The above was recorded by Emmanuel Maraka, founder of the Kumi Orphans Project, in December 2008, whilst on a visit to the UK funded by the Welsh Assembly.
**Latest News**
June 2010 Emmanuel has decided to put himself up as a candidate for next year’s parliamentary elections. He has been considering this move for a number of years as he feels very strongly that Kumi is badly neglected and needs a strong representative to speak up for its many needs. He is standing as an independent so it will be a difficult campaign for him to mount on his own. He has had to resign from CREATE straightaway and it means that Dolen Ffermio’s association with him can only be on a personal level from now on. We would like to pay tribute to Emmanuel for the contribution he has made and the way that he has worked to further the cooperation between Uganda and the United Kingdom.
See below the report produced by Miriam in early 2010 of what is happening in Uganda. |
MIRIAM MARAKA 2010 REPORT ON KUMI ORPHAN PROJECT : FEBRUARY 2010
Major activities
I am placing these activities under the categories of Administration and Community leadership, Vaccination, Acquisition and distribution of gifts, Support to community workers and Training.
1.Administration.
Having a computer has made work much easier and simpler. The management of Data has improved. E.g. Our records for part of OVC family history are now readily accessible.
The challenge under this area has been lack of regular updating of virus guard, giving me the fear of using disks from internet service points to my computer.
On another note under challenges, communication will require to be managed as an item of its own under administration in our subsequent budgets. This will serve to simplify management and reporting in the area of accounts.
Community committees have continued to serve in their original numbers and they do support implementation of project activities within each of their communities. On a sad note two communities ie Olupe and Aterai have had death of prominent committee members and May their Souls rest in eternal peace.
The community workers on the other hand have had a noticeable drop out rate. For example Olupe had 12 persons trained but now has only 7 workers that are actively working.
2.Vaccination
Exercise is on going, demand continues to be good in specific communities that appear to be enjoying the benefits of having their chickens vaccinated.
Other communities that have been responding poorly to the vaccination exercise appear to suffer reasonable mortality rates.
We hope to tabulate community response to this service in the end of budget report - April.
Other innovations that are beginning to yield results include intensifying mobilisation by the involvement of Government and Local Council leaders. We have as well revised our vaccination guidelines that are available for all the vaccinators so as to enable them give appropriate information and explanations to farmers as they interract.
3.Purchase and distribution of gift items.
Using learnings from the previous purchases, each community has had to review purchase guidelines and accept alterations. Under this section the Old communities are currently carrying out this exercise and are fairly done with goats but will be done with chicken in the next two weeks.
A few OVC families have had unexplained inconsistencies in the use and disposal of their gifts. These above experiences have encouraged us collectively to generate simple disciplinary committees within some of our communities. Examples are in Ogosoi and Olimai.
4. Support to community workers.
The 2 communities of Olupe and Kodukul are to receive bicycles in the last week of Feb. The committee Secretaries are compiling each members participation in recording all community activities like vaccination, training, review meetings and events like construction of demonstration on lorena stoves and preparation of kitchen gardens for OVC families.
5. Training activities.
This activity is fairly done. It opens up a chapter that we would like to push to a level of Campaign and advocacy. This is in a bid to try give a boost to the application of skills learnt or acquired through these trainings. Our requirement may involve Open air talks within communities, Music Dance Drama activities, hosting radio talk shows and public matches through communities with advocacy messages on placards. Hopefully if this were to work it has to be included in the 2010 budget. The key issue revolves around food security in families that should start by giving care to revitalising our soils and ensuring minimal land degradation.
Our new communities are Akide in Ongino and Ariet in Ngero. The second community had a change which was prudent of the Ngero leadership. Ariet is remote with poor access to both Govt. and other NGO projects. The campaign will come handy to these communities, since their data indicates poor sanitation coverage within the communities, regular bouts of famine and scarcity of other resources.
We will continue to learn as we interract with each of these communities that have individual unique strengths and constraints. |
MIRIAM MARAKA 2009 A NARRATIVE REPORT ON PROGRESS OF IMPLEMENTATION FOR THE KUMI ORPHAN PROJECT
Introduction
The progress of implementation of activities reported below consists of work that was carried out in the course of the year.
It however encompasses both 2008 and 2009 budgets. The activities that are reported have been carried out in the new and old communities. A note to remember is that our implementation schedule does not necessarily correspond to the normal calendar.
We are glad to acknowledge that your donations which the orphans receive in form of gifts have been growing each year. This growth has enabled the orphan project to attain the following;
- Maintain reaching out into two communities every year, where among other benefits a total of 70 orphaned families receive direct gifts of chicken, oranges and goats.
- Give additional help to support more orphans from 70 to 100 families in each of the old communities (6 in number).
- Provide additional training especially to the old communities.
- Facilitate the project team in making monitoring visits to the various homes where these orphans live.
The people of Kumi are very humbled by this gesture of love and kindness. The message that constantly flows from their lips is “thank you, thank you, thank you”. They have as well accompanied the thank you message with words in ateso that say, “obusete kesi ikaru kere” which is translated as an expression and prayer to say, “Let God grant long life to the people who have given us these gifts”.
In return for this cherished cordial gesture, the committees and community workers have promised to ensure that each of the gifts is nurtured well so that it yields more. Their hope in supporting this noble cause is to have every supported orphan meet their financial school demands, other basic needs of life and realize their dream in life.
Below is the progress of implementation in tabular form;
ACTIVITY |
PROGRESS OF IMPLEMENTATION & SUCCESS |
CHALLENGES |
WAY FORWARD |
Mobilization and engaging communities into participating in the development interventions |
New communities
Two communities namely Nyero and Akide have been identified. Consultative meetings have been held with the local leadership in which expression of interest to work within their community was expressed.
Old communities
Interactions with communities are on going. The intention is to continue to encourage them to work in order to manage their small projects with diligence. |
New communities
Little has been done due to interference due to prolonged drought that resulted into lack of food. Programs that were therefore necessary during such crisis were distribution of relief food, clothes and medicine but not development work.
Old communities
The unfavorable climatic conditions have kept farmers busy planting second season crops thus having less time for other schedules outside their garden work. |
The pace of work will improve after November or December since we are faced with a new threat of projected flooding. |
Distribution and management of chicken. Specific activities under this section include;
- Vaccination of chicken
- Identification and verification of orphans to receive the gift of 3 chicken
- Sharing of experiences on good practices of housing, feeding, breeding and medication
|
New communities
New communities have been prepared to carry out election of community workers who will be key in facilitating vaccination and provision of leadership and guidance roles.
Old communities
- Vaccination of chicken is on going; 4 out of 6 communities have had 4 rounds each of infectious bronchitis and Newcastle vaccines. The other 2 communities have yet had only 2 rounds.
- Identification of a new lot of orphans to benefit from the additional support is already done. Their families are being prepared to receive the gift of 3 chicken.
- Supported families that have adopted some of the good practices of managing poultry have recorded testimonies of success. They have been able to realize tangible gains from chicken. Examples include sale of chicken to meet various financial demands, others have transformed their chicken into goats, sheep and cows.
|
Complete eradication of chicken infections remains a challenge. There is still considerable loss of chicken to sometimes, unidentifiable infections. Good nutrition for the chicken is another of the challenges as well as pests like wild cats and foxes that prey on the chicken all contribute to losses of chicken.
In Olimai which is one of the old communities, the total loss to such above conditions has been recorded at 12.5%.
|
- This year round we have stepped up the number of vaccination rounds.
- Review meetings in which we share the good practices and personal learning experiences have been instituted once in 3 months in each of the communities.
- Both project team and community workers take more of monitoring visits to these homes so as to encourage families to work with diligence in the care and management of chicken.
|
Distributin of management of goats. Specific activities are;
- Identification and verification of orphans to receive goats
- Sharing of experiences on good practices of housing, nutrition, breeding and medication
- Purchase and distribution of improved he-goats
|
New communities
Nothing under this section has yet been done.
Old communities
Orphans who are to benefit from the additional support of goats in these communities have already been selected.
Most of the families have had their one goat multiply. They are now starting to sell some to address their financial needs.
The improved he-goats that have been supplied to the communities have enabled the families to access improved goat sizes that comparatively fetch more income. |
The main challenge is scarcity of grazing land for the goats especially when the number has increased. |
During sharing of experiences, emphasis is being put on preparation of supplementary feeds that are locally available at no cost.
We are promoting planting of fodder trees in between the farm land. |
- Distribution and planting of oranges and seedlings.
- Identifying and verifying the orphans
- Planting and managing these seedlings.
|
New communities
Not much has been done yet
Old communities
- Experiences have been shared during the quarterly review meetings that have been held twice in each of the communities.
- Demonstration sessions have been conducted in which members are introduced to preparation of manure and local pesticides.
|
Prevalence of infections that affect the seedlings.
Lack of proper care due to attitude problems where fruits originated in the wild bushes and therefore require no care |
- Continous 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.
- We have introduced use of locally prepared pesticides to address issues of infections.
|
Training. Areas handled under training include;
- Skills development on practices of sustainable agriculture
- Conservations of our environment
- Sexual and reproductive health education plus HIV/AIDS
|
New communities
No training has yet been conducted
Old communities
- All the old communities have so far had 2 days training to address practical demonstration work in items like improved cooking stores, preparation of kitchen gardens for vegetable growing, preparation of manure and pesticides among others.
- The training as well has handled evaluation of our project activities.
|
- The level of application of learned skills is fairly poor
- The level at which the skills that have been learned is transferred to orphan families is low.
|
- We are preparing to increase the number of participants to include orphans or guardians.
- Community workers have agreed to step up the number of home visits that they make to the orphan families.
- Community workers promise to have most items at their homes
|
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January 2009 Letter received from Emmanuel
Dear Friends,
Eight weeks have passed since you very warmly welcomed Miriam and myself to your beautiful country. Yet I feel I was with you only eight hours ago! You protected us against not so friendly weather, providing warm clothing and housing. You fed us with a variety of delicious foods, nourishing our bodies. You facilitated us to learn about your way of life especially in regard to farming, education in schools, and praise and prayers in your churches. You arranged various community meetings and gave us audience to share with you experiences of life in Uganda and the humble work Miriam and myself do in Kumi District of Uganda. That work centres around giving social and economic support to young people who have lost one or both parents. It is implemented by CREATE and is called Kumi Orphans Project. Some of the groups we visited included farmers of cattle, sheep and goats, churches, primary schools, Llanfyllin and Newtown High Schools, church ministers, Oswestry Borderland Rotary Club, local councillors and people of other professions and walks of life.
The visit to your country was made possible and memorable by you the people. The purpose of this letter is for Miriam and myself to say in a very special way: “Thank you to all of you!” We would like to acknowledge the work done by members and friends of Dolen Ffermio. We most especially appreciate and acknowledge with deep gratitude the gifts you have bought for the children of Kumi through the Christmas Catalogue. We have been informed that you have once again demonstrated the true spirit of love and friendship that goes beyond the borders of Wales and United Kingdom by raising over £7,000 on gifts and cash donations of £3,000. To raise over £10,000 at a time of financial recession is a true act of love! These funds will go towards the purchase of various items for the orphans in Kumi. These items include: 139 packs of paper and pens, 96 x 3 tree seedlings, 144 lots x 5 laying hens, 104 female goats, 22 male goats, 24 school desks, 29 push bikes and training for 21 volunteers and the donations will be used to facilitate project implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
Dear Friends, as I said while with you, you are very welcome to Uganda. This is an open invitation. It does not have an expiry date, and no one is excluded because we feel Uganda is the country of your second home. Political leaders have a special role in building and strengthening partnerships across state borders. Let me therefore extend a special invitation to Mr Lembit Opik, Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire.
Happy and Blessed 2009!
Emmanuel Maraka
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