About Us

OUR TEAM

Henessi Schmidt - Founder of Little Bridge Foundation

Henessi is an actress from Estonia who has been advocating for a more sustainable lifestyle for more than 7 years. Having learned yoga, herbal medicine and devoting a lot of her time for becoming more aware of our ecological footprint - she is very committed to using her voice for the greater good of our health and our planet.

Mugonzi - Local project leader

Mugonzi is a young kindhearted man from Uganda who has been always interested in helping the needy and moving his community forward. In our local community he is leading a team of young promising men who devote a big amount of their time for helping others. Currently he is studying Social works in the University on Jinja - hoping to do big deeds for his people in the future.

Mother Madina - Member and advisor of the local organisation

Mother Madina is currently working in the city council as a spokes-person for the workers in her county. She is interested in advancing the working conditions for teachers in the local school so that they could provide children with better education. Before her work in the city council, she used to work as a teacher herself. She is mother to Mugonzi and taking care of many orphans at her home.

Vijay - Advisor of Little Bridge Foundation

Vijay is an early stage startup advisor, mentor and investor who is experienced working with founders with a focus on scaling operations, commercial strategy and preparation for fundraising. He is presently serving as Portfolio Director of the Annapurna Family Office and is actively involved in supporting The Little Bridge Foundation.

Berit - Graphic designer at Little Bridge Foundation

Berit is a student in high school in Estonia, studying digital products design. She has managed to combine her school assignments with the volunteer work she has been doing for Little Bridge Foundation - designing newsletters, pitch decks, presentations, event posters and more. She started helping out Henessi in spring 2023 and has been of a big support ever since!

OUR STORY

Our story begins with a small village in Uganda, Bugiri, a young man called Mugonzi and a boy called Rajab

I was working in Ireland when our paths crossed with Mugonzi and even though we met online I felt right away that this is the beginning of something true and important.

Mugonzi was looking for help and support for his community and for an organisation he and his friends started a year ago. They were trying to run an orphanage and took care of 28 kids, but actually they were looking after half of their village. Whenever they were meeting for lunch, they also served food for other people in need in their area, taking care of more than 100 people. That inspired me a lot and made me feel that they have a true wish and calling to help their community.

When we met, Mugonzi was looking for help for a 7 year old boy called Rajab. He had serious skin problems, swollen stomach and other serious issues caused by unclean drinking water. Rajab’s family didn’t have any money to send him for a health scan and I was lucky enough to offer my support.

It of course sounded like many charity-scams that I have heard of and many friends of mine advised me to not get involved as this does not sound like an honest thing but I followed by gut. And after many different scans, appointments with different doctors, long trips that Mugonzi and Rajab started often 4 AM in the morning and after many hours they spent in waiting rooms, we finally got some answers, found a good children’s heart doctor and started the treatment for Rajab. 
A year later – Rajab has returned form a successful heart operation, his health better than ever and a big smile on his face while he is able to go to school and play with other children. 

Hope for better future

As I was helping Rajab I got more interested in the community that Mugonzi was helping and tried to find a way to help them improve some of their living conditions. At first I was trying to connect Mugonzi to some bigger charity organisations but I pretty soon I understood how out of reach is their help and decided to create my own small organisation which can have a straight connection with the people in need. 

One of my requests was that we will find ways how to do our work in a sustainable and regenerative way that can be mindful about their nature and also support their own economy. 

Luckily Mugonzi agreed and actually shared a business idea with me which he lacked capital for! 

He had learned agriculture and took care of the garden of his community and wanted to start an eco-fertilizer company, which could offer his people better crops while also not harming their drinking water like commercial fertilizers. He had already calculated how the business could work and how it could offer jobs for many people and boost their economy. This made me feel really hopeful about starting a community there which could work together with nature to improve their life quality. A community with hope for a better future.

As it turned out – me and Mugonzi had strenght and willpower for a lot more. 

A year later we have bought 7 acres of land and two houses for our community, built a new road and a borehole well – providing clean drinking water for more than 200 people. We have provided access to education for more than 25 children with our education sponsorship program, harvested two crops from our land – providing food for our children and families in need in our area. We have already held our first sustainabilty workshops making eco-fertilizer and reusable sanitary pads. And we are only getting started. 
Soon we hope to open our orphanage, create rainharvesting, solar power and permaculture systems for our community and hold different workshops to create more jobs in the area. 


We started by trying to raise the life quality of these people and we tried to do it with a respect and love towards our planet, to find sustainable and regenerative solutions for their problems. 

It has lead us into paving a path for a sustainable charity program that we hope to bring to many communities. And that is very exciting. 

I can only imagine all that could be done if all the funds in the charity world were actually used in a resourceful and sustainable way. If all the communities receiving help could actually gain total independence, become truly self-sustainable and share their new ways and knowledge to other people and communities around them.  

It is vital to focus on the bigger picture, to work with the root-problems and to find long-term solutions – not only for us, but also for the planet. 

So we try to give our best to constantly educate ourselves in issues like climate change, health, poverty and human rights. And we try to give our best to especially educate ourselves in all the different solutions out there. 

We dream that one day we can live in a world where the stronger offers his hand for the weak and where humans treat nature with respect so that our next generation can also have access to clean water, clean air, wild nature, healthy food, love and laughter.

Anyone who values these ideas can turn to us for advice and  support.

PS. If you feel like learning with us or if you have valuable knowledge or experience to share – we encourage you to contact us! 

Henessi Schmidt
Founder of Little Bridge Foundation