Day 7 of the Nikki P’s blogging challenge is about the importance of photos in blogs.  I thought I would share with you my grass root work in pictures, these photos focus on my activities in Uganda last year.

In May 2010 Ethnic Supplies was invited to jointly organise a Practitioners  workshop up with folk at Business Fights poverty and DFID. The workshop focused on starting and scaling Inclusive business. I wrote about the workshop in a series of posts and if you missed those posts you can catch up here . The photos below are about that workshop which was held in Kampala Uganda.

In yesterday’s post I told you about my working day/pattern I told you that I collaborate with others and set time aside to do this. Last year I collaborated with folk at Project Diaspora to bring about the biggest SOCIAL MEDIA of the year VILLAGES IN ACTION. As stated yesterday I don’t necessarily have a typical working day and when such projects spring up I have often have to to rethink my schedule as this particular project involved me finding a sponsor for the event and then travelling to Uganda to represent the sponsor at the event. The photos below are from that conference

I really love this photo of the children sat under the tree as the watch the proceedings of the afternoon. They were  the most disciplined children I have come across in a very long time

This is a behind the scenes photo, Teddy from project diaspora (with the camera) took as for a vilalge tour the day before the event

I loved this one too- the children did not want to lose each other in such a large crowd so they held hands as they walked until they found somewhere to sit down

This is the typical way that folk access clean water in the village

Mrs Businge the village councillor (in Blue) a turlly formidable African woman

This is one of the sugarcane growers, he was part of the enterprise panel

The geeks of Uganda Victor and Solomon are ICT professionals based in Uganda and formed part of the technology panel on the day. They are  pictured here interviewing Teddy about technology in the village

large chunks of the woodland in the village have been cut down to make way for sugarcane, provide wood for charcoal for either cooking of brick making. One of the things we had to do on the day of the conference was to begin a process of replanting the woodland

After Masindi VILLAGES IN ACTION I hit the road to Ruhanga SW Uganda, where the the charity

LET THEM HELP THEMSELVES OUT OF POVERTY currently working. I love the beautiful scenery in Ruhanga

Ann second left is pictured with volunteers from Shepperton and the project director on the ground

This is Mike one of the volunteers at the project he loves Ruhanga so much he spends half of the year at the project

Christmas party at the community school- this was sponsored by our friends HASTOE HOUSING ASSOCIATION

We distributed 250 mosquito nets last December, I am hoping that we can do better next year

These are some of the parents whose children attend the school

We have a child sponsorship programme and these two girls are sponsored by  my fab friends BIRDS ON THE BLOG and I

When I first got involved in the Ruhanga community project we were fundraising for this building, the community center. I didn’t know much about fund raising or charity’s per se, we organized a ball at the Hilton Hotel in Cobham Surrey and raised enough money to finish this building. Today is it used for computer lessons, it houses the project office office, has a space for the local seamstress who makes the children’s uniforms but also teaches other women in the village sewing skills and accommodation for two staff.

So there you have it folk, I hope that compliments yesterday’s post . Looking forward to hearing your views on this