This has been yet another very full and exciting year with many different things going on, so this will be a condensed report. Fuller details have been circulated periodically in newsletters and interim updates throughout the year and, as always, are available on our website or on request.
1 Goat Improvement Project: After a year of delays, mainly due to airline indecision on costings, progress is hotting up on the importation of Boer and dairy goats from South Africa to form a nucleus herd to supply our village and orphan projects with suitable crossbreds. Gideon is sorting out the import permits and the goats are expected to arrive very shortly.
Meanwhile, Gideon has delivered the first batch of 14 goats from his Kamuli unit to Moses Ekoi’s new breeding unit near Kumi. These are mainly Small East African and Mubende females to be used for crossbreeding with Boer or dairy breeds. A further 10 goats, dairy cross females and pure males will soon be purchased from milking projects near Mbale. Moses has nearly completed construction of a 70,000L underground rainwater catchment tank, to ensure water security in the dry seasons.
2 Kumi Orphan Project: £10,440 was raised last Christmas, with a further £1205 since then. This year’s appeal has just been launched and we hope it will be equally successful, given the continuing economic downturn. Extracts from Miriam Maraka’s report covering the year so far, mostly in her own words, are given below (the full, 4-page version with a table on implementation measures is on the website).
Miriam conveys very eloquently the gratitude felt and conveyed by the people of Kumi. The growth in funding has enabled the project to maintain the practice of reaching out into 2 new communities every year. This year in the new communities of Nyero and Akide 70 orphans have so far received direct gifts of chickens, oranges and goats, among other benefits. Additional help to support 70 to 100 more orphans in the old communities has also been provided. Mobilising and engaging the new communities, including identification and verification of orphans to receive the gifts, is a vital part of the preparatory work, as is the ongoing interaction with the old communities in order to encourage them to manage their projects with diligence. Additional challenges this year have resulted from the prolonged drought.
Distribution and management of chickens has taken place, including vaccinations, sharing experiences on good practice of housing, feeding, breeding and medication. Complete eradication of chicken infections remains a challenge. Miriam is pleased to report many testimonies of success which include sale of chickens to meet financial demands and others have transformed their chickens into goats, sheep and cows.
There is a very similar picture for the goats. Most of the families have had their one goat multiply and the improved he-goats have enabled them to access improved goat sizes. Miriam explains that the emphasis is being put on preparation of supplementary feeds that are locally available at no cost. They are promoting planting of fodder trees in between the farm land.
As part of the planting and management of the orange tree seedlings, there is continuous reminder to each of the families to provide adequate care especially manuring and watering of the seedlings plus creating a fence around to bar goats from reaching the plant. They have introduced use of locally produced pesticides to address issues of infection.
Training is a crucial part of the Project and is highly prized by the volunteer youth workers. Areas handled include skills development on practices of sustainable agriculture; conservation of our environment; sexual and reproductive health education plus HIV/AIDS. However, Miriam has identified that the level of application of learned skills is fairly poor and this is likely to be due to the inadequate length of the present training course, which needs to be addressed in future.
3 Visits to Uganda: These are important to support the work undertaken by our Ugandan colleagues and monitor the use of funds donated. It is also very valuable to meet Ugandan colleagues face to face to discuss developments, make future plans, identify problems, find out what help is needed and advise where appropriate. This is especially useful to overcome the difficulties of communicating with them between the two countries. We must emphasise that all trips are self-funded. The main purpose for each trip is given below though the opportunity is taken to cover whatever is appropriate from the above list and to meet as many people as possible. Emmanuel invited everybody in the area and our prediction in last year’s annual report that lots of people would be taking him up on it has turned out to be right!
April 2009: Lorna Brown (trustee) – to prepare for importation of pedigree goats; Val Talbot (trustee) - to support and monitor Orphan Project; Carole Ashurst (member) – fuel efficient stoves in villages and links with Kumi Hospital
October 2009: Emyr Owen (trustee) and Tim Smith (member) – to look at and advise on goat husbandry aspects (especially feeding), to meet with Dr Jolly Kabirizi of National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) who will be speaking at our conferences in December and to visit Busoga University to discuss curriculum development.
October 2009: Richard Jones (trustee) and Barbara Maycock (member) taking out a group of Llanfyllin High School sixth formers to visit the three link schools and to take part in curriculum and environmental projects.
October 2009: Cordelia Weedon (member) on the return visit of the photo-diary project funded by the Welsh Assembly’s Gold Star Communities Scheme
October 2009: Carole Ashurst (member) - fuel-efficient stoves in the villages and links with Kumi Hospital
When the importation of goats is due to take place, Lorna Brown will be going out to help supervise.
4 School Links: Barbara Maycock, Jane Bentley and Gareth Hughes made their return school exchange visit in February (funded by the UK’s Department for International Development through the British Council). They spent most of their time in their 3 partner schools, teaching, observing and taking part in all the school activities. A packed programme had also been organised, visiting a wide variety of people and places, including local politicians and education administrators of Kamuli District. The plan now is to apply for further funding for the next phase of the school exchange programme. Barbara is also trying to obtain funding from the Welsh Assembly to get an internet connection into the schools and assist with ICT hardware and software. We are also hoping to help the establishment of links between schools in Newtown and Kumi.
5 Gold Star Communities Award Scheme: This is run under the Welsh Assembly’s Wales for Africa programme and, so far, has funded the photo diary project which brought Emmanuel Maraka over here in November 2008 and is funding Cordelia Weedon’s return trip this October. A group of us attended the Welsh Assembly’s debate on the future of the programme and were very pleased to be given a special mention. We were also very pleased that Emyr Owen was asked to give a talk at this year’s National Eistedffod at Bala.
6 Community links: We are proud that the new Mayor of Llanfyllin, Councillor Lynnette Kretchmer, has nominated us as her chosen charity for her term of office. We are making moves to establish links between local councils, churches and farming groups, as well as other schools, in our two countries.
7 Awareness Raising. To fulfil our second objective, this year we have attended 3 agricultural shows (Llanfyllin, Llanfechain and Llanfair Caereinion), Bodfach Hall Open Day, Christmas Fairs at Llanfyllin Workhouse, Rhydycroesau and Llansilin,. We have given many talks (some with film) to a number of local groups and primary schools. Information is disseminated through our literature, newsletters, periodic updates, and, in particular, our website. We have gained a lot of press coverage and our special thanks are due to the Tanat Chronicle for their unswerving support. Following the success of the 6th Form Conference in 2007, a further event has been arranged in December, together with one for the community the next day.
8 Fundraising: Funds are raised for the Kumi Orphan Project mainly through the gift catalogue at Christmas and throughout the year. Funds for both the Orphan and the Goat Improvement Projects have come from the plant sale, sponsored bike ride, Dolanog Christmas Fair and individual donations. A tremendous number of churches and groups made collections last year. Coming up: a sponsored walk to the summit of Snowdon, Folk Concert in Llansilin and next year one of our supporters is holding an early summer fete. Gift Aid is providing a big boost to funds. This year for the first time we are launching our own Christmas cards, though the aim is more to spread the word than to raise funds.
9 Membership: We now have 71 members, virtually double the number this time last year. This is very encouraging and gives us a firm basis of support.