St Peters Sewing Women’s Project Wise Choices, the Rabbit Project and Luvu school project

Overall goals

Several projects

• St Peters Sewing Women’s Project Wise Choices (Anglican church family planning)
• Rabbit Project : for meat and profit.
• Support to Luvu school and Building work ( homes for single mothers)

Establish sustainable projects that will:
• Support people most in need in the community
• Enable women to earn money for themselves and their families
• To increase confidence in taking up education and improve livelihoods of vulnerable people
• Establishing volunteering, self-help and capacity building

Key UK Colleagues and Partners

NHS Dumfries & Galloway

Colleagues include :
• Retired Public Health Consultant (Ayrshire),
• St Kentigen’s Church members, Kilmarnock, and
• Husband

International Partners

No international partner , working with local people in Arua, Mayoral assistance.

Sustainable development goals

• SDG 1 - No poverty
• SDG 3 - Good health and well-being
• SDG 4 - Quality education
• SDG 5 - Gender equality
• SDG 8 - Decent work and economic growth
• SDG 10 - Reduced inequalities
• SDG 17 - Partnerships for the goals

Funding source

Fundraising

Project origin

Retired Consultant ( who had worked in Arua for several years previously) had been visiting the area to support on a range ot other projects. They required a builder to complete the single women’s accommodation. My husband was approached. The above projects came about after engagement with the local community and key stakeholders where the need was determined.. Success to each of the projects was the ability to work together with local communities, community partnerships and church committee.

Evidence of need

n/a

Project areas

Working with the local community taking an asset-based approach to development and implementation of projects. Local mayoral support was given in a range of ways including transport, media support and reports highlighting local statistics and demographics

Project activities

Sewing project – established for local women in 2013 where equipment, resources, venue and training was made available. Revisited in 2015 to determine progress and established sustainable practices. To revisit in 2018 to determine progress

Rabbit project – 4 families were provided with resources to start rabbit farming, they were supported by an Arua based horticulturalist/ agriculturalist (British missionary). Plans to go back and determine progress / determine needs and if appropriate to expand.

Luvu School ( in the bush) was given scholastic supplies and funding to build accommodation for teachers Visited in 2013 and again 2015. Plan to discuss the need for establishing the rabbit project at the school as a means for educating good animal husbandry and business acumen.

Visit November 2018:- in addition to the above, we will be required to assess potential support for a rural health centre in Katiyi, which offers midwifery and obstetrics support. The local midwifery services (attached to Anglican Church) have reported a struggling health centre where they are have between 40 to 50 deliveries per month with the provision of 3 beds for ante natal, delivery and post-natal. Many women end up delivering on the floor or benches. In addition, the UN are planning to open another refugee camp nearby and Katiyi health centre will be used as a referral centre thus increasing pressure on an already dire situation. This will require a lot of partnership planning and fund raising.

We felt we achieved a lot in the short times we were there but this was purely on the basis of developing good relationships, trust and coproduction with the local people. They worked with us knowing there was a short time to achieve our shared objectives.

On our second visit we felt we had formed a strong partnership (i.e Ugandan team and us) and were able to address sustainability issues. For that we had reached a milestone in the development of the sewing project.

As for the Rabbit project which is a pilot: local people have since our return reported progress ( e.g. a family had for the first time ever meat for Christmas dinner) and further families have started farming.

In all the process of fund raising and feedback for the Ugandan projects have not only strengthened local partnership working in the UK but raised the awareness of inequalities and amazing resilience of the African people.

Changes

Reduction in maternal mortality ( 17 women per day die in child birth Uganda)
Reduction in underage pregnancies
Reduce poverty for families by providing income) sewing project and rabbit project.
Improve education opportunities for children and also increase business acumen and sustainable initiatives.

Next steps

We plan to go out to Uganda in November and assess each of the projects outlined above.

Challenges

Understanding cultural differences. Being mindful and respectful of their culture.
Developing good relationships and trust with local people
Time factor – we had to pack so much into the time we were there and felt we were leaving an unfinished ship each time
Not having appropriate skills for identified needs (an example: - the need for an optician to be available to address sight defects or eye conditions (within the sewing group))

Mitigating challenges

List of potential grant providers / funds. In particular for larger projects where we might have to seek major funding.
Data base to call out for people interested in supporting projects e.g. optician (see above)
NHS support – old equipment that could be utilised.
Annual leave was taken for each time and included unpaid leave. Suggest an allowance for voluntary work which should be subject to evidence

Partnership principles

• strategic
• effective
• respectful
• organised
• responsible
• flexible

Project gains

• leadership
• teamwork
• resilience