Uganda Lodge » building

Open Letter to Potential Volunteers & Sponsors

annmcc — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:29:44 +0000

May 2009 OPEN LETTER TO POTENTIAL VOLUNTEERS & SPONSORS

Let me l tell you a little about myself. Together with my husband Paul I live in our family home some 30 miles west of London and we have four grown up chldren. We are now semi-retired, and run a small Guest House; in the past we had a pig-farm and I was a Cub Scout Leader for many years.

We now have four grandchildren, and over the past 15 years I have been lucky enough to enjoy my passion for travel. I have been to many countries, although usually ‘backpacking’ – meaning I travel independently, stay in budget accomodation and use local guides that I meet along the way. That is how I have managed to see so many places, by keeping the costs down low.

During their teens and twenties all of our children also travelled independently to many corners of the world, and I believe that travel is a wonderful educator. I welcome any parents to contact me if they have fears for letting their youngsters off on their own (or young adults afraid for their parents!!) Once I no longer had the responsibility of a young family, my travels kept taking me to new countries every year – that is until I found Uganda……

In 2004 I went to see the mountain gorillas, got shown around an orphanage and shortly after I met Denis, who was my driver out there. I went back again to Uganda the following year and saw how Denis was trying to help the people in his village by building a house that he planned to open as a Guest House that would be suitable for overseas visitors. He was already employing local men on making bricks and building, and after seeing that, the rest of my money went in the local hardware shop on cement, paint etc.

Over the following three years I have returned a couple of times each year and done some more fund-raising here in the UK to help get ”Uganda Lodge” as we have called it, up and running. Now we have opened the accommodation with four bedrooms and six African style bandas, we have a bar and we serve local food; the project just about breaks as long as we get visitors to stay. We are employing several local people on a full-time basis as well as builders and labourers as and when when money becomes available.

At the request of many local parents and carers we have built and opened a nursery school last year and it now has over forty 2-6 year old students who are all beginning to understand quite a lot of English.. It is not free (although I think there are quite a few who for various reasons have not paid anyting!) and I have explained to the parents that although I built the school it must become self-funding and bring in enough to pay the teachers salaries, the breakfasts and the teaching aids plus electricity and a little extra for maintenence. The little children are so sweet, especially now they all wear lovely new uniforms that we bought in the Woolworths 80% closing down sale! The volunteers who stay at Uganda Lodge all love working with them.

Denis’s friends have already started the foundations to build a larger school, but exactly what that is for and how it is run is not set in stone. It would be great to open a school that we could educate children of any age who come from a wider area and are perhaps orphans with no one to look out for them, or are the fifth or more child of one family (they have a sort of free education system for the first four of a family, if uniform, food, and books can be paid for) But that is in the future or if we find a wealthy benefactor!

Last year I sent out some tool kits, sewing machines and computers in a container, and I urgently want to finish building a craft-centre/workshop so we can start training disadvantaged youngsters from the nearby villages and use the equipment that is there and waiting. Alongside completing the childrens toilet block and putting in windows and concrete floors in at the nursery, the craft centre is our current most pressing goal.

So far, most of what we have achieved in Ruhanga has been done with little outside help, and in fact many of the community are not really understandng that now there is somewhere for volunteers to stay right in their village, more help will in the furure be coming to assist them directly rather than in-directly. This will be mainly in the form of better education by helping adults and children to learn basic living skills, business training, marketing skills and how to access micro-finance, loans and grants to start up new income-generating projects.

One lady I have met here in the UK has set up a registered charity called ”Let Them Help Themselves” www.lethemhelpthemselves.org and any fundraising she does will be directed at Uganda Lodge and the Ruhanga area. She would especially like to initiate a clean fresh water supply from the nearby mountains down to the nearby schools and families living around the Lodge

By looking at the photos on the website, you can see how much has been achieved by Denis and his friends out in Uganda over the past three years, by utilising the funds I have been able to send out from giving talks and organising fund-raising events here.

Potential volunteers and sponsors will by now of understood that I am not part of a large charity or organisation, although a group of local leaders have formed and registered a Community Based Organisation (CBO) out there and chosen me as their patron, but I am just attempting to ”make a difference” to the people living in a few villages in Ruhanga – an area where there are no other westerners working. Please join me.

Look at the rest of our website and then feel free to contact me directly to ask any further questions you may have about volunteering, going on a safari, or sponsoring one of our projects.

Thankyou

Ann

The Story of Uganda Lodge

annmcc — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:08:40 +0000

History

I first went to Ruhanga in south-west Uganda in 2006 when I was invited by my safari driver Mr Denis Aheirwe. He took me to see his compound – the family land given by his father – and I immediately saw its potential. It is right on the main road that runs from Kampala to Rwanda and the home of the mountain gorillas, but it was in a rural area where passing visitors had no reason to stop. Denis’s dream was to build a Guest House so tourists would stay awhile and thus he could provide employment for his local village people.

He was already employing men to make bricks, as the clay there is very good quality. Some bricks he sold and some he used to begin building his house. He introduced me to his family and friends in the village and I found them all so friendly and welcoming despite their poverty, that I was bowled over – all the rest of my spending money was soon gone in the local hardware shop buying cement, nails and iron sheets.

Denis and I talked over new ideas of how together we could even further help to raise the income levels of some of these impoverished farmers and the many orphans in the area. I came back to the UK, did some fund-raising, and put in money of my own and was out there again after a few months.

Getting Started

After completing the main rooms in the house – now the lounge, the bar and two staff rooms - we concentrated on getting four bedrooms built at the back. This started to generate a small income as it was adequate for local guests, although not of a standard suitable to invite volunteers. We needed to clean the whole place up and build better toilets and washrooms if we wanted to attract Mzungus (white people).

I discovered that I could pay local men the equivalent of a pound a day for labouring and they would be queuing up for work, so we got them filling in the holes left behind from making bricks, levelling out the land and generally getting it looking less like a building site.

As I raised more money here in the UK from giving talks about Uganda and running raffles and sales, I sent it out to Denis and each time I went back I found many improvements. We built four individual African Bandas and a new toilet block nearby.

We put in an electricity supply and TV was a novelty for a long time especially with the teenage boys. We are one of the few places around that has power. Now that we are getting some more visitors and volunteers we have been able to build another two guest rooms at the far end of the compound.

Community Hall

I met with the local chairmen and leaders of the women’s groups and we formed and registered a CBO (Community Based Organisation) I asked questions to discover what facilities they wanted so the villagers would get some more direct benefit from me being there – at that stage they could not see how the Lodge would be to their benefit in the long-term!

The result was a large hall that they could use for meetings and training sessions and also hire for parties and concerts. After travelling out there with me, my daughter Tracie came home and together with her friend did a Bungee Jump; they collected almost £1,000 and that paid for iron sheets on the roof of the hall.

Craft Centre/Workshop

An Aunt from Australia sent some money and we began to build a craft centre/workshop. This remained partly built for almost a year but in October 2008 with the help of a UK friend Ida Horner, I held an African themed auction and dinner and we raised about £1,500. This I took out with me in January and we completed the walls with a reinforced concrete band and many air bricks, got the roofing timbers up and fixed the iron sheets on the roof.

The exchange rate had dropped considerably and all building materials had gone up in price. So now we need about £2,000 to get it completed, and ready to start vocational training classes

The Nursery School

This building started out in life as a chicken house and we did raise nearly 1000 chickens, but found it cost more to feed them than the income we got from them, so we left it empty for awhile. The parents were asking us to start a Nursery School as primary does not start until they are seven so I suggested we utilise the ex-chicken house.

After much discussion it was thoroughly cleaned and painted and with pictures on the wall, mats on the floor, and a blackboard it already puts many government schools to shame. Volunteers have taken out crayons and colouring books, pens & pencils, clipboards, plastic bricks, dolls and toy cars, and many small reading books.

Eventually we plan to replace the chicken wire with proper glass windows, concrete the floors to stop the dust, and have benches and desks made – maybe in our own workshop? We currently have over 40 students and they look so sweet in their new school uniforms .

Toilets in the Nursery Compound

Currently (April 2009) we have dug and part-bricked a large hole for a septic tank so we can have some permanent toilets but this is proving costly due to the high water levels. When it is completed the Education Officer has said he will sign the papers for our school to become registered.

Further Classrooms

Foundations for a new classroom and teachers office have begun, as we have found parents of many of the oldest nursery children are reluctant to send them to the government schools. The standards are poor and private primary schools are far away as well as being very expensive. We do charge fees at our nursery but only enough to cover expenses and make it self-funding , as so many of the families are in a very low income bracket.

Hilton Fundraising Event

annmcc — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:27:50 +0000

Ann’s interview with Gordon Astley

The Dinner Dance and Auction we held at the Hilton Hotel in Cobham in October 2008 was a fantastic event.

During the evening we had a DJ, an African live band playing Ugandan music and a fashion parade as well as the auction and a raffle.

Many friends donated time, gifts and services and we raised £1,500 in total. This has gone a long way to completing the building of a craft centre/workshop.

Many thanks to everyone who attended and supported us.

Bringing fresh water to

the people of Ruhanga

Sep 17 2008 Mark Goode, Surrey Herald

TWO women who plough all their spare time into raising funds for a poor African village are organising a big charity event in a bid to get fresh drinking water for villagers.

Ugandan-born Ida Horner, of St Vincent Road, Walton, and her friend Ann McCarthy, of Cranwell Grove, Shepperton, are staging the black tie event – called Let Them Help Themselves Out of Poverty – at the Hilton Hotel, in Cobham, on Friday, October 17.

The pair want to raise £6,000 to pay for pipes to take water to the village of Ruhanga, in south west Uganda where residents have to walk for three hours to fetch water from a muddy river.

They also want to raise £2,000 to finish building a community centre where women can also make their crafts for sale to support themselves.

Married mother of one Ida, 43, who works full time in the housing department at Kingston Council, started raising funds for the residents of Ruhanga when she visited the village on holiday in 2006.

She said: “I walked around and I was horrified by all the poverty and began to think how lucky I was to have left Uganda and to have lived in an affluent part of England.

“When I got back I decided to try and help them.”

Ida began buying craftwork, such as baskets, bed linen, and silk scarves, from women in Tanzania, Uganda, and Madagascar, and selling them on a mail order basis to people in England.

The non-profit business, called Ethnic Supplies, was formed in October 2007 and by giving the women money up front for their wares, she is helping the families to survive.

Ann, 66, who runs Littleton Nurseries B & B, in Cranwell Grove, Shepperton, met Ida when they discovered they had both been doing charity work in Ruhanga.

Last year Ann helped to build a hostel in the village so travellers could stop for the night before going into the jungle to see the gorillas. She also had the idea to build a community centre in the village.

She read an article about Ida and her business, Ethnic Supplies, and the two get together to combine their ideas and efforts.

Ida said: “Now we want to get water pipes from the top of the mountains to the bottom of the valleys. At the moment it takes the villagers three hours to get water from a muddy stream and then back again.

“They don’t boil the water because it takes extra work getting the wood.”

She added: “A lot of the villagers are HIV positive and have malaria and we need to raise money to get them clean water.

“Surrey is a very rich place and if 10,000 businesses all gave a pound it could help the villagers. Hopefully people will find it in their hearts to come to our black tie event.”