Making a Difference in Uganda – Daystar Helps to Make Irene Gleeson’s Last Dream a Reality

BEDFORD, Texas - June 30, 2014 - PRLog -- Daystar Television Network has given over $600,000 to the Irene Gleeson Foundation to build a women’s hospital in Northern Uganda. This donation was in response to a $100,000 matching donation challenge, issued when Irene Gleeson was a guest on Daystar’s flagship program, Marcus and Joni. Since that time, partners and viewers have continued to donate towards this cause, bringing the current total given to over $600,000.

Operating out of the war-torn region of Northern Uganda, the Irene Gleeson Foundation was founded by the late Irene Gleeson in 1991 when she sold her home in Sydney, Australia and moved to Uganda with a mission to teach the local children. What started as 50 children gathered under Irene’s mango tree to learn English, has turned into an organization of 450 Ugandan employees educating, feeding and providing medical care for 8,000 plus children.

When Irene Gleeson was a guest on Marcus and Joni, she specified that the money donated would be used for the construction of a women’s hospital – something that didn’t exist in that region of Northern Uganda at the time, and one of her last big earthly dreams. 16 women die every day in just that particular region of Northern Uganda from childbirth related complications, and this project was birthed out of a desire to save those women, providing them with pre and post natal care, as well as care for the newborn children. Unfortunately, Irene Gleeson passed away in July of 2013, but her legacy lives on through her work in Uganda and through the ongoing construction of this women’s hospital.

"IGF (Irene Gleeson Foundation) is forever grateful for the support of Daystar and its viewers towards the maternity center. As one of Irene's last big earthly dreams, we are excited to see it become a reality,” says Trent Fuenmayor, Development Director of the Irene Gleeson Foundation. “The concrete for the third and final floor is currently being poured, and we expect construction will finish in 2014. When it is opened, IGF's maternal health program will be able to provide medical support to mothers and newborns - groups put at great danger due to poor health facilities. As a region and a people still recovering from Joseph Kony's war, Northern Uganda needs a hope and a future for its mothers and babies. We give glory to God for being Jehovah Rapha - the God who heals!"

To learn more about Irene Gleeson’s story, as well as the Irene Gleeson Foundation, visit http://www.daystar.com/guest-guide/irene-gleeson.

Daystar Television Network is an award winning, faith-based network dedicated to spreading the Gospel 24 hours a day, seven days a week – all around the globe, through all media formats possible. Reaching over 104 million households in the United States and over 2 billion people worldwide, Daystar is the fastest growing faith-based television network in the world.