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.
Time for coffee
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" !
