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Posted on June 1st 2015
Uganda Project Update - June 2015
Our academy has been supporting a community in Uganda for several years now. During half term, Principal Jane Fletcher visited the project. This is her report.
I spent a week in south-east Uganda working with the same community we have supported for some years now. The Bagwere people are a community of mostly subsistence farmers who speak Lugwere. There are 800,000 of them. They live in four districts in this area of Uganda. The nearest town is Mbale.
The village where our current project is Kameruka. We have worked with 15 families to date. We are particularly focused on the Kameruka Women's Association at present. During the visit we could see the difference our support so far has made.
When we arrived they told us about the goats, chickens and turkeys they had bought with our funding from last time. They told us how they had reared these and improved their circumstances by selling the animals they had bred, and also by using their manure to fertilise crops (they all have small plots).
Last time we provided them each with wheelbarrows and they talked about how valuable these had been to them for transporting manure to allow them to use it to fertilise plots. They had been able to share their wheelbarrows with their neighbours for free. Most people in the area who might have a wheelbarrow would charge by the day to rent it and many can't afford it. They have also built structures to keep their livestock with our funds last time and we went to visit some of these.
They talked about being able to afford to send their children to school now (even government schools need fees in Uganda). They couldn't have afforded it before. They were able to feed their families a little better now than before too.
We agreed to fund them further and we bought 13 goats and 10 turkeys to be distributed. We also bought materials to extend the shelters for animals, so they can be housed securely.
We talked about needing to spread the project and the concept of giving something away when you had received something. Each of the 15 families will identify another family that needs support and wants to join the project. I bought 15 more wheelbarrows whilst there and the members will each give one away to a family that is in poverty and wants to join the scheme. The members will also give them one turkey or goat each to get them started.
So the project will double to 30 families in the next month as families are identified and the conditions we have set are met. We aim to continue to expand in this way.
We also went to Nabiswa village which is where we have supported the Nabiswa school and built the borehole previously. I took the books that our students had written with Professor Coates. This is the first time children's books have been produced in their indigenous language (picture above).
We have started initial conversations about how to extend the Nabiswa school project further as our next piece of work with Uganda.
We also went to see Anna (pictured above). Our sixth form students funded her surgery when they visited last time. She would have died of hydrocephalus by now if we hadn't paid for her treatment. She needs further treatment and we are going to see if sixth form will continue to fundraise and support her. She will have a hospital review this week funded by us and we will see what needs doing.
