Our final day of immersion today and we were back to our
original three visitors-Michael, Jessi, and I.
Today we had quite an agenda to complete-including finding our own taxi
to Lugazi (30 minute ride) without any help.
The roads were busy today as it is market day. On our way to the taxi we passed some people doing lawn maintenance...with machetes. Their accuracy is unbelievable considering it is all done by hand.
Our group has about $1000 in donations to invest in the
microenterprise groups so we spent last night developing a short grant
application. This morning we needed to stop and print and copy the application on our way. The two places we stopped didn't have power so we couldn't print. The third place was out of ink. Finally, the fourth place we stopped was able to print and copy the application. Things like this might frustrate us in the U.S. but here they just say "TIA" (This is Africa) and no one loses patience.
Today Pastor Francis had
arranged for anyone who hoped to apply for a grant to come and get help with
the application if they thought they needed it.
We were expecting some of the microenterprises that we visited to come
and some of the women from Prosper’s women’s support group. We had about 13 applicants.
It was interesting to hear their stories as they talked
about the goals for their business and they needed to grow their business in
the future. We were hoping to focus the
requests on tangible items we could purchase while we’re here so we know the
money is used in the way it was intended.
Some of the applicants had very clear plans and visions. For example, George, the carpenter, is hoping
to invest in a heavy duty router (600,000shillings or about $200). With this he’ll be able to perfect some of
his carving techniques and provide his customers with a higher quality
product. Once he is more successful in
his business, he hopes to open an art gallery in his community because kids are
no longer exposed to art in schools like they were when he was a kid. Others just needed a bit of help to boost
their business. For example, several
women applied for some products like charcoal or baskets of fish to sell in
their road side shops.
The whole process was very interesting to me as we had
included a limit of 50,000 to 400,000 for the grants, but some people applied
for over 1.3 million (this would be about $380). I guess if someone told me they were going to
give away some money, I’d probably ask for as much as possible too. On Friday our group will go back to have a
Q&A with all of the applicants and then determine how to divide up our
funding among the applicants. I’m
excited to see what we decide and how we’re able to help.
At noon the students of the school put on a performance for
us since it was our last day. Every
grade level sang a few songs and many of them had special solos that
acknowledged each of us who had visited.
They were so sweet!
We had lunch with Pastor Francis and his wife and then
continued to gather information for the website Jessi is hoping to put
together. Time flew and before we knew
it, it was time for us to head back to Mukono. On the walk back to the UCU campus we happened upon two guys leading a camel down the street. Michael and I each paid $1 for a quick ride because...why not?! We arrived back just in time to meet up with all of the new arrivals. Now that our immersion week is over we'll begin the official Uganda program tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment