A 19-year-old Winnipegger is helping AIDS orphans in Uganda thanks to a non-profit foundation she set up to send food and other support there, while selling Ugandan art here.

Katie Muirhead founded the Kwagala Foundation with three partners last year after travelling to the East African country, where she said up to 80 per cent of the people in some communities are HIV-positive.

Katie Muirhead receives a gift in a southern Ugandan community her foundation assisted in this 2006 photo.
(Courtesty Katie Muirhead/Kwagala Foundation)

"I just saw that there was a lot that I could do, even at a young age," Muirhead said.

"I'm just completely passionate about it. I want to do a career in international development. I just kind of feel like I've met all these people for a reason, and to stay passionate about it day in and day out."

The organization, which is described on her website as non-governmental and non-religious, raises money by selling jewelry and crafts made by Ugandan artisans, as well as by asking people to sponsor Ugandan schoolchildren or make donations. The foundation held a fundraising event in Winnipeg in December.

Muirhead said the money raised — about $6,000 to date — will go toward paying for water and construction projects.

"What we're planning on doing with the money is having projects that are going to continue to help these families. We want to put a well in one of our villages that we work in where the nearest source of water is 60 kilometres away," Muirhead said.

"We want to basically help these families get an idea of how they can live a better life while not stripping them of any of their own cultural values."