The last thing that Olivia Barker White wanted to do was to start a charity. She was aware of the “white savior” trope, she said. But feeling that there were not many organizations helping to properly care for slum children in Uganda and reunite them with local families, she felt compelled to. Since 2009, Kids Club Kampala, or KCK, which Barker White co-founded and now runs, has helped over 1.5 million people across multiple slum communities in Uganda.
Now, though, they’re bracing for a massive increase in demand for their services as other organizations are forced to scale back and even close after the U.K. government announced on Feb. 25 that it plans to gradually cut aid to 0.3% of gross national income by 2027 to fund increased defense spending. Thereafter, the country will set annual aid budgets in cash terms based on GNI forecasts.
“It’s literally going to be like life and death, I know it sounds really harsh but some of the kids that we support are probably going to die because they can't access antiretrovirals and they also can't access basic services,” London-based Barker White, told Devex.