About Us
Hope for Hearts
was founded in 2007 by Cristen Jacobsen and Father Mugagga Lule to provide funding for St. Elizabeth Girl’s Academy of Uganda, East Africa, an orphanage and school that rescues street children from birth to 21 years.
When Cristen Jacobsen learned about girls in East Africa who were orphaned and lacking basic necessities such as food, clean water and shelter she decided to get involved, and recruited her family and friends to help.
She first learned about the plight of these girls from a priest at her church that is currently on loan to the Las Vegas Diocese from East Uganda. In 1998, Father Mugagga Lule and a group of nuns started an orphanage and school named the St. Elizabeth Girls Academy for girls from birth to age 21, who were orphaned, living in sub-human conditions in slum areas and on the streets of Kampala City, Uganda. Many of these girls had lost their parents to the AIDs epidemic and were barely surviving.
Cristen Jacobsen couldn’t fathom the thought of these homeless children barely surviving, let alone never experiencing unconditional love so she decided to find ways to support the St. Elizabeth Girls Academy. She liked that the academy taught the girls skills to help them live independently; St. Elizabeth Girls Academy offers traditional and vocational training for their students and to date 386 girls have graduated, with many of them working at restaurants, hotels, and clothing shops.
What started out small with church donut sales and proceeds from Cristen’s children’s lemonade stand, has blossomed into $70,000+ being raised over the past two years. Donations have funded uses such as a new roof for the academy and food and clothing for the residents.
Her efforts have been so successful that she and St. Elizabeth’s Girls Academy founder Father Mugagga Lule have started a fundraising campaign for a new campus; currently SEGA houses an average of 200 girls but could accommodate up to 1,000 with new facilities.
