A group of women collectively sit outside a lone dwelling made from mostly cardboard and dirt. Their capable fingers work quickly as they roll glossy strips of paper into what will become handcrafted beads for sale all around the world.  Known for their brightly colored necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, perhaps you have even seen their crafts for sale at a location near you.  Indicative of the culture, the designs have led to the beader group established by Outreach Uganda, a 501c non-profit organization founded by Carol Davis in 2007, when she saw a need to help these women find a way out of the poverty stricken conditions they were living within.

Overcoming Poverty Starts with Land Ownership

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, the non-profit began with just a single beader village, and now recognizes over 200 members in the regions of Kitgum, Lamwo, and Jinja, in a sub-Saharan African country the size of Oregon.  From Denver to Uganda, Outreach Uganda has helped these women realize their potential and a growing income. Ultimately, their handicraft has served as recognition for their plight, while helping to reduce poverty and improve lives, especially in the areas of education, women’s empowerment, and self-sufficiency through job creation. But colorful beads are just the beginning for these women who see a future bright with possibilities. While the African beaders continue to prosper and even start small businesses of their own, Outreach Uganda is working to help them do even more; acquire land so they can build self-sustaining communities.

To fully understand the impact a property acquisition would have on these women, one must go back to the days of the 20 year war in the northern region which only ended in late 2008.  Many women were forced out of their homes, losing loved ones, ancestral lands and any hope of having their own home much less earning a supplemental income.  As a result, some migrated to southern Uganda where poverty conditions endured, lives succumbed, and hope was lost.  Land is not so easily acquired when you lack the means and emotional strength to afford it. In Jinja especially, a densely populated area with a daytime population of 200,000, the price of land parcels is costly.

Beader, Molly and family outside her current home

A Push for Self-Sustaining Communities

To date, there has only been about five such housing projects in Uganda, most of which began five to ten years ago and are unable to support the growing population. Outreach Uganda therefore foresees a growing humanitarian need to help these women obtain sizeable acreage upon which to build modest size homes. The plan is to start in Jinja where the dense population and continued migration from rural areas to the city has made land acquisition difficult for men and almost impossible for women.

Help Our Beaders Have a Real Home Like This

The non-profit organization has so far secured some of the funding so they can buy up to five acres upon which to build homes for these women and their families.  But more donations are still needed, so the 70 women beaders of the Jinja group can look forward to transitioning from the slums, where there is no running water or electricity, not to mention cramped one-room rented dwellings, and many illnesses.

Once the land has been acquired, there is no stopping supporters and volunteers willing to contribute supplies and labor in order to build, with microloans helping with the lending process. In all, the Jinja women beaders have voted to build mostly one story structures, with perhaps the possibility of a small building for community needs, and a garden area for growing vegetables. This opportunity will literally transform the lives of over 120 women and children, who struggle with the day-to-day issues of slum living.

Considering up to 15 percent of the Jinja group women are HIV positive, and most have been widowed at some point in their lives, they are a needy group supporting many orphans. Moving forward, the hope is for a ripple effect to take shape, enabling families to thrive, jobs to grow, and living conditions to vastly improve.

The beaders have made great strides in the past 6 years.  They dress better, eat better, can afford some medicines, and send their children to at least primary school.  But to propel themselves out of poverty forever, they need out of the unhealthy living conditions where they continue to be immersed in a very negative environment that holds them back. It’s hard to imagine a life where one cannot envision choices, dreams, or opportunity. Through Outreach Uganda, however, one small group is making a global impact.

Together, We Can Change the World

Outreach Uganda welcomes your support.

• Make a tax deductible donation through Global Giving at: http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/help-120-uganda-women-move-from-the-slum-to-a-home/
• Or online at: http://outreachuganda.org/how-to-help/donate
• Mail a donation to:

• Volunteer at: http://outreachuganda.org/how-to-help/volunteer

Donations of Supplies–Especially Needed for Upcoming Summer Trip:

Your donations of these and other badly needed program items will help make our cash donations go even further. 

• Reading glasses (especially lower strength ones)
• Women’s garden gloves or work gloves
• Lightweight rain ponchos (new or used)
• Small calculators w/solar ($2 – $4 kind) for women’s numbers training class,
• Student calculators w/solar ($10 to $15) -basic algebra & geometry functions,
• Juice Plus Powder (for our positive living women),
• Heavy duty all metal scissors for sewing/tailoring,
• Soccer shoes – older youth through adult sizes (used are fine),
• Airline miles donations (they want to see us often!),
• Sanitary pad kits – contact us for specific directions to make them,
• School supply collections: – pencils, pens (blue, black), colored pencils, crayons, markers and highlighters,
• USB (flash) drives – any capacity even 2 to 4 GB ones are okay,
• SD cards for cameras

 Thanks for providing critical support to our beaders, children, students and teachers in their struggle to overcome poverty. 

Bigger Wishes – Help Make These Wishes Reality with your Contribution

• We wish our beaders could become homeowners -  Donate to buy Jinja land and help our beaders move out of the slums
• We wish our girls would prolong marriage — donate for a university/vocational scholarship and help a girl earn a livable wage for the rest of her life
• We wish no beaders’ children would die of easily preventable causes– donate to our emergency medical fund so our beaders can quickly buy needed medicines to treat conditions like diarrhea, malaria and fevers 

Northern Ugandan honey is especially prized by customers because of its good taste influenced by the bees obtaining nectar from the plentiful shea trees in the north.  Our industrious Agwata women prepared a second apiary during 2012.  They hope to install additional hives by mid-2013.  Below, they are showing two U.S. volunteers one of their top bar hives which they named after previous U.S. volunteers.  The 2nd photo shows the group walking along a footpath through the bush to reach the beekeeping area.

Agwata women beekeeping project in northern Uganda - Lamwo

OU April 2013 Newsletter

April 2013 Newsletter - click here to access the newsletter

Outreach Uganda Needs Your Help

 

March Volunteer Needs:

Outreach Uganda needs your help in finding U.S. volunteers to work either virtually or in our office in the metro Denver area.  Do you know someone who wants to apply their corporate skills or personal passions and interests to help fight poverty?

Right now we have two critically needed volunteer opportunities for :

 WordPress Expert – you can help us do more complicated things on our web site such as adding forms, formatting columns and pages, linking to other items, making our site more search friendly, coordinating with social networking efforts

Newsletter Editor/Email Commuincations – you can be that special person who combines journalism and newsletter skills with email marketing savvy to generate an incredibly interesting and informative email newsletter for our customers, donors and partners.

Other ways you can help include:  Women’s Studies Advisor, Publicity Coordinator, Retail Product Branding Specialist, Office Worker at our metro Denver office (Highlands Ranch), sales and marketing professionals, and more.  If you don’t see your expertise listed, please email or call us at 303/683-8450 or email us at: carol@outreachuganda.org.

A Fond Farewell to Volunteer, Nura

We are finalizing plans for our trip to Uganda this summer.  Tentative dates are from mid-June to the end of July.  Volunteers are welcome to join us for as little as 7 days in-country.  If you’ve been considering volunteering, the time to decide is now!  Please email us or give us a call and we will be happy to answer your questions.  We have a Volunteer Information handout which we can send you.

Volunteers can do many varied tasks depending on your skills, passions, interests and time available.  Some examples of activities are: teaching English to our women beaders, and recording the background stories of our women beaders and children selected for sponsorship.

We are especially looking for volunteers with skills/interests in:

• videography & photography
• health and medical
• building construction
• teaching and ESL
• community planning and development
• improved agricultural methods & irrigation

Please contact us today.  We need to finalize our summer trip dates by late March or early April.

For most primary children, the cost is $21 per month.  You can read more details about the sponsorship program at “How to Sponsor a Child“.  Your sponsorship can change the life of a child forever!  Please help.  Here are some of the children needing sponsors as of March 11, 2013:

 

 

 

 

The above children are: Atim Brenda (age 5), Ankirara Joel (age 14), Acen Brenda (age 11) and Ojara Alfred (age 7).

Click here to sponsor one of these children and to see other children eagerly awaiting sponsorship. Please forward this information to family or friends you know who might also want to sponsor!

Our Jinja ladies cite this class as being the catalyst that changed them from being fearful of starting a business to becoming confident in their skills so that they can know how to operate their businesses and earn additional income for their families.  Almost every graduate interviewed, mentioned that the single biggest thing they learned was how to calculate and separate their profit from their capital investment, and then have the willpower to not touch the capital part of their money.

Adoch Betty proudly explained, “I was taught how to convince customers to buy my things and to talk in a good language to them.”  Adoch pointed out that the starting point for her business learning was  the English class in 2011 that was taught by ClaireMarie and other U.S. volunteers.  She fondly remembered how she had to go to the nearby Jinja supermarket and transact business there in English as part of her English training.

2nd Business Class Graduation Jinja feb2013

Gloria Jaganda receiving certificate from Michele and Joy Otim

Other graduates were also eager to share what key things they learned that enabled them to be successful with their businesses:

• Akello Florence – “I put everything in records so I can determine my profit. I used to keep no records!”
• Esther Lamunu – “I used to spend all my money. Now I know to keep savings.”
• Joyce Ocitti – “I know how to make budgets.  I’ll never remove all my money from the business, even if some problem comes up abruptly.”
• Betty Oweka – “[Before this class], I didn’t know what I was doing with my business and it collapsed.  Now I am going step by step. Yes, I can even speak English when necessary.”
• Ida Okello – “I know to budget and keep my capital even in the low season.”
• Latigo Christine – “If you have a business, you should have  a goal to do something big and important in your life in the future.”
• Jaganda Gloria – “I learned we have to be strong hearted and confident in what we are going to do.  You must be friendly.”

Congratulations to these graduates on their dedication to learning, and to applying what they have learned to their businesses and their lives!

Achiro Doreen at her neighborhood grocery kiosk. Her daughter is beside her.

Being in the recent business class sponsored by Outreach Uganda gave her the courage to start her own businesses during 2012.  During school holidays, she runs this grocery kiosk behind her home.  It is doing so well, that she has begun the process of expanding the kiosk so she can carry more products.  You can see in the left of the photo where she is assembling a frame of sticks.  Once she gets more money, she will complete the structure.

We wish Doreen well in her business, and will keep you updated on her progress!

Jinja Group in their New Brightly Colored Outfits

The above photo captures some of the group as they first greeted us. As you can see, they are very bright and beautiful.  And they had even made matching dresses for both Michele and I who are also in the photo.  It was a good, unexpected surprise when they welcomed us.  I think it shows the group’s unity and pride in what they have accomplished as a group.  With your continued help, and their unity and strong spirit, they will win their fight against poverty. And I do think their hearts are as bright and good on the inside as their dresses show on the outside!