Child safeguarding & dignity

Most of the harm charities do to children happens in public, in the way they are described. A child photographed in distress to raise money, a story told without consent, a name and a village printed together: none of that requires bad intent, only carelessness about a person who is not in the room.

Living Springs Global Fellowship serves children who have already lost a great deal. What we say about them in order to raise support is part of how we care for them, not separate from it.

These are commitments the site already keeps, and you can check them as you read it.

• No invented stories. Nothing on this site is a composite, a dramatisation, or an illustrative example presented as a real child.
• No distress as a fundraising device. We do not use images of crying or frightened children, staged deprivation, or any photograph whose only message is need.
• Evidence before claims. Numbers, costs, outcomes, and progress stay unpublished until they are confirmed. Where you see an unfilled space on this site, that is what it is.
• Dignity first. We show capability, learning, joy, faith, and relationship, because that is what is actually there.
• Partnership, not rescue. Ugandan believers are building this school in their own community. Nobody in these pages is a passive recipient of someone else’s goodness.

The photographs currently on this website are stand-ins. They do not show Living Springs, the Bugiri School Project, or any child in our care, and the gallery says so on the page rather than in a footnote. They will be replaced with real photography as approved images become available.

Before any photograph of an identifiable child is published here, it needs guardian consent and organizational approval. We do not publish a child’s full name alongside their image, and we do not publish details that would let a stranger locate an individual child.

Living Springs does not yet have a written safeguarding policy published here, and we are not going to summarise one that does not exist. It would be easy to fill this section with the standard paragraphs about background checks, reporting lines, and visitor rules. It would also be untrue until the organization has actually adopted them.

The work we have identified as needing to be formally adopted and published:

• a written child protection policy, with a named person responsible;
• screening and background checks for staff, volunteers, and visitors;
• a reporting procedure for concerns, and what happens after a report;
• standards for adult contact with children, including contact online;
• a consent process for photography, storytelling, and the use of names;
• rules for visits and short-term teams.

This page will be rewritten around the approved policy once it exists. Until then, what is above is what we can honestly say.

If something on this site troubles you, if you believe an image should not be published, or if you have a concern about the safety or dignity of a child connected to our work, please tell us.

Write to contact@livingspringsglobal.org or use the contact page. If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first.