Ruhanga — Ethnic Supplies

A nice road through the village

September 27, 2011 By idahorner Leave a Comment

Kikube Masindi NW Uganda

If you live in rural Uganda and or any other Sub Saharan Country for that matter chances are that the road through your village will look like the one in Kikube, unless of course your village is on a main road to somewhere such as a big city or a tourist attraction

Minor roads leading off the main roads are not sealed (murram) and generally speaking are OK during the dry weather bar the dust that passing traffic generates and if well maintained they serve the villages well. Driving on these murram roads requires exceptional skills!

The main roads those leading to large towns and cities are usually tarmac and are part of most African countries strategy to improve trade. Goods in Uganda are mostly transported by road and I can imagine a huge chunk of the country’s infrastructure budget is spent on these major roads. These roads are almost always paid for by donor agencies/AID and chances are that this is only benefit that some folk on the ground will experience – A NICE ROAD THROUGH THE VILLAGE!

It is easy to be cynical about the idea of giving the poor a nice road when they have nothing to eat but imagine if you will a woman in labour trying to get to a hospital that is 2 hours away on a poor or no road at all! In fact a few days ago I came across a man at a networking event who was doing some research on this issue. He is convinced that African women’s reproductive health is impacted by the quality of roads in Africa

Kabale Road Ruhanga SW Uganda

But for the folk of Ruhanga SW Uganda (see photo above), a nice road through their village has mixed blessings so to say. Ruhanga is on the main road to Kabale, Congo, Rwanda and a major tourist attraction- MOUNTAIN GORILLAS. Having this nice roads means that folk can get to hospital easily and can take advantage of passing trade but the nice road has become a death trap and only a few weeks ago we lost Witness a 4 year old in a car accident.

The irony of this situation is a couple of years ago there were some deep potholes in the road which forced drivers to slow down and in turn we had fewer accidents in the village.

We also learned that Uganda’s Minister of works has no intention of putting in any form of traffic calming measures. I am not quite sure what if anything the community can do about this whole situation as I know for a fact that Witness’ death is not the first nor will it be the last and judging from the email we got from the secretary of the Community Based Organisation there is nothing they can do and expect answers or a solution from us.

He said- I am sure the news of Witness’ death has reached you by now and I am really not sure what you are going to do to ensure the safety of very young children a very busy high way with undisciplined drivers of small and heavy trucks

Your thoughts please!

Filed Under: Development Policy, Latest Tagged With: Africa, AID, Kabale, MASINDI, Road Safety, Ruhanga, Rwanda, Uganda

Access to clean water- a personal story

October 15, 2010 By idahorner 4 Comments

It is BLOG ACTION DAY 2010 today and the theme for this year is access to clean water and the effects of lack of access to clean water on communities’ world wide and this is something that is very close to my heart.

Like most folk that grew up in rural Africa my family home didn’t have running water and we had to collect rain water into huge water tanks on either side of the house. This process involved trapping the water from the roof using pipes and guide into the water tanks. As you can see from the video clip below recorded by my good friend @tmsruge this method provides access to a large quantity of clean water and doesn’t take up any time at all.

But there was the dry spell and in my day this run from December to February, this was the time that we were at home for the “summer” . It didn’t rain much back then or not at all, but it would appear that the seasons have changed the last time I was in Uganda in December it rained nearly everyday.

During this dry spell we had to collect water from a local spring that was 30 minutes away from the house and involved crossing a main road. We would carry the water back on our heads in 20 litre cans and we sometimes had to do this twice a day.

If the farm help couldn’t find water for the animals we had to collect water for the animals too.

But this water was never safe to drink and in fact if you looked closely you could see mosquito larvae or certainly what I thought was mosquito larvae. We would then have to boil it as this was the surest way of killing off any germs before we could use it.

Given all this we treasured every drop of the water that we had access to and fortunately for us children we were at boarding school for the best part of the year so we never had to miss lessons in search of clean water. In addition only a small part of our holiday time was assigned to this activity as mother had worked out a way for us to use the water more effectively.

Fast forward to 2010, 40 years and the whole scenario I have described above are still true for a lot of children and for some it is worse.

They are not a t boarding school and their day begins at 5.30AM because they have to collect water before going to school.

They get sick because the water they have access to is disease causing.

They miss school because they are ill.

They are unable to gain meaningful employment as adults because they dropped out of school due to illness that can be attributed to disease causing water

The women can’t commit time to income generating activities, they have to collect water and boil it to ensure it is safe

Folk in rural Africa keep animals for food as well as well as for income, animals need water too, so water must be found for them too as they will die and the family will have nothing to sell to pay for education, health care or food.

So today I appeal to you folk- lets break the cycle of disease causing water in Ruhanga SW Uganda

HAPPY BLOG ACTION DAY 2010

Filed Under: Latest, Water Aid Tagged With: BLOG ACTION DAY 2010, Clean Water, Ruhanga, Uganda, Water Aid, water shortage

Inclusive Business In Africa Part 3- Measuring Impact

September 16, 2010 By idahorner 2 Comments

We are still at the Practitioners Workshop in Uganda and so far we have introduced ourselves and also highlighted some of the key challenges involved in running inclusive businesses as well as the kind of support that is required to overcome these challenges.

That is all very well but the biggest part of running an Inclusive Business and certainly what brings the greatest satisfaction for those of us involved in this line of work is knowing that what we do impacts folk at the grassroots in a positive way and

Question 3 deals with this

a) As the concept of inclusive business has gained tractions, we are seeing increasing demand for concrete evidence of the business-development win-win. What have you learned about measuring the impact of an inclusive business model, and what advice would you have for others who are interested in doing so?

I order to measure the impact of an inclusive business you have to start out with clear and equitable objectives. ideally these should be agreed by all stakeholders as they will highlight what each party hopes to achieve. A key objective for our partners here at Ethnic Supplies is to be self sustaining and this is about being able to generate an income from their work. This income will in turn enable them to send their children to school and pay for health care. Whilst our key objective is to empower our partners through business.

WOMEN OF KIREKA-UGNADA, PHOTO BY TMS RUGE

One way we measure our impact is by visiting the women each year to learn first hand what impact if any we have had. I would be lying if I told you that it is not gratifying to hear the women tell us that they have been able to send their children to school using the money they earned from selling their baskets through us.

Our work also extends to Community projects and this is where our greatest impact has been. We have enabled children in a remote part of SW Uganda to access education free of charge and this has involved installing the school buildings as well as providing teachers and sponsors for those children who cannot afford the school fees.

The most important lesson I have learned from my work is the notion of FIRST DO NO HARM this involves understanding what is important to your partners/community in which you are working and how that community is organised even consider who has clout in this community and why. Above all that it was more important to be lead by
the community/partners

In the next and final post in these series I will consider the notion of VALUE ADDITION at source. In the mean time if you have a view on any of the points raised here please leave a comment below.

Filed Under: Latest, Poverty in Africa, Sustainable development Tagged With: BUSINESS ACTION FOR AFRICA, COMMUNITY PROEJCTS, INCLUSIVE BUSINESS, Ruhanga, Uganda