Cosmos – Dragon’s Den winner 2017 – one year on

In February 2017, the first Dragon’s Den competition was held in Bakijjulula. Open to all microfinance scheme members, it was an opportunity for individuals to pitch an idea to the ‘dragons’ and hope to come away with a pot of money that they could use to make that idea a reality

The criteria for the competition were that the ideas had to be innovative, of benefit to the community, and not harmful to the environment. After two rounds of presentations and questioning, the winners were declared, one of which was Cosmos – a bee keeper.

Cosmos had asked for the money so that he could grow his small bee-keeping business: get more bee-hives, get proper protective clothing, and get the equipment to enable him to market his honey more widely

One year on, I went back to meet Cosmos and see how he has progressed. It was a very good visit!

With the help of the money Cosmos won, his honey business has gone from strength to strength. He now has 36 hives (he had 8 at the time of the competition), employs someone to help him with the business, has the protective clothing needed, and is selling his honey in Kampala.

He has also trained some of his neighbours in bee-keeping, and he buys their honey from them to take to Kampala as well.  So the neighbors now have an extra form of income, and Cosmos has extra honey to turn into a profit.

Local farmers are also happy as they are seeing better yields in their crops thanks to the presence of the bees,

On one of his trips to Kampala, Cosmos found out about how to make liquid soap, so now, his journeys to Kampala see him laden with honey, and his journeys home see him laden with the materials required to make the liquid soap which he then sells locally.

Cosmos was saying that one beehive produces 8 litres of honey over a 3 month period, so 24 litres in a year. He sells the honey at £6 per litre, and he has 36 beehives. The cost of packaging and transport etc is about £1 per litre.

I’ll let you do the maths, but suffice to say, Cosmos and his honey bees are not just helping the environment with regard to pollinating lots of plants and trees, but they are also helping bring an income to Cosmos, and to the others that he is working with to keep the Kampala honey market turning.

I wonder how long it will be before entrepreneurial Cosmos is getting his honey onto the international market? 

Jane – a microfinance success story

Jane was one of the first people to receive a loan from the Missing Link Microfinance project when it launched in the summer of 2016. Based out of the house of John’s dad, in Bakijjulula near Mityana, where the Nkuru Vocational Training College is now being developed, the microfinance scheme is going from strength to strength, empowering individuals to pursue hopes and dreams in a variety of income-generating ways.

Jane’s story is one such case.

Mother of five children, all primary age or below, Jane lives with her husband, Sempijja, in a very simple two-room house made of brick and plaster walls, and a tin roof. When she got her microfinance loan, the first thing she did was buy two pigs, and some chickens. From that she was able to sell eggs, and piglets, and soon the loan had been repaid.

The pigs and chickens continued to serve her and the family well, thanks to her diligence in making sure she knew how to look after them properly, and get the best output from them. After careful budgeting and diligent saving Jane and her husband reached the stage where they could invest in the next stage of their plans to reduce expenditure: rainwater harvesting.

By investing in guttering and a water tank, and making sure the roof was in good shape, they now have water on tap, rather than having to either walk a considerable way to get water from the borehole (and in so doing using time that then can’t be spent doing other tasks), or pay someone to go and get the water for them.

But that wasn’t the end of ‘pig and chicken’ microfinance success story. Following more careful saving and good budgeting, and a microfinance loan taken out by her husband, the family now have a small solar panel on their roof, which, thanks to the intensity of the Ugandan sun, produces enough power each day to light up their evenings with solar-powered light bulbs, and also has enabled them to buy a television.  No more kerosene lamps for this family, insights into the world beyond through the ability to watch television and another bill now a thing of the past.

The most recent new enterprise has been to buy some rabbits and start breeding them for sale as a food item. With just one breeding pair to start them off, the speed at which they are reproducing, combined with Jane’s diligence in getting the most out of every task that she takes on means that they will soon have the new loan paid off, and even more money coming into the family.

The story of Jane and Sempijja and how they have made such wonderful use of the head start that the microfinance gave them is really great to hear, and see in action. It is proof that for many it’s not about the handouts, and the waiting for people to do everything for them; it’s about the hand ups, and just being given the opportunity to make big inroads into turning their own lives around,

For them it doesn’t mean upgrading the house, splashing out on lots of unnecessary extras, or getting caught up in materialistic pressures, but it does mean that they will fulfill their dream of having enough to put the children through school, and maybe even university when the time comes.

Long may those opportunities continue to come into being.

Dragon’s Den 2018

One of the things that I have had the honour of being involved in over the past couple of days: a little Ugandan interpretation of Dragon's Den for members of the Missing Link Microfinance programme. 

Great fun, humbling to be involved with, and wonderful to see individuals having the courage to dream and hope for a better future.

Round One of the Dragons Den competition for 2018 saw 19 contestants each give a 5 minute pitch, outlining the proposal that they had come up to try and win a share of the pot of money available.

There were three criteria that the proposals had to fulfill:

-       It had to be innovative

-       of benefit to the wider community

-       and not harmful to the environment

And it was fascinating to see some of the ideas that the contestants had come up with.

Those that didn’t get shortlisted included rabbit farming, quail farming, making herbal teas, making pig-feed from maize husks, making liquid soap, solar drying, growing soya, making sugar-cane juice, and growing oyster mushrooms – all good ideas, but just not quite good enough.

The six competitors who were shortlisted for round two then had to come back the next day and give a longer, more in-depth presentation, including information on capital required, expected income and outgoings, expected markets, and how to expand the business. This was then followed by a few questions from ‘the dragons’ to get clarification on areas that were a bit unclear.

Given that many of them are not used to doing anything like this, the quality of these presentations, and the amount of effort and information that had gone into them was really impressive to see.

After all that, the dragons had the tough decision of coming up with a winner, or at least working out how best to divide the pot. Such was the strength of the proposals, and the potential for all of them to make a positive impact on the local community, that the prospect of finding just one winner was too much.

As a result the final outcome was to have two winners each having one third of the pot, and the other four getting runners-up prizes of a quarter each of the remaining money. Thus everyone took home some money that they could use to progress their idea further, experiment, and refine the concept.

The other lovely thing about the competition was that so many of the ideas actually have potential for playing a part in the vocational college in some way, whether as part of one of the courses, or as a concept that the students could build on, or as a source of food for the café etc. So as well as being a good competition, there were also some useful links made with regard to strengthing the community ties with the college

All in all a very successful event, and much enjoyed by many – and that’s not only the winners!

And in case you are interested, the winners were:

-       Robert – wanting to develop a home-based fish-farming business, to produce fish for the catering industry, and also for sale to local community members, recognizing fish as a very good source of protein and associated nutrients

-       Moses – wanting to scale up a paper-bag making cottage industry, in response to the recent banning of plastic bags by the government

And the runners up were:

-       Damascene – wanting to try out garlic growing to meet an increasing demand for the food, which is currently imported from Tanzania

-       Josephine-Doreen, a 16yr old wanting to set up a egg-production business using local, free-range chickens, and to grow the business to include many other teenage girls to give them the chance to earn an income and get back to school

-       Jane – wanting to start making ‘briquettes’ from a mixture of ash, banana peelings, cassava flour and water; as a response to a government announcement of an intention to outlaw charcoal as a source of fuel

-       Gladys – wanting to expand her mat-making business by training up other ladies to help with production.

Congratulations to all, and good luck with the next steps

4 lives helped - every little counts

In the big scheme of things, helping 4 youngsters go to school doesn't seem like much. But for Daniel, Stephen, Innocent and Vanessa - the 4 who are going to start school in the next couple of weeks, it is a big deal

For Daniel, 12 years old, he had nearly finished primary school: class 6 completed and just one year to go, but then his dad lost his job, family finances failed, all attempts at finding alternative work were unsuccessful, and his dream of completing primary seemed to be on indefinite hold.

Stephen, age 10, has managed to complete primary classes up to and including class 3, but again the financial situation in his family was such that the hope of going further had faded away

Innocent, also age 10, has been watching his contemporaries going to school for many months now, wishing he could join them, and knowing that his parents also wished that they could earn enough to pay for him to get an education. Luck just never seemed to be on their side when it came to scraping together enough to go further than paying the rent and buying some food, so having some spare to cover the cost of school expenses was out of the question

And for Vanessa, life had been going OK - she had completed class 3, was preparing for class 4, and on a reasonable trajectory until her dad died last month. With no mother to turn to, Vanessa was taken in by extended family, but they didn't have the resources to be able to pay for her education. Feed her yes, house her yes, clothe her yes, but school fees and uniform - no, that was one step too far.

Four youngsters, all with a simple wish - to go to school. Something we all take for granted, and something that is a basic human right. But a right that is beyond the reach of so many.

Thanks to the generosity of various donors, I was able to tell Harriet and Miriam last weekend that there is sufficient funds to cover school fees for 4 more Acholi children. Yesterday I had the joy of going back to Acholi Quarters, and one topic of conversation was finding out which 4 children had been put forwards by the group for being able to go to school.

The smiles on the faces of the 4 told it all - hopeful again, dreaming of a future again, feeling like there is more to life than just survival. What a joy to behold!

Yes, there are still many who can't afford to go to school, and I'd love to find ways to help more of those children get access to education. But for now, its about rejoicing that Daniel, Stephen, Innocent and Vanessa will be walking to school very soon, secure in the knowledge that they can keep on going to school right through to graduation day.

Whole Brain Approach - potential to reach into many fields

I mentioned in my previous blog about how I have just had the delight of running some training for the potential staff at the newly formed Nkuru Vocational Training Centre

The training was on the 'Whole Brain Approach' to teaching and learning, courtesy of Dr John Kelly and Fingerprint Learning. This concept takes into consideration the range of learning preferences, motivation styles and personal dominances we each have, and that show up in how we respond to different teaching styles. It also looks at the physiology of the brain, and some key anatomical features that impact learning for everyone, and how teachers could better be utilising that knowledge with regard to developing the learning environment for students

The WBA is not overly well-known in the UK, but here in Uganda it is revolutionary, and there were some wonderful conversations that followed with teachers and tutors, as they started to grasp just how impactful this could be on the education experience of students.

Students who until now have felt as though they have failed, students whose academic experience has been based around 'how smart are they' rather than 'how are they smart', students who have come to believe that they will never make it, that they are stupid, that they have no positive attributes when it comes to managing to do anything - this approach can change all that and help them aspire and achieve and believe in themselves.  Wonderful stuff, and great to be part of.

But what is becoming apparent, just from the conversations with these few folks, is how much wider it could go, and how there is a hunger for this sort of resource in many fields

Just today I've had a conversation with two individuals about how the WBA could be used in their church leadership programmes, and with one about how it could help with the team dynamics of a small organisation working in a poorer part of Kampala.

And there was also a discussion the other day about how this would be good to get into teacher training colleges out here, and another regarding how it could even be a useful concept to adapt to be part of marriage preparation!

None of these have become firm plans yet, but that's fine - happy to go with God's timing on it all. But what I love is seeing the potential developing when you let loose something as positive as this, that empowers, values and celebrates individuals for who they are. And what is even more exciting is that God has give me the chance to be on the act.

PS if anyone wants to know more about this for possible use in UK organisations / schools etc, do let me know - always happy to chat!!!

Uganda reflections: written under a mango tree

I arrived in Uganda on Saturday and I wrote this sitting under the mango tree at John’s dad’s place in rural Mityana on Tuesday.  No internet up there – hence not posted until today when I am back in Kampala!

Feeling blessed

In just these 4 days I have

-       Had some wonderful long car-ride conversations with John, which we both relish and which are a key part of the planning and catching up processes regarding the various work and family interests that we both have

-       Spent a few hours with the lovely Harriet and Miriam in Acholi Quarters, catching up with them both, and thinking through the various initiatives that are going on there, as well as seeing the end of year school reports for some of the children who are being supported by generous donors through CRED.

-       Spent time reading books, doing jigsaws, and playing games with Patience (now 5 years old), as well as taking her swimming and helping her discover that arm bands can keep you afloat in the water

-       Come with John up to his dad’s place in rural Mityana to see all the progress that has taken place on the Nkuru Business and Vocational Training College – classrooms and computer room completed, kitchen / café halfway built, solar panels installed, toilet block completed so that it feeds into the biodigester to create ‘human poo power’

-       Spent time with potential staff introducing them to the concept of Whole Brain Approach to teaching and learning, and running the training sessions for them. What a joy and a privilege to see just what a buzz of excitement it created amongst them as they ‘got it’, and realised just what a difference this holistic approach to education could make to the learning experience of so many, especially those who have struggled with mainstream education in the past because they don’t fit the required ‘mould’ when it comes to learning styles and preferences

-       Gone for a couple of lovely long rural Uganda runs, through tea plantations, along dirt tracks, with beautiful sunrises and with children calling out ‘mzungu hello’ and ‘mzungu byeee’

How blessed I feel, to be part of this work, to be part of this community, to be able to play my part in changing lives in this little bit of the world. How undeservingly but incredibly gratefully blessed I feel.