Uganda Rural Fund & Hope Integrated Academy

Spring 2007 Updates

Dear friends,

It is with great pleasure that I send you warm greetings from all of us here at URF.

Thanks to all of you who have supported us in various ways. Without your generosity and hard work, this progress would not have been achieved. Please allow me to share with you some of the recent developments within URF. An official newsletter will be coming out soon. You may sign up on our website to receive a copy by mail or by email.

Websites:

            Uganda Rural Fund USA, www.ugandaruralfund.org 

            Hope Integrated Academy, www.hopeacademyuganda.org

Construction (14 room structure with 10 classrooms and 4 offices): Steady progress has been made over the past several months. All the walls have been raised. See attached pictures. The building needs a roof ($20,000), a concrete floor ($6,000), windows and doors ($5,300). So far, we have collected $4,000 toward the roofing cost. We already have the funds for furniture ($2,000 from a peace and justice award to John Mary). We recently applied for a $1000 grant from a Wisconsin foundation to go towards the cost of windows.  

Vocational School: We plan to kick off with the vocational section. It is the most urgently needed educational institution in the community. There is only one such school in the entire district (state). Rural areas have a high concentration of poor unskilled youth who have dropped out of school either because their parents died or because their parents are too poor to send them to high school or college. When these youth start their own families, the cycle carries on since they also can’t afford to send their kids to school. We hope that by providing these youth with vocational skills, we can help them become self-sustaining and thus break this cycle of poverty.

Programs: We are considering training in agriculture (the majority of Ugandans are farmers), carpentry, tailoring, computer skills, handicrafts, hair dressing, candle and shoe making, bricklaying & concrete, mechanics, small business management skills, adult literacy education, and catering. We recently conducted a survey among the local people and found out that the above courses were thought to be the most beneficial to the community.

Adults as well as young adults will be eligible to attend vocational education courses.   We hope in the future to offer basic literacy classes and English (spoken and written) for adults.   Literacy is especially critical to empowering women and giving them the means to participate in community governance.

Community library and Computer center:will serve as a community resource center since the majority of rural schools lack such resources. It will be open to all students and adults in the neighboring villages. There are about 13 schools in a mutable distance whose students would potentially benefit from these resources. Some schools don’t even have a single computer for the administration. Students primarily study from notes taken in class and do not have access to textbooks. We have received more than 25 donated computers from St. John’s University, Benedictine high school, and Federated insurance company. An organization called Books for Africa promised to donate books but we need to have funds for shipping to Uganda. It costs about $7,000 to ship a container to Uganda. We also hope to set up an internet café to enable students to access online educational materials and also connect the community to the outside world.

Health Clinic: We will need a school clinic staffed by a fully qualified nurse with the oversight of a doctor and a visiting dentist.  Probably on a cost-sharing basis, we will extend our health resources to the community.  Malaria, influenza, dysentery, TB, Hepatitis, yellow fever, polio, and HIV related opportunistic infections are very common in the area, and access to medicine is both geographically and financially difficult for most villagers. We still need medical supplies and funding to set up the clinic. Volunteer nurses, doctors, or nutritionists will be welcome.

Water/Sanitation: The village well where the Academy is located is very shallow. It quickly dries out during the dry season. Its water is not safe for drinking because it used both for domestic and animal consumption. This problem needs to be addressed because there are a lot of health related problems caused by the lack of clean drinking water.

We recently partnered with Engineers without Boarders (EWB), a non-profit organization of professional engineers and engineering students who provide practical and sustainable solutions to development needs of communities in the developing world. The EWB Chapter at the University of Minnesota has generously agreed to design a water/sanitation system for the academy and the neighboring community. A survey trip is scheduled for May 2007. You may visit their webpage to read about the Academy http://www.tc.umn.edu/~ewb/projects_uganda.html.

Power/Energy Needs: The electrical power supply in Uganda is quite erratic and spotty, providing about 6 intermittent hours of power a day.   We need a more reliable and low maintenance power supply source. It should provide appropriate means of generating power for a well pump.   Other equipment that will need reliable power includes refrigerators, medical equipment in the Clinic, administrative computers and the computer lab’s computers, and some of the vocational school equipment. 

The EWB Chapter at Virginia Tech has made the initiative to design a power system to provide reliable energy for the school. The best alternative sought involves using solar energy. A survey trip is also scheduled for May, 2007. The two teams are collaborating on various aspects of these projects.

Volunteers: URF is an all-volunteer organization and thus depends solely on the generosity and commitment of volunteers. We have established a short-term and long-term volunteer program. Our volunteers come from all over the world. They include groups or individual college students and adults. This year our volunteers come from England, the U.S, Israel, the Netherlands, Canada, Austria, and Uganda. This summer (May-June) we will host a group of 10 students from the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University in Minnesota. Opportunities are available to work at the farm, at the orphanage, at the academy, and at women’s group projects. See the volunteer page on our website. You will find an online application form and a volunteer manual with detailed information.

We also need “home volunteers”. These are individuals or groups who may help URF with its fundraising and advocacy campaign within the volunteer’s local community. Ways you can help include: researching grants, grant writing, news letter editing, writing fundraising letters to individuals and local businesses, and giving a presentation about URF’s work to a local church, rotary club, or a similar group.  

U.S School Connections: URF is expanding to other campuses. There have been groups and individual students on several campuses who have made initiatives to support URF work. These students represent colleges such as: Stony Brook University in NY, The College of William and Mary in VA, Villanova University in PA, St. Olaf College in MN, St. Cloud State University in MN, and The College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University in MN.

We hope that more students at different campus all across the nation will get involved and build a stronger network. If you are interested in starting a URF Chapter or in getting your existing campus group involved, please contact John Mary at jmlugemwa@csbsju.edu

Church Connections: We are seeking partnerships with churches. Church groups can get involved in various ways: fundraising, panel presentation to raise awareness, organizing mission trips to Uganda, and any other creative ideas the group may have. If your church is interested in responding to this call to be in solidarity with the poor, please contact Br. John Mary at jmlugemwa@gmail.com or 804-708-5052.

Pigs Project: This project was an initiative of two URF volunteers, Benjamin Kaster and Elizabeth Genzler of Minnesota. They contributed funds to obtain six pigs. When these pigs breed, the babies will be donated to poor families so they can start a similar project to support themselves.

Vehicle Donation: In November 2006, a van was donated by MIVA, an organization in the UK that supports missionary work by providing vehicles for transportation.

Donations: URF-USA is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit charity incorporated in 2005 under the Federal Tax ID: 20-4118165.   URF is an all-volunteer organization. All your contributions are tax deductible and will go directly to serve the needs of needy children in Uganda. In-kind donations can also be assessed at a fair market value for tax deductible purposes.

You can donate online at www.ugandaruralfund.org.  To donate, click on the “how you can help” page. You have the option of making a one time donation or of making a pledge to donate monthly. Fill out the form and proceed to the URF Pay Pal page to donate using your credit card or pay pal account.  If you prefer sending a check, make it payable to Uganda Rural Fund USA, Inc. and mail to the address below.  Thank you!

Uganda Rural Fund USA, Inc

c/o John Mary Lugemwa, OSB

12829 River Road

Richmond, VA 23238. 

Recognition: Br. John Mary recently received an International Peace Award from the International Prayer for Peace without Borders in Washington DC. The award was recognition for his involvement with URF projects supporting AIDS orphans, youth, and underprivileged adults in rural Uganda.  In November 2006, he also won the Peace and Justice Scholarship award for $2,000 from the Vincent L. Watkinson Foundation in Minneapolis, MN. The money will be used to purchase furniture for the academy in Uganda.