Pembroke Rotary has made a generous donation of $3,000 to the ISIS Foundation to be used for their work in Uganda.

The money will most likely be used to support a home for street kids and projects at a rural hospital which has a neonatal intensive care unit for over 400 babies a year.

The unit was built by ISIS six years ago and is now completely funded by the charity for such things as medication and equipment and training for the nurses and doctors.

The ISIS Foundation also works with people living with AIDS, providing food and medical care and supporting AIDS orphans.

?It is estimated that 70,000 people in the district in which we work, which is about half the size of Ireland, are HIV positive and yet there are anti-retroviral drugs for only 150 people,? said Leonie Exel, General Manager of the ISIS Foundation.

?It is truly terrible to see what they are going through.?

Khadijah is a two-year-old AIDS orphan. She is intellectually disabled and has HIV, which she got from her mother at birth.

Both parents have died from AIDS and she now lives with her grandmother who supports seven family members from a mud hut growing food on her plot of land.

Khadijah will be lucky to live until the age of five, according to Ms Exel.

?We admire the work that Rotary does in Bermuda and so we are doubly delighted with this donation, because it comes from another charity,? said Ms Exel.

?To get their vote of confidence is wonderful!?

The foundation?s General Manager emphasised how substantial the donation was in terms of what it would achieve on the ground in Uganda.

The ISIS foundation works in partnership with the local community groups in Nepal and Uganda to provide health and education services to local women and children and now provides support to thousands of people living in extreme poverty.

ISIS is an acronym for Initiating Sustainable Integrated Solutions.

Isis is also the Egyptian goddess of fertility and motherhood and is depicted in pictures as straddling the land and sea.

This was seen to be an appropriate symbol for the foundation as they assist mothers and children.

They aim to bridge the divide between business and charities with much of their funding coming from ISIS Ltd.