, Jinja and Mbarara.
“I am happy to inform you that I officially received a grant of close to $400,000 USD from Stop TB Partnership’s TB REACH initiative at a ceremony that took place in Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam. The TB REACH initiative is funded by the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” Bebe Cool wrote on his Facebook page.
“This grant is a result of a vigorous application exercise that saw The Amber Heart Foundation triumph over 600 applications that had to be chosen from all over the world. This is a great boost to my charity efforts. While for years I have been undertaking different charity works at my personal expense, it feels great when someone else recognises such efforts and decides to chip in. This is a great boast for our health care system,” he added.
The artiste said he will use the grant to sensitise Ugandans about the need for TB testing and treatment.
“Statistics prove that 80,000 Ugandans die of Tuberculosis annually yet this disease is treatable in all government facilities moreover for free. It is also absurd that many of my fellow Ugandans do not know the symptoms of TB and never think to get screened/tested until it is too late and they have passed it on to their loved ones. The Amber Heart Foundation using this grant comes in to feel the gap of awareness and mobilisation of people for testing and treatment,” he said.
“Note that I was last year appointed Uganda’s Tuberculosis Ambassador and have been engaging in many charitable activities under Amber Heart Foundation, the latest having been last year when i donated over UGX.60,000,000 (Sixty Million Shillings) from proceeds of his Concert towards facilitating treatment of children with Heart defects,” he added.
