Review the Masaka application form and help to define the steps and tasks
Status: 
Attached is the application form for the project of Masaka.
Please read it over and comment on what you feel is needed in order to formulate the project. We need to define the initial steps to undertake, keeping in mind that short and concrete tasks are more feasible.
Project: Help Improve Notre Dame High School
Mary,
Thank you so much for the Pencel project information.
We shall contact them and we hope we shall greatly benefit from the project God's willing.
However.sorry for the delay to responding to our Village descussions ,we are busy carrying on the accessement.
It will take us some days,but we shall make it to the end.
As you may not be aware,such information gathering required som form of transport.
Happy to inform you that a cathoilc priest here offered to us,a mortorcycle that we are using in this accessement proccess.
Now ,we have some hope that things are beginning to work out.
However,lam inviting more members to help descuss this program especially after the accessement.
Christopher
Hi Christopher,
Great to hear from you!.
Is sounds like you are doing a great work in the field. I think that is very, very good.
Great that you also got the support from the priest.
I look forward to seeing the results and we will be here to support you.
Raul
Dear friends to Masaka/Notre Dame High School Village,
Happy to inform you that we are now back to you and to inform you that the project for community assessment we have been carrying out is completed.
Attached herewith is the report.
Hope,when this is added to the Community Assessment tool provided by Raul in the first instance,together we can work out a lasting solution to serving humanity in this loaclty.
The offer by the Catholic priest here made the PRA learn shorter than predicted.
Thank you so much for your coorperation.
Yours
Christopher Wamala
N.B. Assessment was carried out from 9th to 15th April,2008
Great to hear from you Christopher.
I will read the document now and will get to you with my comments.
Raul
Hi Christopher,
It is great that you have put this together.
I can see a great effort and the results tell us a lot.
For all the rest, if you do not want to read the document attached by Christopher, this is a summary. They interviewed 578 people of the community at all levels from local leaders, farmers and youth and from both males and females.
Then they presented them a list of activities and they decided which ones were the ones they thought were more important
The ranking of activities were:
1. Secondary education
2. Clean water supply
3. Trade
4. Savings and credit
5. Piggery (Pigs raising)
5. Brick making (same preference as piggery)
7. Nursery tree planting
8, Goat keeping
The preferences are also organised by areas of the region investigated
My first comments are:
The first two (education and water) are clear to be important for the communities so we need to find ways in how the community can get involved in other activities that will help them get the water and the education.
For that to happen, I propose to look into the next activities. So it looks like trade is an interesting activity for them and that could mean that maybe setting up up a small shop could be a good idea.
Then savings is next so that tells me that they are interested in forming saving groups, that could be great.. That has helped many communities achieve great results.
Piggery and Brick making can also be looked as alternatives but it is clear it is not on the top of their list of things they would like to do. It would be good if they wanted to get involved in these activities that are labour intensive so they can also offer their work to see their communities develop.
Still, while looking at the scores again, I can see that for example the Nyendo area could be a good one to have a piggery project. And that in Kalungu and Kawoko there is at least a little interest for goat keeping so we could use that also in those two communities.
In VIlla Maria trading could look as a good option.
JUst some initial thoughts. WOuld be great to get more people assessing this valuable information.
Raul
Hi!
Christopher, I agree with Raul - good to see lots of effort and results, and that you had such a large number of people involved!
A few questions and comments that occur to me...
With education, what issues do people have e.g. is it that they can't afford to send their children to school, that there are not enough schools in the area to take all their children, quality of education, or something totally different? Solutions will vary depending on the problem(s).
The majority of participants are described as farmers. It surprised me a little that there was no mention of looking at improved methods to help them increase yields from existing crops/animals. That would give them more to sell, therefore making more money.
By trading, do you mean that people wish to run small shops etc for themselves, or that they would like to improve their skills in marketing items that they already produce?
Is your hope to focus on particular business areas e.g. trading, pigs etc, or to provide people with basic business skills, along with access to savings/loans? Then they can all start to do whatever they wish, although you will still find groups who have common interests and may benefit from additional training in those areas e.g. those wanting to keep pigs.
Where does Notre Dame school fit into all of this - will the school be coordinating all these activities, or would this be done by separate groups within the wider community? And how committed to change are people - are they already keen to get actively involved in doing things for themselves, or will they need a lot of encouragement along the way?
You may also be able to work with other existing groups in your area (are there any?) who have particular skills and have already worked in some of these areas. Even if you can't work directly together, they may be able to give you a lot of information on what has worked and, just as importantly, what has not worked. And are there existing savings/credit groups in your area that people can join?
I created the attached when Raul mentioned the differences of priorities across the different locations - it helped me to understand what he meant more clearly. So I thought I would pass it on in case it does the same for others!
Mary
THanks Mary,
I feel that could help the rest of the people understand the study better.
Raul
With all background info on the project.
This was the initial idea that Christopher wanted to discuss.
We then started talking with Christopher to support him understanding the Nabuur model. ONe of the steps was to fill out the community assessment tool. There were some issues in the document draft in questions 19 and 20.
Christopher then went to undertake an assessment in the community to see what they wanted to work on. This doc shows the results
Mary then put the information into a graph for everyone to understand the results of the research better.
Hi Everyone,
I have added all the documents we have so far in the resources section if someone wants to follow what has been happening.
Raul
We have answered some of what we feel will be useful.
Question: With education, what issues do people have e.g. is it that they can't afford to send their children to school, that there are not enough schools in the area to take all their children, quality of education, or something totally different? Solutions will vary depending on the problem(s).
Answer
Education still ranks number 1 because we have not yet having enough facilities to absorb all of them like houses, toilets, water, dormitories etc.
Secondly, some even cant afford the little fees charged to meet costs of salaries, scholastic materials , medical care and food.
Question: The majority of participants are described as farmers. It surprised me a little that there was no mention of looking at improved methods to help them increase yields from existing crops/animals. That would give them more to sell, therefore making more money.
Answer
It is true they did not mention about improved methods to increase yields. Funny enough the rules of Rural Participatory Appraisal are that you don’t influence the participants .It is them to bring answers while probing which are triangulated. We saw it as a great need but it failed to come out in the appraisal. Farming crops and improved techniques like organic farming and sustainable agriculture would indeed do a lot to increase domestic incomes of community members. We shall mobilize and sensitize people about this issue.
Question: By trading, do you mean that people wish to run small shops etc for them, or that they would like to improve their skills in marketing items that they already produce?
Answer
These people trade in different goods (agricultural and manufactured goods like clothes, sugar, milk, scholastic materials, crafts, and services like motorcycle and bicycle transport etc.
The consultants proposed micro-finance services, credit organizations.
They need trainings in Start and Improve Your Business (SYIB) and Selection, Planning and Management of Income Generating Activities Training programmes. This would be wonderful for them to increase their domestic incomes.
Question: Is your hope to focus on particular business areas e.g. trading, pigs etc, or to provide people with basic business skills, along with access to savings/loans? Then they can all start to do whatever they wish, although you will still find groups who have common interests and may benefit from additional training in those areas e.g. those wanting to keep pigs.
Answer
The above training programmes would provide basic trading skills and they would be free to start any legal business .In our observation all types of businesses could do well after training.
Question Where does Notre Dame School fit into all of this - will the school be coordinating all these activities, or would this be done by separate groups within the wider community? And how committed to change are people - are they already keen to get actively involved in doing things for themselves, or will they need a lot of encouragement along the way?
Answer
Our major concern from the beginning was provision of Education and it was the community at large that contributed to the founding of the School.
However, with the community dynamics all problems are interlinked.
It shall be the role of Notre Dame School to network/make linkages with other development organizations/groups to support other programmes/projects in the area.
However, we call upon other developers to participate in the issue.
Further ,we take this opportunity to thank RAUL , MARY and Stephen Balyana for the enormous work done .
Yours Sincerely
WAMALA CHRISTOPHER
Hi Christopher,
Thanks to you for the great amount of work put into the study you carried out. Next step will bet to work out the strategies to move forward and depending on that to see how the Nabuur model could contribute to the progress of those strategies in the process of improving the situation of the community.
I think we could maybe put together some information on the things the community already know how to do and start develop from there.
What do you think Chistopher.
I propose we come up with a least of the skills available in the community and maybe start thinking about what we can do with that?
Look forward to hearing from you,
Raul