Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) Pet Shop Boys

Today we had two main areas of focus-microenterprises and supporting economic development and whole child education.  We were spending most of the day at Pastor Francis’ school and we learned the meaning of the phrase “TIA” (This is Africa) when we learned late the night before that Pastor Francis wouldn’t be there because he was in Rwanda.

This was actually not a huge problem since Jessi, Michael, and I had been there for a week and had a good understanding of all of the projects so we were able to help lead the group.  We made a quick stop at George’s yogurt shop so the other participants could see one of the more successful microenterprises that Pastor Francis has assisted.  We then walked to the school for a quick introduction and tour before the students had their break.  Once on break, everyone spent time playing and talking with the kids who are so personable and loving they can’t be resisted!

At eleven o’clock we began our microenterprise work.  We asked all of the microgrant applicants to come and speak about their requests.  We had about twenty applicants and so divided into two groups with each of our participant groups hearing from about ten applicants.  It was so fun to share some of the stories we had been hearing all week with the rest of our group.   

Here are just a few of the stories we heard:

George owns a yogurt shop.  He started as a small business out of Pastor Francis’ house.  He now has a shop on the main road and sells yogurt, juices and bagged water.  He owns a plastic sealer, which allows him to seal the plastic bags containing all of his products and he sells to individual customers and also supplies some grocery stores.  When the sealer overheats he has to stop work for two hours while it cools down so he was asking for a new sealer (250,000 shillings or $83) so he could alternate the use of them.  He also asked for a label maker (150,000 shillings or $50) as he is interested in making his own label and developing his own brand of yogurt.

Zemu is a single mom of three.  She has been raising chickens for eight years and teaching her children how do it as well.   She requested about $120 for 30 more chickens, feed, and some cement so she can construct a building to hold her chickens.

James owns a millet grinding business.  He has been successful but would like to purchase some large bags of millet (300,000 shillings or $100) so he can get ahead on his profits and reinvest them in his business.  He also requested some seeds so he can grow more millet and generate more profits in the future.  In the long term he’d like to develop better marketing and branding for his business and expand to more wholesale customers.

Celestina is a single mother of two who has advanced HIV.  She has been selling small food items and charcoal in a roadside shop for the past seven years.  She requested about $100 worth of items for her shop ranging from charcoal to fish to cooking oil to bananas and spices.  These funds would help her develop and expand her business.

 

Charles is a carpenter by trade but an artist at heart.  He went to three years of art school and then determined he must make functional art in order to make money.  He does beautiful wood carved furniture as well as some sculpture projects.  Charles doesn’t have employees but rather hires secondary students from local schools on the weekends in order to teach them the skills of the trade.  Charles requested 600,000 shillings for a heavy duty router so his work will be more consistent quality and faster as currently they are using a hand chisel.

Helen is a single mother of six whose husband rarely comes home. For the past year she has been traveling to the market once a week and buying clothes and then selling them door to door in her neighborhood.  Helen requested 200,000 shillings worth of clothes (about $70) in order to help get her business gaining more profits and so she would not have to travel to the market and pay transportation for a few weeks.

Fred is currently a cook at a school but his dream is to become a farmer.  He has moved back to his village and built a pen for pigs and a coop for chickens himself to save on expenses.  He has seven pigs already and requested 150,000 shillings ($50) to buy three more so he can begin breeding them in a few months.  Once he makes enough money he’d like to buy up to 300 chickens and use that money to expand his business, feed his family, and pay his children’s school fees.

Margaret is a widow with five children.  Her meat shop has been open five years where she sells pork and other food items.  She is currently renting a food stand and she would like to open her own shop.  She requested about $100 worth of products for her shop.  She hopes to earn enough money to acquire her own shop and pay school fees for her children.

Each person was given a few minutes to talk about their business and then our group members asked some questions.  We had some new applicants that required translations so our process took quite a bit longer than we had been expecting.

We worked until lunch and then headed off to the Sugar Corporation complex where we had an amazing Indian lunch and also toured the golf course.  The flowers were amazing.  After lunch, we were back to Canaan School for a presentation on child psychology in Uganda and then we wrapped up the microenterprises.  It was a busy day!

Team-Lorde

This morning begins the official Uganda program.  While we’ve been working on immersion projects, spending time working with specific organizations in depth, this week we will be getting more of an overview of Ugandan education and community programs and visiting several places and having discussion sessions of various topics each day.

Nine new people have joined our group, bringing our total number to 19.  Since half of us have been together for two weeks and the other half are new, we started the day with some team building.  We drove through a rainforest to Adventure Park on Lake Victoria.  The scenery was beautiful! 

We divided into teams and had several relay competitions.  We were climbing rope ladders, hopping in burlap sacks, army crawling under nets, hula hooping, dancing, and having a blast for two hours.  Each team won a competition so I would say the bonding goal was successfully accomplished!

We had a delicious lunch and then a presentation on the Ugandan school system.  In Uguanda there are 7 years of primary school, 4 years of lower secondary school, 2 years of upper secondary school and 3-5 years of university.  In 1997 Uganda passed a policy called Universal Primary Education and ten years later, in 2007, they passed Universal Secondary Education.  While the effort was well intended, there were significant obstacles to the success of the program.  For example, there are not enough teachers to teach all of the students, there is not enough funding to ensure every student can attend school so parents must pay fees-even for public school, there are not enough textbooks, and many teachers don’t show up consistently because they are paid poorly.  As a result, 68% of Ugandans don’t complete primary school, only one third of those continuing complete secondary school, and only 3.3% complete university.

 

Many girls will drop out of school around ages 12-14 to get married or they become pregnant.  Also, many students will drop out because they don’t have enough food and are hungry.  Boarding schools are preferred by parents because they are seen as being “better”.  About 35% of primary schools are boarding schools and almost all secondary schools are boarding schools.  Commercialization of education has also become a problem because many will see schools as a money-making operation and they compete for students but don’t necessarily provide a sound education.  Many students attend school because of “sponsorships” from wealthy Ugandans or people in the U.S. or Europe.  However, this can be problematic as well because once a student is sponsored, their parents may not claim them any longer in fear that they’ll lose their sponsorship.  At the heart of many of these problems is an overall lack of economic development.  There is high unemployment so even if someone attends university they may still make less than a boda boda man.  There are obviously many challenges facing Ugandan schools but we are here to learn about how people are tackling these challenges and finding ways to help students.

A girls' boarding room

Some of the things schools are doing that are proving successful are focusing on application and skills based learning and focusing on the whole child and meeting all of their mental and emotional needs.  After our presentation, we were off to visit a school for a music and dance presentation and a discussion about the role of music in Ugandan schools.  We were welcomed to Christ the King Primary School (Ugandan is very Christian and many schools and shops have religious names) by all of the students.  After a quick tour we sat down for the performance.  This school is fairly small (it has about 250 students) and many students receive sponsorships in order to attend school.  The condition of the classrooms was pretty similar to the conditions at Pastor Francis’ school-wooden benches, homemade learning materials on the walls, one chalkboard.  Students receive a snack of porridge at 10:30 and then either go home for lunch or have lunch at the school if they can’t afford to eat.

The school bell

The students performed a number of welcome songs and several traditional Ugandan dances.  These are becoming recognizable to me and are known for super fast hip movements.  The students asked us to perform for them so we did a round of Row, Row, Row Your Boat, the national anthem and wrapped up with a dance to the “Casper Cha Cha Slide” which was a big hit and had all of the students cracking up.

The teachers were introduced and we talked about the role of music in schools in the U.S. and Uganda.  In elementary grades, the role if pretty similar with students attending music classes a few times each week for about an hour.  However, in Uganda, students learn traditional songs, dances, and drumming.  They learn the dances of their own tribal groups as well as those of others to promote unity among Ugandans.  After the discussion, we asked the students why they thought it was important to use music in school and their answers were insightful.  They said, it takes away stress, it makes you happy, promotes friendship, and promotes unity.

 

After the discussion, we all stood up and the students tried to teach us some Ugandan dance moves.  They were so hard and the students had some good laughs at our expense.  As we drove away, students chased our bus for more than a mile.

I Need a Dollar-Aloe Blacc

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.

Drink the Water-Jack Johnson

When you’re in a new place where so many things are different from what you’re used to, you learn to appreciate new and simple things.  One thing I have really come to appreciate is running water.  Water is a major issue here, and by major I mean it is a huge factor impacting every single Ugandan’s daily life in a significant way.

Learning early how to carry water like her mom

The local government is responsible for providing access to water but “access” can mean making sure there is a tap or well somewhere in the vicinity.  Most people do not have running water and, as a result, spend large parts of the day fetching water from nearby sources.  They also spend huge amounts of energy lugging heavy water jugs back home.  The yellow jugs that are most commonly used are 17 liters, or about 4.5 gallons.  Students must fetch water for their schools as well.  You think a lot more about your water consumption when you’re washing your hands with water that elementary students had to carry ¾ of a mile.

While water is a very serious topic here, it does make me laugh when they’ve lost the lid to a water container so stuff a banana in to keep the water from spilling out.  I would say that happens on about 1/3 of the water containers I’ve seen.

We were back to work with Pastor Francis and today when we arrived he was busy at work planting vegetables in his garden.  During the morning break I broke out a portable speaker and we had a dance party.  It was amazing and all of the students joined in-it was amazing!!

During classes I went with Michael to the P6 class and I enjoyed spending some time with the older students.  The students are basically in grade 6 and their ages ranged from 11-18.  They were learning about public health issues so I talked with them a bit about my insulin pump and how it worked.  We had a little competition and the winner got to have their blood sugar tested and eat a glucose tablet-they were coveted prizes and the teacher wanted to have hers checked too.

In the afternoon we visited  the final microenterprise.  This one was in a more rural village so we had to take a taxi there.  Taxis are basically 15 passenger vans but they often hold up to 20 people.  They have semi-set routes and people hop off and on at quasi-designated stops.

Once we arrived in the village, we walked through the town, gathering a following of 20 kids along the way.  We finally came to a piggery where we met Fred and his family.  Fred currently works as a cook at a local school.  However, his goal is to become a pig and chicken farmer and he is well on his way.  He has 7 pigs and hopes to start breeding them in another month or so.  He is also 75% of the way done building his chicken coop and then he hopes to have several hundred chickens so he can sell the eggs.  Fred’s work ethic was amazing as he was building everything himself-the coop, the pig pen, etc. on his time off from work.  He invited us into his home because traditional beliefs say that will bring blessings to his house.  Then he insisted upon providing us with food and water (even though we had just eaten lunch) because that would ensure the blessing came.  He served up pork of course-it was quite delicious.

We hopped back on a taxi and unfortunately ran into rush hour traffic so it took us quite awhile to get back to Mukono.  Once there, we gathered for a farewell dinner as several people will be heading back to the U.S. Wednesday (including Tami :(.  I was sad to see them go.