Support Outreach Uganda on the second annual Colorado Gives Day, December 6, 2011, when we need you to come together and raise millions of dollars online for nonprofits like Outreach Uganda. Last year, the goal to raise $1 million for Colorado charities was exceeded. $8.7 million was distributed instead!

 Presented once again by Community First Foundation and FirstBank, we ask that you give to Outreach Uganda through the website,  www.GivingFirst.org, an online giving resource featuring all of the nonprofits participating in Colorado Gives Day. You can give as little as $10 or as much as your heart and your wallet will allow.  On this web site, we share our goals, accomplishments, program information and much more!

• 100 percent of your donation comes directly to Outreach Uganda when you give through GivingFirst.org (they pay the credit card fees).
• When you give online any time on December 6, the value of your donation will be increased by the FirstBank Incentive Fund (they have pledged $500,000.00 for this day’s Giving event), and by other incentive funds provided by Colorado businesses.

Please Help Us Win Cash Prizes! We have a chance to win $1,000 Bonus Bucks and $5,000 High-Five cash prizes when you remember us on Colorado Gives Day through online giving! 

 Donate online to Outreach Uganda at: www.givingfirst.org/OutreachUganda any time over the 24 hour period of December 6 to maximize your giving!  Thank you so much for your support at any time, and especially on Colorado Gives Day!

For Rwot-tek members, life is a daily struggle. The women struggle to provide daily food for themselves and their families. Most of the women are renting huts for $6 to $20 per month depending on the number of huts they are renting. However, because they are renting, there is little land nearby on which they can grow food. If they try to rent land farther away, then their crops may be stolen before they can be harvested.

The Kitgum beaders hope that their bead sales will grow substantially, so that their income from selling the beads will also grow. This group of beaders was more traumatized by the immediate affects of the war in northern Uganda, and seems to have a more difficult time learning new skills. Many of our beaders have stories to tell of how the war dramatically impacted their lives. Because life is so fragile here, we pay the ladies for their beads ratably throughout the year, even though the sales are more skewed to the months of September through December.

In 2010, the Kitgum group began renting its office/training rooms. They also began providing beginner classes in tailoring and computer skills, and began a group piggery project in addition to the group goat project which started in 2009. The group looks forward to continued expansion of both its programs and its membership in 2011.

We are also very excited that a volunteer from the U.S., Alayna, will be spending one year with the Kitgum and Agwata groups beginning in April 2011. We know this will help these groups progress in both their bead making capabilities and also in their management and business skills as a group.

More than anything else, the Kitgum ladies have hopes and dreams for their children. They are excited that they can go to school and have a chance to continue their education even into secondary school. While the war was going on, school was interrupted for many children. Many young adults now in their 20s were unable to continue with their schooling because the schools were closed.

Bead Party Sales Make a Tremendous Difference The women beaders and their group receive $7 out of every $10 item sold. That’s better than a “fair trade” price. All U.S. labor is volunteer so the Ugandan women receive all profits from the necklace sales. One bead party often generates more income than one Ugandan woman could earn if she previously worked all year. It helps them to send their children to school, to feed their families every day, to buy needed medicines, and even to start their own businesses.
Simple and Easy to Host! Hosting a bead benefit party for the women is very easy and extremely rewarding. There is no cost to you to host a party. We suggest inviting 20 to 30 people you know to the party. This can be neighbors, co-workers, friends, people from church or school, or relatives. We will supply you with everything you need as a party hostess:

• Lots of colorful bead necklaces, bracelets and earrings
• Simple instruction form and sales summary form
• Sample invitation form which you can print from your computer
• Informational Uganda brochures
• Return envelope and return address label
• Pictures of the Pit-tek Women and inspiring quotes from them
• Three Ugandan recipes

Contact Us It’s easy! Just complete the form below to reserve a date for your bead benefit party. We’ll help walk you through the entire process from there!

By the late 1990s, many of the Agwata beaders were forced to live in one of two nearby IDP camps during the war with the LRA. Many of their children knew of only life in the IDP camp until two years ago. The people were forced into these camps by the Ugandan government for their own protection. By late 2008, the larger IDP camps were being disbanded and the inhabitants were forced into smaller IDP camps near their original villages. At the same time food rations from the World Food Program were being discontinued. 2009 was a difficult year of no food rations and very little food from newly planted crops either along nearby roadsides or in the area of the village where they were supposed to re-settle. A failed rainy season in 2009 resulted in extreme hunger and some starvation for the community as they began the resettlement process.  2010 was an improvement with more fruitful plantings and more acreage being cultivated.  2011 continued with much hard work in hand tilling additional acreage and undertaking more group activities.

In 2010, these ladies began to learn bead making so that in the last half of the year, they began producing loose beads and paper beaded bracelets for Outreach Uganda, and as a group, they began to acquire a few goats and chickens.  The group expanded its income-generation capabilities in 2011 when it began a group beekeeping project, and began growing of a few cash crops.

The biggest effort of both the Agwata community and the beader group women was to build and support the Agwata primary school which began in February 2010 with students in classes P-1 and P-2 and then quickly expanded to also included P-3 students by mid-year. The 2011 school year began with 180 students enrolled in P-1 to P-4 classes.  At this same time, the school began providing a mid-day meal for both students and teachers since the children were normally only eating once a day in the evening.

The community was motivated to start this school for the very youngest students who otherwise would have had to travel up to 4 kilometers away to the nearest school which was already overcrowded and with few teaching resources.

2011 finds the group learning additional bead making skills, and the community hard at work making bricks and making plans to further expand the local primary school which started its third year beginning  February 2012 with over 200 students in P-1 to P-5.

Most members of this group are Acholi women from northern Uganda whose families chose to flee the war in north in the late 1980s through the 1990s. When they did this, they abandoned their original ancestral lands and gave up their lives as agrarian farmers and livestock raisers to live a life of poverty in the slums of Jinja where they were safe from the war but where they became victims of many other diseases of poverty.

Many of our Jinja women have lost husbands, children and family members to the war, as a result of HIV/AIDS, accidents, or illnesses and diseases such as malaria and diarrhea which are all too common for those living in poverty. The name of Pittek is certainly a fitting name for these courageous women.

Pittek started as group in 1995 to provide support to each other and to also allow its members to obtain standard micro-credit loans and begin small businesses. These women have continued to unite and empower each other, and beginning in 2007, to promote each individual member’s talents, and undertake groups projects to generate income and to help the community.

Outreach Uganda began working with Pittek in mid-2007 when Carol Davis, the founder, came to teach them computer skills, a class which continues today under the tutelage of a native Ugandan instructor. Outreach Uganda immediately also began marketing the groups craft products which in 2007 consisted solely of paper beaded necklaces. More paper bead items and designs were later added including sling bags and earrings in 2008 and tie-dyed silk scarves in 2009. Training programs were greatly expanded and now include:

• English and literacy
• Computer and internet training
• Tailoring classes – all skill levels
• Specialized paper bead making skills
• Tie-dyeing training
• Health and parenting skills
• Management, leadership and business skills

Pittek members in turn have offered their skills to help train members of our Kitgum and Agwata beader groups.