2012 looking back and 2013 looking ahead

2012 has been and gone and now we look forward to 2013 and new challenges ahead.

In 2013 we are going to focus on 3 key areas:

1. Increase the number of farmers receiving seeds - we have already identified 200 who will receive seeds in March for the next growing season.
2. Develop the coffee growing initiative into a viable income generating project for the farmers.
3. Work with schools so they can grow enough food to feed the entire school and also teach the children the skills for growing the best crops and obtaining the highest yields.

So back to 2012... they say a picture paints a thousand words and we hope you get a good idea of what we have been doing in 2012 below!

Seeds - In 2012 we advanced 10,885 kgs of seed to 399 farmers in 13 groups.  

We met 5 of the groups. They are all so isolated that it takes ages to get from one group to another.

Coffee - Throughout the year we have watched as the coffee project has come to life.  The seeds were sown at the beginning of January and by the end of the month the first leaves were showing – as big as my thumb.  In April the farmers were busy preparing the land, you can see more here Coffee farmers preparing the land video  and by the end of May the seedlings had made their way north to Parabong where the farmers eagerly received them: Farmers receiving the coffee video (which has to be my absolute favourite)!  The coffee is now over a foot tall and the farmers are doing everything they can to nurture them through this dry season.

Pineapples - We advanced 40,000 pineapple suckers back in 2011 - the first harvest came this summer and the farmers have made hundreds of pounds from them.  They are quite the best pineapples in the world - and I know because I ate one!

Please do...  click here to visit the  Seeds for Development website  , like us at:  Seeds for Development on Facebook and feel free to follow us on Twitter @aliseeds

Even more importantly, please do get in touch!  Thank you so much.

Excellent coffee, visions and a really dodgy bridge

Hello! So much to share with you on as I am just back from a wonderful 2 week trip to Uganda that was so action packed I'm only just coming back to earth 2 weeks later!  So, things to update you on... excellent coffee growing, the child mothers, new groups, old groups, the farmers' vision and the wonderful Parabong Primary School.

Let's begin by being visionary. I was quite blown away when the farmers started to produce their 5 year visions. These are the farmers from Olwal and Parabong (the 2 original groups from the north) who, when I met them in 2008, couldn't imagine what tomorrow would hold for them, let alone 5 years down the road.




Here is Patrick sharing his group's with me and I am rendered speechless, which doesn't happen very often I can tell you! There are over 40 farmers in the group, but many of them were out in the fields as the rainy season was just starting and everyone was frantically sowing their seeds. I felt quite guilty in keeping them away from their fields, but when they showed me this - wow. You can see plenty more photos of the farmers and updates on our facebook page - www.facebook.com/seedsfordevelopment

Update on the child-mothers

The girls are doing really well and have changed a lot since I first met them last March. They have a dignity about them and are showing real determination to improve their lives. They have changed their name to "we shall transform our lives". We have advanced ground-nut (peanuts) seeds to them and they are being stored in the local village until the autumn when the girls will have fully prepared the land and be ready to plant them out. We were really keen that they knew that we had kept our word and that the seeds were ready for them. The girls agreed as a group to wait until the second rainy season to plant them.


When I asked them what they wanted/needed now, they unanimously said that they wanted to learn to read and write. They don't want to go to school, but want to have enough confidence to go into the bank and be treated with respect. This is amazing on several fronts, but especially because they want to have bank accounts and can now see this is a distinct possibility. We also came up with the idea of setting up a football team - well 4 teams actually as there are 45 girls! So guess what we are now looking for...

You might remember that Last November together with my fellow trustee Sally and her husband Ed, we visited the girls. They told us that they were setting up a saving scheme and Sally and Ed contributed £10 (about $16) to get them started. When I visited them last month the scheme was going from strength to strength and they now have over £300 in the kitty. The young mothers are all benefiting from the scheme including Jennifer who I spent 30 minutes with listening to her heart-breaking story. Jennifer was just 9 when she was abducted by the rebels in the year 2000. She spent 4 or 5 years in the bush where she gave birth to a baby. Six months pregnant with her 2nd baby, she escaped and spent a week eating raw potatoes and cassava whilst she made it home. Today she is living with the abusive father of her 2 other children. She is unable to see the first "bush-babies" due to him physically beating her and the children - the bush-babies are living with her grandparents (her parents are dead). The scheme is a life saver for Jennifer as she can borrow money to buy food for her children. Her husband forbids her to work in the fields (I don't understand it either) and has destroyed most of her kitchen utensils.


This photo shows all she has left to cook with... and how she cooks. Most days, when the man is very drunk and abusive, she goes to her friends homes to prepare the food.

I'm not telling you this to depress you, more to highlight how far such small amounts can go and the difference it can make. That £10 is supporting all 45 young mothers and their families and they are showing just how smart they are by growing it so much and so quickly.

The new farmers During this recent trip, I also met 6 of our 12 new groups. They are excited about their future and are showing the same enthusiasm and grit as our other groups to transform their lives. One of the groups gave us lunch and I am going to have to put in a lot more practice before I have mastered the art of eating gloopy sauce and greens with one hand, so you aren't going to see any photos of that. Also, I don't recommend seeing 3 groups in one day. The distances are not huge but the roads are so bad that it takes hours to get from one to another. We all jumped around on this bridge before abandoning Vincent as he tenderly drove the pickup over it!









Time for coffee

Are you drinking a cup of coffee at the moment? Do you ever wonder where it comes from and who has grown it? I know I never did, but now that I am watching over our coffee seedlings like an anxious mother hen I'm becoming obsessed with coffee. The seeds were planted in November and they have grown so much since then. Rather than write a load here about what the farmers are doing, you can see just what they are doing in this short video. You will also learn some top-tips about how to measure things with no tape measure. And I would like to know if you agree with Patrick or me about how wide are 2 hands...

I hope that in 3 years time, you will be enjoying the results of our first coffee crop and that one day Excellent Coffee from Uganda will be sitting in your kitchen cupboard.

Here are the babies... and now the next BIG challenge is how on earth do you take 30,000 coffee seedlings more than 300 miles to Gulu... ideas on a postcard please!












Parabong Primary School
I have to tell you about the most wonderful primary school I visited. Parabong Primary School is just across the road from Demon's farm and serves most of the Parabong community where our farmers are. Demon's son is one of the 1,300 children who attend. The school has a tragic past. On April 18th 1996, twenty one people were massacred under this mango tree (on the right). The decapitated bodies were laid out in a row and they told me that a river of blood ran right down to the trees you can see at the far side of the field. The rebels destroyed the school and all of the houses around. This included Demon's home and his brother was one of the victims. The school closed down that day and they did their best to educate the children in the camps until 2010, when the school re-opened. Whilst this is a terrible story, James (the Deputy Head) told me that since the farmers are working with Seeds for Development there are 150 more children going to school and each of these children is eating lunch every day.

The school is at the heart of the community and it shows that we really are making a positive impact on peoples lives. Please do watch this last short video of the 100+ children in the first year singing a welcome.

 I love the way James starts off with "one, two... off we go" !

Penniless and Proud

Here we are, already in April with quite an update for you.

We have news about our coffee project, The Houses of Parliament and of course our finances!

But first, please let me share with you the most exciting news of all (and the reason for being broke).  

We are now supporting more than 1,000 farmers in Uganda!  Yup - that's right  - more than one thousand families!  I still pinch myself thinking that 4 years ago we were an idea to help one farmer and now here we are with more than 1,000!

In our last update, we shared that Seeds for Development had advanced the money for 28,000 coffee seeds.  It was in fact 30,000 and the seeds were planted out in November last year.

This little fella on the left will grow into a tree providing delicious coffee for us and welcome income for the farmers for years and years to come.  The first crop will be in 2014... 

If you have ever wondered what 30,000 coffee seedlings look like, well here you are...   

We were so pleased to advance the farmers the funds to buy the seeds and when they are selling their crop and have made some money, the farmers will be paying us back for the original amount.

As you can see, the seedlings are now growing away in pots at Timothy’s centre near Mukono.  The farmers are preparing their land and planting shade trees to protect the coffee plants.  Depending on the weather, the seedlings will either be planted out in the autumn or early next year.

Now to Parliament...

On January 31st we were so excited to participate in the launch of Energy Aid – a new NGO addressing the issues around access to energy (or lack of it).  

The event was hosted by the Pauline Latham OBE MP to whom we are so grateful for such a wonderful opportunity which we would never have had without her.  More than 130 guests came and it was a wonderful celebration. 

Seeds for Development shared the stage with Pauline, Energy Aid, Practical Action and Stephen Leonard, CEO of IBM UK and Ireland (and my boss!)

Our great friend Timothy Njakasi - farmer, representative of Send a Cow Uganda  and a partner in the coffee project, came over especially.  We had hoped for Patrick from Olwal to attend, but sadly the Border Agency refused him a visa… which is quite ironic as the whole point of the evening was around international development for the poorest people.   

Finally... our finances!

We have ended our financial year (March 31st) with £300 in the bank – so not quite penniless – but pretty close.  The reason for our sudden plunge in funds is that we have recently transferred £12,000 to Uganda which will supply 399 farmers with 10,885 kgs of seeds.  

It is vital for us to keep your money here in a bank account.  All  donations go to the farmers so it is wonderful to be able to tell you that they have all gone!

Here are the latest groups who will receive seeds:

Group	Seed	Number in group	Kgs
Can Mito Komwac	Soya	30	450
Note en Teko	Soya	26	650
Anam Okun	Soya	35	1400
Wop Tam Atira	Soya	25	625
Can Oyelo Wa	Soya	30	450
Can Oguruwa	Maize	35	700
Agoba Dong Fish Farmers	Soya	30	1500
Wek Omara	Soya	35	1750
Adwoki A	Soya	30	600
Adwoki B	Soya	33	660
Ajuk	Soya	31	620
Note ber	Soya	30	900
Acde community Development	Soya	29	580
Totals		399	10,885

These groups are all in the north of Uganda and currently work with Send a Cow Uganda.  We are delighted to continue our collaboration with them to support the farmers move from subsistence to commercial farming. 

As I said before, this brings the total number of farmers we are working with to more than 1,000 – something we are equally proud to shout about from the roof-tops!

I will be visiting the farmers (well maybe not all of them) when I visit Uganda after Easter.  I look forward to sharing photos and news from them next time. 

In our last update, I told you about the child mothers and how we had pledged to support them with seeds this year.  Well they will be receiving seeds and I hope to catch up with them on my next trip too.

There are many other projects and things we could tell you, but I think that is enough to digest for one update.

Thank you as always for your support and encouragement.  Our challenge now is to replenish the funds so we can continue to support more and more families.  If you have any ideas, suggestions or money please do get in touch and don't forget to visit our website .

2011, a year of pineapples, peanuts and proud moments

Thank you so much for your support which, in 2011, has provided amongst other things….

40,000 pineapple plants

28,000 coffee seedlings

12,813 kgs of ground-nut seeds

In 2011 we entered into a partnership with Send a Cow Uganda, who run fabulous programmes with farmers groups. One of the challenges they face is supporting farmers’ transition from subsistence to commercial farming.  Seeds for Development are helping fill that gap by advancing their farmers seeds and other things, such as pineapple suckers!  Pineapples take 18 months to produce fruit and generate an income, so it is really important that the farmers benefit from Seeds for Development, as we are not in a hurry to be repaid!  We are now working together with 10 groups in northern Uganda, which brings the total of Seeds for Development groups to 14.

One of these groups is made up of around 40 teenage mothers.  I met them in March and it was really hard to see all these young girls with babies and no education or support.  Several of the girls were just 13 when they had their first (oh yes, they don’t just have one) baby.

We have pledged to support them as best we can and we plan to advance them seeds and other inputs in March next year.

You might be asking what on earth are we doing with coffee seedlings… earlier in the year I attended a Leadership programme in Kampala along with farmer Patrick from Olwal, Timothy from Send a Cow Uganda and Paddy who works with our original farmers in Mpigi.  We were also joined by British entrepreneur Rob Bernard-Weston!

We spent a week working on a project to identify new income generating activities.  We quickly realised that there were 2 huge opportunities for us around coffee… firstly, to bring existing Mpigi coffee farmers together as a group and secondly to start commercial coffee growing in the north.

It takes 3 years for a coffee tree to start earning its keep and produce enough beans – but as with the pineapples, the farmers are patient and so are we.  The first thing the farmers did after the Pepal programme, was to go back and talk to the community to see if there is an interest – a resounding YES.  
Paddy has signed up 200+ farmers (already Seeds for Development farmers) ready and willing to collaborate and work together.  Patrick has 280+ farmers (also Seeds for Development farmers) signed up and ready to go.  

We were delighted that Seeds for Development could advance the money to grow 28,000 coffee seedlings and Timothy now has the lovely job of planting and growing them until they can be planted out in March!  Good luck Timothy… 

This new venture will be somewhat unique.  The farmers will set up, own and manage their coffee company.  They will produce excellent coffee, in excellent conditions and treat their growers and families in an excellent way.  Bet you can’t guess what it’ll be called…..

You got it….  The Excellent Coffee Company!

Watch out for excellent coffee coming to a store near you – but don’t hold your breath!

On top of all this excitement we had 2 big farmer visiting trips to Uganda this year.  The first in March included nearly a week in Gulu meeting all the new farmers and spending time with Timothy from Send a Cow.  In November, I went with fellow trustee Sally and her husband Ed and introduced them to the many projects that we now have underway.  There was much celebrating including us planting trees to mark the occasion.

In the past I have updated you on how our original farmers were improving their homes and sending their children to school.  They have moved up a league and are now building businesses in the local town – like this row of 3 shops…  Our challenge now is to move the successful farmers out of the project to allow new farmers to join.  

What a great challenge to have!

So after an amazing 4^th year in existence, we see that Seeds for Development works and will continue to grow, expand, diversify and work and work and work… There is so much more I could share with you but there is only so much a person can take… thank you for reading this far…

Without you this wouldn’t be possible, so thank you so much for your ongoing support in whatever way it is.  We continue to pay our expenses and send all the money to the farmers!

One last thing… meet my namesake Alison (the cow, not Jennifer, the beautiful farmer!).  The farmers at Parabongo received this cow from Send a Cow Uganda!  I am taking this as a huge compliment (despite what my brother says!)

Enough is enough.  

Thank you again and 

very best wishes to you,

Alison

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Drought in East Africa

It is a very strange world we live in.  I signed off last time saying hurrah rain has arrived in Gulu.  I start this one with the news, from a text message I received today, that more than 25 people have been killed by lightning in the Amuru district where our farmers are.  These are mainly children and Demon says that many many more have been injured.  So whilst there are millions of people potentially starving to death because of drought in the region, we have people being killed in huge rain storms.


Seeds for Development is too small to launch our own emergency appeal, but we are very willing to help however we can.  Because of our close friendship and collaboration with Send a Cow Uganda we are very keen to support their emergency appeal:  https://www.sendacow.org.uk/drought-appeal . Send a Cow's projects in Ethiopia are located near the very worst affected areas.  Food prices have rocketed and harvests are in danger.  Families are going hungry - and fear that worse is to come.    If you haven't seen or heard about this, Al Jazeera have very comprehensive coverage:  http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/2011710112312872979.html  as does the BBC (where you can also support the DEC appeal):  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14106859


We shall continue with our projects in the hope that the weather stabilises and the harvest is a good one.  If the situation changes, then we will change with it and re-think how we can best support our farmers.  Whilst we are only working with a small number of farmers, at least they will not starve to death, but does anyone know anything about lightning conductors? 

Uganda March 2011 - part 2 - visiting Parabongo

It was very hot in Gulu on March 14th 2011 - about 36 degrees hot!  So with bottles of water at the ready Timothy Njakasi from Send a Cow Uganda and myself headed off from Gulu to visit our farmers at the nearby village of Parabongo.  Nearby if you are a crow, but if you are driving the 10 miles, or so, it takes about an hour on the bumpy, bouncy, pot-hole filled roads of Uganda. I couldn't help but think about my first trip there in 2008 when I was faced with 60 faces filled with so much sadness and pain it was almost unbearable.

This was my 3rd trip, and the first time I was visiting our farmers at home and not in the IDP camp.  Excited was not the word!  We had planned for the whole day to spend with the farmers (which translates to about 3 hours!).   There is a short slide-show of photos of the day at the bottom of this blog.

We arrived to the most wonderful welcome.  The farmers lined the path down to Demon's (yes really) house.  They were singing, clapping and dancing as we made our way in a procession to his home!

We now have 2 groups at Parabongo - the original and the new.  The new group seemed slightly bemused by the excitement of our reunion! Both groups sang welcoming songs and then we got down to the nitty gritty of the day - the meeting.

Meetings start with a farmers prayer and then I ask about their lives, the progress they have made and the challenges they face.  The progress stories are brilliant, ranging from sending the children to school (hurrah) and eating 3 meals a day to setting up businesses, buying land and building houses. Seeing their new houses was very moving because everything they had was destroyed during the war, so they are re-building their lives hut by hut.  The challenges are very practical; storage for the seeds, water for irrigation and help for the schools.  Here is the report/letter they wrote for me (I know it's big, but I thought you would like to be able to read it!): 

Their homes consist of huts and lots of space.  Because of the horrendously cramped conditions in the camp they said that they are using more space than before.  The compound, as they call it, is made up of; the kitchen hut, the living-room hut (eating, relaxing), bedroom huts for the children (one each boys and girls) and the parents bedroom hut.  They are learning (thanks to Send a Cow Uganda) to build separate lavatories and washing areas.


Then we had lunch... 3 years ago I visited them and they had nothing - absolutely nothing.  2 years ago, still in the camp, they presented me with a beautiful pot, a basket and a brush to sweep my compound - they did ask me if I use the brush to sweep my compound... I think next time I will take some photos of how we live in our part of the world.

They cooked and served lunch on plates, whilst we sat on chairs in their newly built home.  They haven't got to knives and forks yet and it was an interesting experience eating sweet potatoes, spinach and groundnut (peanut) purée with my fingers. 
As I am a beginner of this way of eating,  I have left out the photos of me trying...   It was fabulous and quite the best meal I have ever had in my entire life.

After lunch we headed off to visit other farmers and their homes.  Disaster struck after farmer number 1.  The dreaded puncture... in the middle of the bush... no mobile phone signal... no shade and no water left in the bottles.  An hour and considerable sun-burn later all was mended.  Luckily Timothy never leaves home without a spare wheel in his truck.  Sadly it meant that we couldn't visit anymore farms and had to head back to Gulu before darkness fell.

I was going to end this by asking you to pray/hope/wish for rain in Gulu as it is a real problem.  But... as I type Demon has just sent a text message saying that it is raining!  So hurrah for rain and hurrah for the wonderful people of Northern Uganda - and a special hurrah for mobile phones!

Uganda trip March 2011 - part 1

Well here I am, one week back from a truly remarkable trip to Uganda.  I was very lucky to spend time with the farmers without being in a mad rush.  Being back for a week means that I can condense my thoughts into a readable blog, rather than pages of blah blah!

So, where to start... at the beginning.  I headed north to Gulu and met farmers old and new.  The first groups I met were new groups for us at Seeds.  Lacor is a community just outside of Gulu and was the site of one of the largest IDP camps.  In partnership with Send a Cow Uganda (SACU) we are now advancing seeds to 4 groups.

I want to show you this picture because of the shock I had when they put up their hands in answer to this question:

"How many of you had children abducted during the war?"  This was the response.  Almost more shocking was when I asked them "how many of you are still waiting to hear any news from your children and to hear if they are still alive?".  Half of these people put their hands up.

I then met a group of 38 child mothers.  The youngest was 13 when she had her baby... They have had an awful time and have turned to each other for support.  They were rejected by their families, raped and have suffered terrible things.  I didn't meet them all, but heard enough stories to make me weep.

We will support them how we can - initially with hand hoes and seeds.