May 2009 update... newsletter is on its way!

First we would like to thank:

• Equitop Farm, Gerrit & Ute Brinkmann of Canada for raising money to get our farming education centre back up and running
• Stuart Turnbull for raising US$750 toward our home visit program through his position on Varsity Council at his university in the USA
• Rudy for his continued support sponsoring the education of 5 local children, and for donating toward out administration costs in January
• CERN rugby club, the Scottish Geneva Football Club and The Clubhouse, Geneva for their support in helping to raise nearly US$2000 which went toward the Volunteer Centre and administration costs in February

Now for some updates…

Volunteer Centre

We have started building the volunteer centre. Phase 2 is complete and Phase 3 is in progress. Unfortunately, the world economic crisis is affecting all of us, funding has dried up, and construction to date may be damaged by the rains.
Until the roof is on (Phase 4) the centre will be at risk. We are all working hard to try and raise more funds.

We need to raise US$8,000 to complete the roofing phase of the project. This is our fundraising priority.

Home Visits

Our home visit program continues with volunteers visiting particularly poor families affected by HIV/AIDS. We have had very limited resources this quarter for food donations, but we have been able to provide homes with Tippy Taps and continue with the educational aspect of the program.

Our main focuses have been malaria prevention, safe food and water treatment, balanced diet and covering pit latrines.

School Programs

The schools where we teach have limited resources in terms of materials and teachers. The quality of teaching varies greatly, with many teachers having very limited training. Often the teachers are required to teach a greater number of students and classes than they can handle.
Several of our schools were very excited to find that our volunteer, Mia had experience tutoring math. She was quickly given several math classes to teach. The students loved her and the teachers were very impressed by the students’ progress.

With the 2nd term beginning Jeanette and Sam are working to increase our teaching programs. Kikaaya College and vocational are requesting teaching assistants to help teach business, computing and English. This is in addition to our usual teaching programs which include Life Skills, Nutrition, Health, Hygiene and HIV/AIDS sensitization.

Child Sponsorship

We have 30 children presently receiving sponsorship and a waiting list of 60 more children we are trying to find sponsors for.

Derrick is in the process of updating all our sponsor information. If you would like to sponsor a child please email us as soon as possible so we can get more children to school next term.

Piggery Farm

In partnership with Equitop Farm, Gerrit & Ute Brinkmann of Canada KACCAD is getting our farming education centre back up and running. Equitop Farm is doing a great job fundraising but it is inevitably tough in the current economic climate. We hope to have the farm up and running again in 6 months, stocking both chickens and pigs, and offering a training centre as well as a source of revenue. Additionally, a portion of the animals bred will be distributed to at risk members of our community on a rotation scheme.

Water Projects

Wakiso District government assigned the sub-counties of Nsangi and Namayumba to KACCAD for water project development. We have prioritized 42 communities within those sub-counties and at present we are working on finalizing needs assessments and working with the LC1s (grassroots local government officials) toward community mobilization.

When we talk about community mobilization we refer to getting the community ready to contribute resources toward building and maintaining the wells.

To mobilize the community, members must believe in the benefits of a project. If people are presently getting sick as result of contaminated water, we must ensure the community connects the sickness to the water.

Different communities will be able to contribute different levels toward each well. We need land, labour and financial resources to build the wells. All communities will contribute land and labour resources, and 20-50% of the financial resources.

Sanyu Babies Home

We are in the preliminary stages of a partnership with Sanyu Babies Home.

Lake Victoria Triathlon

Karen and Joanna represented KACCAD as part of a mixed team with Stephen (local Ugandan we found to replace Caleb at the last minute) in the Lake Victoria Triathlon. Karen swum 1km, Stephen biked 30 km and Joanna ran 10km. Our team came 2nd in the mixed team category.

Gorilla Half Marathon

Karen also ran the Gorilla Half Marathon in Jinja in May. This was a 21.8km run through beautiful scenery around the source of the Nile.

Sky Blue Music Video

Sophie, Lisa and Joanna were given the incredible opportunity to “dance” in the latest music video of Uganda’s up and coming band, Sky Blue. They had a fantastic time and you can see the video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3JOvREvCkQ

Our Employees

Derrick Luwaga - Director & Founding Member
Sam Musisi - TASO counselor, translator
Nicholas Ssekiranda - TASO counselor, translator
Sara - Mum to our volunteers
John - Security, piggery attendant

Our Volunteers

Caleb Fader
Peace Corps
Here: Oct 2008 – April 2009
From: US citizen brought up in Kenya
Focus: Water projects
Comments: Worked on mobilizing the community of Nsangi to help them tackle their water needs.

Jeanette Robinson
Peace Corps
Here: May 2009 – Dec 2010
From: American
Focus: HIV / AIDS sensitization
Comments: Jeanette replaced Caleb as our Peace Corp volunteer.

Joanna Williamson
Here: 6 Feb – indefinite
From: Scottish New Zealander
Focus: Teaching business skills
Comments: Last term Joanna helped in KACCAD’s office with administration work, but in the future Joanna will focus on teaching business. When we manage to source accounting software Joanna will continue work on KACCAD’s accounts.

Karen Graaff
Global Volunteer Network
Here: 1 March- 30 May 2009
From: South Africa
Focus: Administration, teaching - life skills
Comments: Along with teaching life skills Karen helped Joanna with proof reading and data entry of the accounts.

Kristin Sidoryk
A Broader view
Here: 22 Mar – 3 Apr 2009
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Focus: Home visits, tippy taps
Comments: Kristin is only with us for 2 weeks, but she jumped straight in doing several home visits on her first day.

Lisa Siedel
A Broader View
Here: 2 weeks in February
From: New York
Focus: Teaching - understanding cultural beliefs, life skills
Comments: Lisa had students gripped discussing why we believe the strange things we believe. Breaking down culturally created myths are important to teach life skills and help students understand the power they have to determine their futures through the choices they make.

Mia Witte
Global Volunteer Network
Here: Mid Feb – Mid Mar 2009
From: New York (Half Kiwi)
Focus: Teaching - maths & nutrition
Comments: Several of the schools were very excited to hear Mia had experience tutoring maths. Initially Mia thought she would be tutoring maths here, but soon discovered she would be teaching several full size classes. Teachers and students wished she could stay longer.

Sophie Davidson
Global Volunteer Network
Here: Mid Jan – Mid Apr 2009
From: USA
Focus: Home visits, teaching - life skills
Comments: Sophie originally planned to be with us for 2 months but changed her tickets to stay an extra month. She has fantastic energy and enthusiasm and has kept Kikaaya village well entertained. We will be sad to see her go.

Tara Hore
A Broader View
Here: April 2009
From: Australia
Focus: Home visits and some teaching
Comments: Tara also did a great job initiating the school holiday reading program.

Useful Links
Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/kyosigacommunity/
Blog: http://kyosiganews.blogspot.com
Project & fund raising info: http://KACCADprojects.blogspot.com
Website (waiting to be updated): http://www.volunteerKACCAD.org

Abstinence in the Best Way to Prevent HIV/AIDS, Student Mural Kawempe Royal College

Abstinence in the Best Way to Prevent HIV/AIDS, Student Mural Kawempe Royal College, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.

KACCAD volunteers have been working with students from Kawempe Royal College in Bbira on a second student HIV/AIDS mural project. the design was made by Namazzi Margerene, a senior one student. We have worked with her and other students to enlarge the design using a graphing technique. It has been a really fun project!

Letter from the Editor- KACCAD Newsletter, 3rd Quarter July- September 2008

Me and Derrick, Sept 08, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.

The following articles up to the list of thank yous are from our third quarter 2008 newsletter.

Dear KACCAD Friends,

Change is on the horizon. This will be the last newsletter I spearhead as it is my last full quarter with KACCAD. I am finishing up my two years work with KACCAD on November 21st, 2008. Before I finish our staff and I will be training KACCAD’s new Peace Corps volunteer, Caleb Fader, to continue the projects we have started. We will also look to utilize his strengths in other areas in service of our community. As a water resource engineer, I am sure that Caleb will help Wakiso Sub-County and KACCAD grow. All of us at KACCAD are very pleased to welcome him. Caleb will begin working with KACCAD on October 8th.

Looking back I am happy to see all we have accomplished in two years. The great work we have done in health and empowerment education for youth and adults, home based counseling for people living with HIV/AIDS, voluntary community HIV/AIDS counseling and testing, water and sanitation development, student sponsorship, community income generation development and trainings and so much more could not have done without the hard work of our volunteer team and Director, our partnerships and friends. I sincerely thank all of you who have helped us do so much in two years. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the KACCAD staff and volunteers who have made my experience in Uganda one of learning, fun, big challenges and much appreciated successes. I am grateful for the hard work and even the productive debates through which we have grown as an organization and in friendship. Though I will leave in November, I will continue to be a KACCAD member for life.

Take care,

Amanda Milholland
KACCAD Peace Corps Volunteer

Meet our Volunteers, 3rd Quarter 2008 Newsletter

Kat, Alesder and Eri, Bulenga Taxi, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.

Photo of Kat, Alasdair and Eri in the Back of a Public Taxi

We expanded our volunteer program this quarter with a new partnership with A Broader View Volunteer Corps. A Broader View is a US based non-profit organization offering short term placements for volunteers to work with international social projects in many countries. In September we received two volunteers from A Broader View, Alasdair Cross and Genevieve Parker. We are looking forward to growing more as an organization with a greater volunteer base.

Beth Pagan is from Gainesville, Florida, USA. She is a student at Florida State University and is studying International Affairs, Political Science and Leadership. She volunteered with KACCAD for two months, from May 15th – July 15th 2008. She taught about leadership skills, health and life skills at Kikaaya College, Bbira Vocational and Hajji Kiyemba Memorial Institute. She also helped with the second teacher training, creation of a volunteer handbook and assisted with organization of the student mural project.

Eri Tamura is from Nagano, Japan. She studies International Development Studies at the University of East Anglia in the UK. She volunteered with KACCAD for 3 months, from 15th June to 15th September. In her time with KACCAD she taught health and life skills at Kawempe Royal College, Kikaaya College, Bbira Vocational School and Hajji Kiyemba Memorial Institute. She helped paint the student HIV/AIDS mural at Kikaaya College and participated in the home visit program.

Kylie Cherpes is from Lyons, MI, USA. This fall she will be finishing up her final year at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI, where she will complete her degree with a Liberal Studies major. Her emphasis is on Global Social Justice with a Political Science minor. During her two month stay with KACCAD she worked with our Empowerment Education program, helped with the student mural project and participated in home visits to families affected by HIV/AIDS. Kylie, Eri and Beth also helped make bricks at the KACCAD community/volunteer center site.

Fardin Chadorshabchi worked with KACCAD during the month of August. He is Iranian born living in Toronto, Canada. Fardin is currently completing his final year studying Criminology at York University. His previous volunteer work has been with groups including the Economic Club of Toronto (ECOT), Canadian International Council (CIC), Iranian Canadian Network (ICN) and Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted (AIDWYC). Fardin worked with the Empowerment Education program and did home visits to people living with HIV/AIDS during his time with KACCAD. He also helped on the Kikaaya Student HIV/AIDS Mural project.

Kat Gordon is from London, England. She graduated from Oxford University in English Literature. She is preparing to pursue a Masters in creative writing in the fall. She volunteered with KACCAD for one month from 15th August to 15th September. During this time she was involved in home visits to families affected by HIV/AIDS and taught at Bbira Vocational School, Kawempe Royal College and Kikaaya College. She also started a gymnastics program for a local boys’ football team to help build strength, agility, teamwork and confidence.

Joanna Williamson, who is half-Scottish, half New Zealander and lives in Switzerland, stayed with us during the month of September, celebrating her 28th birthday here in Kikaaya. In Geneva, Joanna works for the Corporate Learning EMEA office of the business school Thunderbird School of Global Management (the main campus is in Phoenix, Arizona). Joanna taught Small Business Skills with a focus on Budget Management to vocational students, young women who had dropped out of school early, women’s group members and the general community.

Alasdair Cross, from Scotland, worked with KACCAD for two weeks in August. He is a student at the University of Dundee with a focus on neuroscience. He is also studying to be a pilot. During his time with KACCAD he worked with our education program and helped Kat teach gymnastics.

Genevieve Parker from Washington D.C will be working with KACCAD for 3 months. She started her service at the beginning of September. She is a high school graduate from The Potomac School, a small school just outside of Washington D.C. She plans to attend Hofstra University on Long Island, NY starting the fall of next year. At The Potomac School, she did some African studies which initially excited her for travel and life in Uganda. Her previous volunteer experience is in child tutoring and mentoring with children aged 5-13, work she has been doing for the past four years. This past summer she worked with The Potomac School Summer Day Camp as a counselor for Chorus, Arts and Crafts and Theatre. Gennie is currently working with the KACCAD education and home visit programs. She and Sarah are also working to design water and hygiene programs for the school and communities we work with that we will be carrying out in October.

Sarah Beal is from Upper Arlington, Ohio. Sarah graduated from Miami University of Ohio in 2006 and has been working in the areas of nonprofit management and fundraising ever since. She began working for CMT Entertainment in 2006 where she managed the "Music Drives Us" foundation as well as helped with event planning and fundraising efforts for corporate and non-profit partners. Most recently Sarah worked for the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund as a part of the fundraising team. Although, this is her first time traveling to Uganda, Sarah volunteered in Ghana during the summer months of 2005 and has been planning to return to Africa ever since. During her time spent in Ghana she assisted patients in their travel to medical facilities to ensure proper care and treatment were administered, as well as sought out those in need of medical attention. Sarah also worked alongside community volunteers to build a new community center for Abrafo Odumasi. Lastly, she was able to travel to various school sites to observe the classroom setting as well as provide tuition assistance to sponsored students. Sarah will be working with KACCAD for 3 months supporting our Empowerment Education and HIV/AIDS home visit programs.

Getting Started

Sarah and Genny Teaching at Bbira Vocational, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.

Photo of Genny and Sarah Teaching at Bbira Vocational School.

By Genevieve Parker

During my first weeks at KACCAD I have been working with six different schools teaching HIV/AIDS prevention, teen pregnancy and its consequences, the immune system, and life skills to lead a healthy, positive lifestyle. I have been very impressed with the methods that KACCAD volunteers and Peace Corps workers have come up with to help the students understand the lessons. These methods include role play for teen pregnancy, fun and interesting games for the immune system, and creative colorful charts for HIV prevention. I was also very lucky to begin teaching at another school, Bbira Primary, in which we will be teaching and talking to the teachers every Wednesday, before we teach their students every Thursday. I am very excited about working with both the teachers and the students so that once we have taught the teachers these new lesson plans and methods they will be able to continue these lessons independently.

In my first couple of weeks I have also had the opportunity to go on a few home visits in which we talk to family members who are living with HIV or AIDS. We are given the time to ask these family members how they are feeling, what their home situation is, if they have proper beddings and mosquito nets. Most importantly, these home visits allow these community members to have voices and know that they are being heard. On my first home visit, where I mostly listened and watched two other volunteers ask the questions, one of the volunteers returned to a woman they had visited about a week ago and gave her a new mosquito net because she had told them that she did not have one during the last home visit. After the questions we also leave food for the family. Thus far, I am very impressed and glad to be apart of the work going on here at KACCAD.

A Note from Nicholas Ssekiranda
On the HIV/AIDS Empowerment and Support Home Visit Program

In this quarter, we managed to visit 60 homes of people living with HIV/AIDS in Lukwanga, Ssumbwe and Nakabago Parishes. At each home we gave families food stuffs like sugar, a bar of soap, beans and rice. We also gave them counseling and taught them how they can clean their surroundings by clearing bushes, to empty all ponds which are around their homes, to wash their hands after and before eating food and also to cover their toilets. All these steps are our way of helping protect client’s health with “positive living” information and strategies.

Teaching Buisness Skills

Joanna Teaching at Kikaaya Vocational School, September, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.

By Joanna Williamson

On arrival Sam took me around a number of the businesses here in Kikaaya and Bulenga. Conversing with the women running the businesses I found that few, if any, made any attempt to keep books on expenses or sales. Many businesses were selling their products at minimal profit. Few had any idea what their total expenses amounted to. For some of the women, when their business was short of cash flow, their husbands (if they had one) would give them extra cash to cover business expenses. This makes it very difficult to see which businesses are even potentially profitable, let alone which businesses are profitable. For all the women I spoke to there was no differentiation between business and personal expenses and income. When there is no cash, women often take out a loan at a high interest rate putting there businesses and homes at risk. Paying back theses loans puts further strain and increases the running cost of the business. Sometimes these loans are not for business expenses but for personal expenses such as school fees. Production methods are not improved, the low profit margins remain and, with it, poverty.

One example of the above is a woman who is making baskets. When she came to class we looked at the cost of all the materials required to make the baskets. Then we looked at the price she sells the baskets and the number of baskets she is able to produce and sell each week. At maximum production capacity she is making a weekly profit of 850 shillings (just under $.50). This will cover the cost of one meal.

Another example is a woman with chickens who is selling eggs. When looking at all the expenses, the number of eggs produced and sold, the price and, therefore, average monthly income, we found that the woman should be making a profit of 70,000 shillings per month (this is after personal expenses). Yet this same woman is not able to save any money. Either she is being unrealistic about her actual personal and business expenses and/or income… or the lack of budget management is leading to over-expenditure. This same woman has just had to take out a large loan to cover school fees for her children.

Other than basic budgeting, a key area I chose to work on was to try and teach people “how to think”. We take it for granted in our western schools that we learn analytical and creative thinking skills. We are brought up culturally (rightly or wrongly) to question everything. Our minds are trained from a young age to analyze situations and look for better solutions. Here in Uganda the school system appears to still focus on learning through repetition and memorizing “facts.” I apologize for my accusation if this is not the case. I have only been here for one month and can only talk from my impressions during this short time. My impression is that memorizing what the teacher tells you is the most common learning method. In western schools, on the other hand, we will read passages by 2 or more different authors of the same event and are than asked to analyze and form our own opinions giving justification for why we have come to our conclusions. It cannot be underestimated how this affects the students’ ability to set-up and run successful and profitable businesses.

Firstly, finding an idea for a good business requires questioning our surroundings: What is available? What could be? Is there a potential market for a product? Would the potential customers be able to afford and be prepared to pay a price which would give the product a good profit margin? How much competition is there? What would be the product’s unique selling point? There are many more questions an entrepreneur needs to think about even at this early “idea stage.” My early impression here is that most people tend not to attempt to come up with new ideas or even to improve current businesses ideas. People tend to copy the “successful businesses” they see. If someone is doing well selling charcoal, everybody wants to sell charcoal, and to the point that competition eliminates/minimizes the profit margin.

Even if someone does have a great idea, where do they get the money from to make it happen? There is a severe lack of capital. To make matters worst money lenders take advantage, only offering loans at crippling interest rates that make it very difficult to get a new business up and running.

Low self-esteem also affects a person’s ability and willingness to take risk and come up with new and exciting ideas. From my short time here my impression is that we need to help teach and encourage creative and analytical thinking to facilitate the ability of people to come up with business ideas, to research the idea’s potential and to ultimately improve the ability to run successful businesses. It is not only a matter of learning how to budget, but demonstrating the advantages of budgeting, the advantages of forward planning, showing people how marketing, improving selling skills, customer service, analyzing production methods etc… can improve profitability. Low self-esteem appeared to hinder my students as they constantly looked to me for all the answers and don’t seem to trust their own opinions and their own ability to analyze their business/idea.

Donations toward teaching materials, books with ideas and exercises to help teach/encourage critical thinking, new business ideas, budgeting, book-keeping, selling skills and marketing would all be a great help to KACCAD. In the future it would be great to have a pool of money that KACCAD could have to give small micro-loans at affordable interest rates to students who have good, well planned business ideas. Essentially this would also require a full-time, long term volunteer/employee to teach business/entrepreneurship and administer the business loans/donations giving continued support to recipients.

Women Running Sucessful Buinesses-Newsletter

Nannono Betty, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.

Las quarter we reported about the efforts of the beneficiaries from the group chicken rearing project to create small businesses after the theft of over half of the chickens from that project. Though that theft was a major blow to the seven women who were actively involved in the project, most of the beneficiaries have since invested their share from the sale of the remaining chickens into sustainable income generation projects. We are pleased to report the progress of two of these women.

Nakku Benna sells charcoal and is saving to expand her business to sell fire wood as well. With the profits from charcoal sale she has also started pig rearing and is currently raising two pigs. She is planning to bread these pigs for growth of this project.

Nannono Betty is running a fruit and vegetable stand where she sells tomatoes, local greens, green pepper, eggplant, onions, matooke bananas and other produce. She is saving to expand this business to sell other produce. These two women as well as one other beneficiary from the former chicken rearing project have been attending classes taught by Joanna on business management. Both women are looking forward to using some of the budgeting strategies and business assessment skills to strengthen their businesses.

KACCAD will continue to work with all the beneficiaries of the former chicken rearing project to help them build sustainable projects. Thank you Lee Miller, Maheen Merchant and With God’s Little Ones for your donations for the chicken project which are now being put to work to help these women run independent income generation activities.