Nangobi Stella, UVP Orphan Support Program Scholar, attains highest A-level exam score at Iganga Parents High School

By Caroline Nyuguto; Contribution by Anthony Bui

Uganda Village Project’s scholarship program gives orphans and children in need more than just financial support. As Beatrice Lamwak put it, “it is a light to write by and learn by, to read by and to tell their stories in its glow.” These are the stories of girls and boys who will one day be strong and hopeful Ugandans – those who will fulfill their dreams of nourishing the Pearl of Africa. The story of one young woman—Nangobi Stella—has just begun.

Earlier this week, Nangobi Stella learned that she had attained the highest points at her school, Iganga Parents High School, on her A-level exams, placing her among the leading students in the Iganga District. Stella is an excellent example of what UVP’s Orphan Support Program (OSP) can do – it identifies promising disadvantaged individuals from underserved communities and gives them the opportunity to become future leaders of Uganda.

Though Stella is a bright, bubbly, and optimistic individual, things have not come easy for Stella over the years.

Before she was 10, Stella’s parents divorced, and her father remarried. According to Ugandan tradition, children of divorced parents remain with the father. Unfortunately for Stella, her new step-mother disliked her and made her life extremely difficult. Stella then moved in with her mother, but she quickly faced a new set of challenges. Stella’s mother had little skills and was unable to generate enough income to meet Stella’s basic needs. Her mother would often leave Stella alone in the house with no food. Unable to pay rent, Stella was eventually evicted by her landlord, who took their belongings as back payment for rent; all of this occurred while Stella’s mother was away living with her new husband.

It was then that Stella’s neighbours decided to house her, where she was tossed from house to house until she was taken in by her father’s sister. All of this happened to Stella before the age of 10.

Stella’s solace was in school. With the Uganda’s Universal Primary Education Programme, she could afford to go to school. She joined a club called “Children’s Rights and Responsibilities,” where her peers appointed her the leader of the group. It was then that Stella developed her passion for law and education, and she knew she would grow up to defend children like herself who were treated unjustly and unfairly.

FIDA, who sponsored the clubs, noticed Stella’s talent. Together with ACCORD and UVP, FIDA offered Stella a scholarship to secondary school, which she would have otherwise not afforded. From then on, Stella completely took advantage of the path that lay in front of her.

We had the opportunity to conduct a brief interview with Stella.

UVP: Where does your inspiration come from?

Stella: First and foremost I am a Christian and my inspiration comes from God, I also admired other students who did well and saw what opportunities were presented to them and therefore I wanted to follow in that path, every time I excelled I also got additional bursaries which showed me that with hard work, doors could open.

UVP: What profession do you want to take up?

Stella: I want to be a lawyer. From a young age I saw FIDA fight for the rights of children, children like me, who are treated unfairly and cannot defend themselves’ I have also thought of journalism as well, as I can tell the stories of children like myself.

UVP would like to congratulate Nangobi Stella, UVP’s future Children’s Human Rights Lawyers. Stella, you have made us proud and will continue to shine!

We would like to thank our supporters and generous donors that have helped students like Stella get where she is today. To further support the Orphan Support Program, please visit http://www.ugandavillageproject.org/what-we-do/orphan-support/.

Caroline Nyuguto is the Assistant In-Country Director of UVP. She has worked in public health roles in Canada and Kenya and has an MPH from the University of Liverpool. Anthony Bui is the Marketing and Communication Chair of UVP. He currently works a strategy consultant in New York and Kenya.

Dreams for Girls

by Beatrice Lamwaka

For young girls in Uganda, education is a health issue. Secondary school fees can burden families and children. Many girls turn to transactional sex in order to pay for their education. This puts them at risk for HIV/AIDS, young marriage and pregnancy. And perhaps most harmful of all: hopelessness.
Uganda Village Project’s scholarship program gives them more than financial support; it is a light to write by and learn by, to read by and to tell their stories in its glow. These are the stories of girls who one day will be strong and hopeful Ugandan women. Their dreams will nourish Uganda. Like Ruth Nakiwate, one of the many girls UVP supports, I dreamed of writing stories.
Many years ago when I was a little girl, in Alokolum Village, Gulu district, listening to my mother and father tell folktales, it never occurred to me that one day I would be writing my stories and share it with the world. I am now able reach an audience which my father and mother never attained. Something that was beyond my dream as a young girl but now it seems possible and I am enjoying the process of writing and the benefits. Getting on the shortlist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the most prestigious prize in Africa has opened my door to the world. I hope and pray that I will be able to reach more people around the world with my writing and serve to inspire girls like Ruth to reach their potential. The United Kingdom was on my list of countries to visit and it came true as a result of my writing. I was able to read my work and have lunches with people that even in my dreams it could never happen.
After reading a number of books, some in Acholi, I dreamed of writing stories. My dream came true when I joined Uganda Women Writers Association (FEMRITE) in 1999, an organization that promotes and publishes women writers in Uganda. Most of the women are now my best friends, we share dreams, motivate each one to write, cry on each other shoulders, critique each other’s writing, have inspired me to go on with writing and they make it seem like it is possible to make our stories heard and that there was nothing in the world that we couldn’t get if we wanted. It is possible to make the voices of women and girls heard and it comes through active support and faith in each other. The girls who need that support now will someday be the ones providing the light.
I have been involved in a number of creative writing workshops organized by FEMRITE; with this I met established writers and those who shared my dreams. As I met other writers I realized that every writer was working hard in order to get where they were and I too needed to work hard so that I would achieve my dreams. The journey of writing has not been easy but the success made has erased every tear. In 2009, I was shortlisted for the South African PEN/Studzinski literary award, it made me realized that I was in the right direction with my life, but the 2011 Caine Prize shortlist has given me the confidence that I will be the writer that I want to be or the writer that I always dreamt of being.

Whatever a Ugandan girl dreams, whatever her aspirations, educational support is the pathway to reaching her goal. For her health, her well-being, and her place in Uganda and indeed the world, every girl deserves the chance to realize the dream.
Everything starts with a little step as long as you always have your eyes on the prize, you will get there. Each day, I wake up and I know that I am a writer and I need to work hard so that I can tell more stories and in the end inspire young Ugandans to tell their own.

Beatrice Lamwaka was shortlisted for the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story "Butterfly Dreams."

http://www.ugandavillageproject.org/what-we-do/orphan-support/

Meet Stella

“Educate a girl and you educate a community” goes an African proverb. And if the girl is Stella Nangobi, perhaps you can educate a nation. Stella, 19, dreams of becoming president of Uganda someday – if not a lawyer or teacher. Thanks to her education, she is able to chose her own path. Stella is a senior six (12th grade) secondary school student whose favorite classes are history and divinity. She is the only girl from a family of six children. Because her mother remarried, Stella was shuttled between relatives, and left in their care; it is a Busoga custom that a woman cannot take the children from a previous marriage into her new marriage. When she’s not studying, Stella likes to swim, read, play volleyball, go out with friends, and follow Manchester United football club. Because of her academic accomplishments, she is able to go to school for free. Uganda Village Project provides the only secondary school scholarship for both girls and boys in Iganga District and enables hard-working students like Stella to succeed - for herself and for her community.

Educated girls are less likely to get HIV/AIDS and marry young. They go on to earn higher incomes, plan their families, educate their children - and prove old proverbs to be true.

Learn more: http://www.ugandavillageproject.org/what-we-do/orphan-support/scholarships/

Celebrating Student Success!

This is the end of the third and final term for all of the schools and so students are beginning to trickle into the UVP office with their report cards and their thank you notes for their sponsors. Stella came in on Monday, shy smile on her face and requisite papers in her hand. And what was written on those papers?

She scored 24 out of a possible 25 points!

Gushing was necessary, but the good news didn’t stop at her 24 points. The headmaster of her school also recognized what a stellar student our Stella is and awarded her a tuition scholarship for the first term of her final school year next year!

Days like these I’m filled with pride that is befitting the “auntie” moniker many of our scholarship students have bestowed upon me. Days like these I am filled with pride at what our students are able to accomplish when their minds are free from worry about school fees and can concentrate, instead, on studying.

Donations do make a difference and they can change the course of lives. Thank you for helping UVP help Stella.

The Bulumwaki Baby

One month ago, an older woman in Bulumwaki Village showed up to a family planning sensitization, holding in her arms a baby malnourished almost to the point of death. It was impossible to tell how old the child was – his head seemed far too large for his body, which was about the size of a 3 month old, and his skin was light and tinged yellow, sucked in against his bones like thin, dry paper. His eyes were huge and glassy, appearing to see nothing, and his head lolled loosely on his neck.

The woman holding the child was its auntie – the mother had died in childbirth, about one year ago. ‘What are you feeding the baby,’ the team asked the auntie. Mostly water, she replied. She was poor, and a migrant to the village with no family around and too many mouths to feed already. She could not afford to buy milk for the baby, or anything else more nutritious than occasional, watery maize porridge.

The team was shocked, and the Ugandan women from SoftPower (the NGO conducting the family planning sensitization), said they had never seen such a malnourished child in all their lives. They promised to bring a high-calorie milk mixture for the child to their next Healthy Village outreach in Walukuba.

The next week Julius Ntalo – the Ugandan volunteer in the Bulumwaki summer volunteer team, though now UVP staff – came to Walukuba Village to fetch the milk mixture from the SoftPower staff. It was a thick mixture of powered milk, oil and sugar, to be mixed with boiled water and fed to the baby a few times a day. The Bulumwaki team gave the mixture to the baby’s auntie, along with directions, and also gave her money for transport to the Iganga Hospital, as it really appeared that the baby needed more care than simple feeding.

The auntie – grateful almost to the point of tears – began feeding the child on the milk mixture, and also took it to Iganga Hospital a couple weeks later. Upon arrival, however, there was no doctor to be seen. The auntie stayed at the hospital for four days (not uncommon at Ugandan hospitals), and at the end of this time the doctor came by just once, and looked at the baby for five minutes. ‘There is something wrong with its neck,’ the doctor said. ‘And it is malnourished.’ He gave the auntie a packet of milk mixture and told her to come back the next week for somebody else to look at the baby’s neck.

Of course, the woman had no money to return to the hospital. Two weeks later, after the Bulumwaki volunteer team had left, Julius and I went to check up on the baby. The auntie brought him out proudly, pinching skin off his frail little ribs to show how much healthier he had grown since he had begun on the milk mixture. This might have been true, but my instant reaction was one of horror – having not seen the baby before, it certainly still appeared to me to be on death’s doorstep. Julius agreed that the baby still looked very, very bad. He was still far, far too skinny, and his eyes stared in that wide, unseeing manner which accompanies sever malnourishment. His head still rolled listlessly on his neck, in a sickly fashion that made one’s skin quiver.

We asked the woman if she had been feeding the baby on the milk mixture every day, and she told us that she had, though it was almost out. She recounted the story of the hospital visit, and as the child obviously needed to be seen by a doctor again (preferably without the four-day wait), we decided to send her to the SoftPower Health Clinic in Jinja. We gave her and a friend the money for transport to come into Iganga Town a few days later, explaining that we would meet her in Iganga and take her to the Clinic.

Carrying through on this plan, we arrived last Thursday with the auntie, the auntie’s friend, and the child at the SoftPower clinic in Jinja. Sad news met the child’s examination: it had malaria, as well as being malnourished, and had been sick for so long that it might not ever fully recover. ‘Does he sleep under a mosquito net,’ the SoftPower staff asked the woman. No, she replied – they did not even have money for mats to sleep on, never mind mosquito nets. The SoftPower staff told the woman that she must acquire a mat and a mosquito net for the child, and must continue to feed it on the milk mixture until it could eat solid foods. If we are lucky, the child will be able to speak, and move about regularly in future. However, it may never speak, and its neck and spine – which had borne some infection in the past – may never function normally. It is probable that the child will be mentally impaired, due to the severe malnourishment it has suffered.

The milk mixture needed will cost 70,000 UShs per month, the US equivalent of $35 monthly, but an impossibly large sum in a Ugandan village. While we are not in the usual practice of spending large sums of money on a single villager (UVP is working with so many needy villagers, in so many poor villages), helping this child seems an issue of basic humanity. To refuse help would surely be the boy’s death sentence. So, we shall invest in this child’s life, and supply him with a net, a mat, and the milk mixture until he can eat solid food. I would challenge anyone to look into his eyes and decide differently.

If you wish to help the Bulumwaki baby, please go ahead and make a donation through our online paypal account, or write a check (made out to Uganda Village Project, with 'Bulumwaki' in the memo line) to our treasurer at:

Uganda Village Project
c/o Kristina Wang
1244 Dormouse Rd.
San Diego, California, 92129

2008 Summer Recap

Hello friends of UVP!

We apologize that it has been so long since our last update, but rest assured, a lot has been going on, and we can’t wait to tell you all about it! Firstly, let me introduce myself: my name is Kristen Shuken, and I am the new Program Manager for UVP. I am so happy to be working with this organization, and I really want to thank Matt for doing such an awesome job here in Uganda - setting things up for the summer teams and for me to take over.

Speaking of the summer teams, well, let me start there. This summer we had some amazing volunteers from all over the US. Arriving here early June, they took on some daunting tasks. We had four teams this year: Orphan Support, Safe Water, Healthcare, and Obstetric Fistula. Since they did so much work and I cant possible tell you everything, I will just provide some examples of their accomplishments.




Orphan Support:
- Made school payments for 95 students;
- Received pictures and letters from 91 students;
- Coordinated summer camp for students; and
- Conducted a review of all local universities for students hoping to continue studies.



Safe Water:
- Designed a new promotion presentation;
- Sold a total of 183 bottles and 12 tablets of WaterGuard; and
- Surveyed 276 households on their health and sanitation practices.

Healthcare:
- Trained eye care community health workers to diagnose trachoma’s and cataracts;
- Developed a preliminary budget for a preventative dental clinic;
- Created a protocol manual for a pharmacy at the Ibulanku Health Center; and
- Conducted a baseline evaluation of the nutrition program at Ibulanku Health Center.

Obstetric Fistula
- Accompanied 15 women to Kamuli Hospital for fistula repair;
- Conducted outreaches in over ten villages, educating the public about fistula and working to remove stigma attached to the condition;
- Began school outreaches to create more awareness of the condition; and
- Organized and ran workshops with Traditional Birth Attendants and Local Counselors.

The summer teams this year were truly an amazing group of people! To all of the volunteers, I want to send a big thank you on behalf of UVP for helping us work towards our goals and sustainable development here in Iganga District.

A new project introduced by David Dinh, a volunteer from 2005 as well as our current treasure, also took place this summer. He is using the traditional clay pots and inserting a plastic water tap into them to better ensure water quality. This project has made a running start and continues to truly prove to be almost revolutionary in the villages. Starting with only 50 pilot pots in the parish of Kalalu has proved incredibly successful, and now we are working on manufacturing more of the pots within Iganga town. Our hopes are that with the use of the tap and the new modified pot it will reduce the recontamination of water within the homes.

The shallow well project is still going on strong. This summer we were able to accomplish four new wells in the Parish of Kalalu. Our good friends the Long family, whom also blessed us with a visit mid-July, made this possible. The Long family and some friends came and checked out our projects here in Uganda. It was great to be able to show off all of UVP’s good work. Creating these four wells in only two months taught us some valuable lessons about what we want to change in the following wells. For example, we have learned more on required depths and have thought about getting a water pump to help when digging below the water level.

We were also lucky this summer to be visited by a film crew from Santa Monica, California. Mark, Brian, and Greg came out here with a real vision on helping UVP’s work get out to the masses back stateside. Armed with two cameras, they spent a full week interviewing volunteers, following me around visiting our projects, and talking to the communities that had benefited from our projects. It was once again great fun to show off UVP, and I am so excited to see through the magic of editing what comes out of all of their tireless efforts. So, stay tuned to see a professional short film on UVP coming soon!


The film crew at work in Uganda

Of course all of these visitors couldn’t stay forever. The volunteers left at the end of July along with the Longs and the film crew leaving me in Uganda to keep their entire great work going.

However, it wasn’t long until UVP had another set of visitors, the Vassar Uganda Project. This team of Emergency Medical Technicians from Vassar College came with a laundry list of goals and objectives. Here are just a few:

1) Education. Educating the public of Iganga about various aspects of personal health care. Potential subjects are: CPR/first aid, proper hygiene, blood borne pathogens, and disease transmission.
2) Prevention. Preventative projects will focus on preventing the following conditions: Malaria, malnutrition, and death or injury due to lack of trained health-care providers.
3) Treatment. Provide supplies to local health care professionals, and fund the treatment for those individuals selected by the project (to be discussed in the sections hereafter). We hope to work in limited capacities with local health care professionals to learn from their experience and expertise, form a long-term relationship with them, and assess supply needs for an anticipated continued relationship.

As you all may know, once on the ground to implement a project, sometimes goals and objectives are reevaluated, and they develop into even larger projects. Such was the case for the Vassar Uganda Project. Once here, the Vassar team realized the dire need for an Emergency Response System. Therefore after meeting with the District Health Offices they began the gargantuan task of rehabilitating the Emergency Response System here in Iganga. To develop this system, they are hoping to form a partnership with Iganga District Health in which they are both responsible for aspects of the program. Now, the Vassar team is back in the US, but we are excited for their return to Uganda hopefully in January.

Now with these visitors gone, I have had time to focus on some of the more administrative aspects of UVP. We are close to being registered as a NGO in Uganda, thanks to Alison in the US as well. I have begun evaluating all of our wells with the help of Patrick, and I must say the feedback from the community is really great. I will write more about that when it is all completed.

We have also made our yearly change in UVP officers and Board members, and we are happy to welcome the new additions to UVP. Thank you to those that have resigned from their posts, as you all did a great job!

Well, I think that’s enough for now. If anyone would like more information about our projects this summer or anything else about UVP, please write. We will do our best to respond to you in a timely manner.

Thank you for all your support.

Tubonagane!! (See you!!)

Kristen Shuken