María Galán, from Babies Uganda: "I changed my life because I felt I could do many things, and if I didn't try them, I would regret it."

When you least expect it, needs can change. Something comes into your life that makes you see the world differently ; you rethink your daily life and whether you're in the place that truly makes you happy. One day in 2018, María Galán , now the principal of a special education school in Uganda, experienced this.

She studied like anyone else her age, but a trip to Uganda, whose name she'd been hearing about at home for some time, changed her course: "Uganda is a country I've heard about almost my entire life. My mother started the NGO Babies Uganda —they work to provide present and future opportunities to underprivileged populations, focusing on childhood—with a friend in 2012, and when I turned 18, already at university, I decided I was going to travel, that I wanted to see it with my own eyes." She didn't know it—although her mother did, instinctively—but that visit would be the turning point.

"That first year with the kids went really well, but well, in the end, it's just a first contact; everything catches your attention; it's a very different country. And I was already stuck with it, you know? Wanting to do more. But, as I always say, I started going crazy, and every year I went and wanted to go more and more until I couldn't see myself anywhere else but there," she admits.

With enthusiasm and a strong sense of responsibility , María Galán headed to a country where practically everything remained to be done. She traded the asphalt of Madrid for the muddy roads of Uganda and the power grid for constant blackouts, but her decision was clear: she wanted to go there to help.

"I was lucky because I realized it very young, so I didn't have any ties to Spain yet. I had studied Economics and International Business, so I had to choose my internship and asked to have it validated there. I was there for six months, and that was more than enough time to see what my place would be," says the Babies Uganda member.

She says that during that time and on her previous visits, "I had seen so much need, so many things that could be done," that she felt she could influence change: "I felt that it was my responsibility. I knew I could do so many things, and that if I didn't do them, I would regret it. I stayed, and until now..."

Like any other NGO, support is essential. Babies Uganda also needs funding: "Luckily, we have three very trustworthy local people who live in the three areas where we work. And in the end, that's very important for us, having someone local who knows how to manage the team well and understand the needs." On their website, where donations can be made, they sell Ugandan coffee, bracelets made by the children, and more. Furthermore, their second collaboration with the footwear brand Gioseppo has just been launched, and 10% of the purchase goes to the charity.

There are so many things to do there, she says, that they don't rule out anything . "As opportunities come our way, we're always open to opening more and more projects. We need sponsors, one-time donations..."

It's surprising that so many improvements have been achieved in such a short period of time in a small area of ​​an underdeveloped country. The Babies Uganda Association works daily to provide improvements to people in need, from schools to dentists.

"You always have to have that hope that you're going to make it, but we're also at a point where, wow, luckily more and more people are getting to know us, so this year, just this year, we've opened two clinics, a vocational center, and a special education school," he says with the biggest smile.

The reality is that money goes further there than here. As he explains, "Things are built super fast there; what it costs to build a school there isn't what it costs here. So your money goes further."

María Galán's days in Uganda can be summed up as being at school and getting home to take care of the 32 children she lives with at Kikaya House (an orphanage built from scratch to care for orphaned or abandoned children): paperwork, changing diapers, showers, homework... And most importantly: being there for whatever the people she cares for might need: "What I want to be is a figure that makes them feel comfortable, that makes them feel they can count on someone, you know? As they grow up, I don't know what they'll think of me as, but I know that, in the end, when they've been little, when they've needed all the love, I've been there and I'll be there until they need it. I don't know how they see me, but I hope it's as a mother because I do everything as if I were a mother: I take care of them from beginning to end. But the important thing is that they feel loved and at home."

In Uganda , the association is divided into zones. One is one of the poorest islands in Lake Victoria: the situation there is very difficult because there are no opportunities for anything. There are fishermen, some who have a small shop... Where María Galán lives and where they have most of their things is a village with dirt roads: "Before Babies Uganda arrived, there was absolutely nothing, and now it's developing a lot because now with the clinic, the nursery school, primary school, secondary school, special education school, sports center, arts center... It's becoming a destination. For a population without resources, to be guaranteed all those basic needs, imagine..." she says, to give us a minimal idea of ​​what it's like.