This was the fourth visit to Uganda by Vesper members since we first met Elijah Kyamuwendo from the Kulika charity in the '90s. A party of five spent time in Jinja, Kampala and Mubende visiting projects and renewing friendships with Elijah and his colleagues, as well as meeting members of several Rotary clubs. The greater part of our trip was spent at Mubende, a town some 100 miles west of Kampala which has been the centre of our past work in Uganda.
The visit achieved several objectives:
In conjunction with Kulika, we finalised arrangements for a pilot micro credit scheme, providing finance to local farmers in three villages around Mubende. Once it is successful, we are looking to expand the scheme to other villages in the area and beyond, and work with Rotary Club (RC) Mubende with the hope of Rotary Foundation support. We also gave Kulika a laptop to help them administer the scheme.
Andrew teaching farmer trainers at Kulika's training centre
Rotarian Andrew Bartholomew held several coaching sessions on animal husbandry for key farmer trainers in the villages around Mubende and at Kulika's residential centre. At the same time he took the opportunity to promote the micro credit scheme.
We completed the applications for funding through the Matching Grant of a project with RC Mengo in Kampala. This will be used to fund the redevelopment of a school at Gulu in the North, along the same lines as the project at Mugungulu School and hopefully this can serve as a pilot project for future work, linked to education and general sustainability issues.
Mubende hospital maternity ward
We met with Dr Robert at Mubende hospital for whom we have previously funded professional training and provided him with a laptop for use in his hospital duties. At the same time we toured the hospital and looked at possible projects for further development work, particularly in the hospital laundry where we provided some basic equipment.
We visited other projects that we and other Rotary clubs have supported in the past, including:
the Matching Grant project at Mugungulu School, near Mubende, which provided new latrines, classroom equipment, water harvesting equipment, planting and site infrastructure at the school, as well as wood burning stoves and mosquito nets in the village - we are hoping to possibly develop this as a model project that we can extend to other locations as part of a 3H grant
Champona school - furniture funded by Vesper and Didcot Girls
Champona (Kyamukoona) school where together with Didcot Girls School we provided furniture for the classrooms - here we saw the school water tank which is in serious need of repair
Kakenzie school - new classrooms being built
The village well close to Mubende which was one of the first international projects undertaken by Vesper
Schools at Maaya and Kakenzie where Kulika are working with Food for Thought and other Rotary clubs
A medical centre at Bulabo near Kampala funded by the Rotary Club of Mengo.
Mubende well
We came away full of ideas for further projects and will be bringing proposals on these to the club over the months ahead, when we will also be talking to other clubs including Breda and Roma, as well as representatives of District 1090, to see how we can work together to deliver these.