Success Stories

Community health and wellness promotion took a sporting turn in Luhwahwa in December when a thousand people rallied in support of LUYODEFO’s 2011 Tournament for Change (TFC).

Change is the operative word here. TFC is a high-profile and highly-anticipated community soccer match – but it’s also one with a high-stakes game plan - Education.

As twelve teams from Kisinga sub-county battled for control of play on-pitch, bigger goals – the kind that reshape entire communities - were being pursued off pitch. “Between games and during half-time intervals, the players and almost one thousand spectators discussed critical issues like HIV awareness and the education of girls,” says Sylvia Biira, Kajwenge village representative, and Chairperson of the Luhwahwa Youth Development Foundation (LUYODEFO.) “These topics are difficult to talk about. Integrating the information sessions into something that’s fun and brings the whole community together makes sense. AIDS, the education of girls, community development – these are things that affect us all.”

The 2011 TFC evolved from a pilot event staged in 2001 which generated a strong community response. “The idea of using on-field rivalry to build off-field unity worked,” said Biira, “but we needed to make some changes. This time we used local radio to promote the event and mobilized community teams to pitch the idea to local businesses.” It was a good call. Collectively, these marketing strategies resulted in almost $650 in sponsorship being raised to support the teams. “It’s still an evolving process,” Biira notes, “ but we’ll take what we learned this time to make the next Tournament for Change ever better.”

Trophies awarded to the winning teams were highly prized but Biira is quick to point out that in a competition like this there are no losers. Each team walked away with a commemorative soccer-ball and the knowledge that they had been part of something important. “Our goal – pun intended – was to get people talking about community health and development,” Biira explains. “In 24 hours, our message of change reached over a thousand people. It was the top story on the local FM radio station. That’s the real win here.”

The energy generated on and off pitch by Biira’s Tournament For Change has created a new challenge. “Now there’s a strong demand coming from the community to get more sports programs up and running for local youth,” explains Biira. “We need to expand LUYODEFO’s resources to give our youth more opportunities – not only in sport, but in education and entrepreneurship too.” These concepts – empowerment, innovation, and sustainability – drive the group’s work and over the last ten years have spawned a diverse range of community projects (visit LUYODEFO.org for a list of current programs.) And they don’t show signs of slowing down though. “We need to help our young people recognize and achieve their potential,” says Biira. “And ensure that their needs and rights are met..”

Now there’s a goal worth shooting for.”

Blog post by Kirsti Shields

Blog post by Kirsti Shields

Six months after landing a prestigious grant to implement a revolutionary cooking technology that uses local-generated waste to make clean-burning fuel briquettes, Emmanuel Menya, Wakitaka village local representative, reports on the Cook Clean and Save the Environment (CCASTE) Program’s vital signs. “We’ve had a lot of successes,” he notes. “And we’ve learned a lot. It’s an evolving process.”

At the heart of the CCASTE program are the area’s youth. “Our young people needed to learn business, leadership and entrepreneurial skills,” Menya explains. “As they go through the CCASTE Program training we teach them important sales and marketing skills. They learn the importance of innovation. Those that go on to start their own business can apply their skills to real-life business solutions that benefit their local community.”

During the first six months of the program, interest has been strong. As of November 2011, forty youth have graduated from the first training program. Three have already started running their own briquette manufacturing enterprise. Almost twenty more have used their new business skills to start a variety of other innovative ventures, diversifying, and at the same time feeding, the local economy.

During the first six months of the program, the number of program beneficiaries has increased three-fold from thirty to ninety. “Before the Cook Clean and Save the Environment Project none of our youth had access to this kind of training,” Menya explains. “Now they’re learning to generate and implement their own business ideas. It’s very exciting.” Enrollment in the next wave of trainings is expected to be high. A visit to an established – and very successful – briquette-manufacturing facility in Kampala attracted a large turnout, and ten local youth have already been trained as “trainers of new trainers,” increasing the program’s potential to teach new trainees.

Interest in using the new fuel is high too. In the last six months CCASTE educators conducted awareness campaigns to educate local residents about the health, economic and ecological benefits of switching to the new technology. Despite patchy turn-out due to poor weather and conflicting local events, over three hundred individuals attended the two sessions.
The biggest challenge, according to Menya, is that at the moment demand for the new briquettes far outstrips supply.

“An overwhelming number of youth are interested in starting up briquette-making ventures” Menya explains, “but for most youth the high cost of the manufacturing technology remains prohibitive.” Part of the problem is that local youth lack a strong saving culture. According to an extensive baseline survey conducted during this first phase of the project, almost 60% of local youth serve as head of household. For these youth, family responsibilities restrict the amount of money they have available to save. But even among youth with fewer obligations, Menya points out, saving habits are poor.

To promote good saving habits and build a reservoir of funds for the community to draw on, CCASTE ran a series of training and education sessions focusing on how to save and use credit facilities responsibly. Early results are encouraging. In the first six months, ten youth bought into the Youth Group’s newly-created revolving Savings Program.

With the CCASTE program up and running and people lining up to make – and use – the new briquettes, the future for Wakitaka’s youth looks bright. Two years ago, the majority of the village’s youth were looking at a very different kind of future. Now, armed with key entrepreneurial skills and access to a ripening communal savings fund, they have the chance to pursue their business dreams. Those aren’t the only gains. Thanks to the cleaner-burning and ecologically-sound new fuel, the village’s physical landscape – its kitchens and woodlands – will be healthier.

“It’s been an encouraging first six months, but there’s a long way to go,” Menya cautions. “We need to increase the Wakitaka Youth Group’s resources so that we can support more youth. We need to instill a stronger savings culture in our youth and encourage entrepreneurs to invest in and access the community saving fund. We need to bring supply in line with demand.”

Menya may be right - there may still be a long way to go. But right now – thanks to Menya’s Cook Clean and Save the Environment Program - a new future is being built in Wakitaka village.

One briquette at a time.

By Hary Mitchell

YOFOSO Reopens Internet Café

After over 13 months of inactivity, Youth for Sport, Restoration, and Rehabilitation (YOFOSO) in Zambia reopened their fully functional internet café at the social centre, complete with four laptops and two desktops. Having a reliable internet source at the centre will help YOFOSO to reduce the costs spent on transportation and internet usage from the other cafes.

Adding to the excitement, friends of YOFOSO have already prepaid for three months of internet service, and YOFOSO has also received two donated laptops. Due to the generosity of their friends, YOFOSO was able to donate two of their own desktops—one to a local soccer team that has managed to build a business centre to raise funds for their team, and the other one to a retired worker who wants to set up a business centre.

Having internet at the centre will help the children at YOFOSO who have been developing computer skills. Four children are currently being trained in website development and management, and it is projected that in a few months they will begin teaching their friends.

One senior youth, Leonard Charles Phiri, has already been trained in video production at a leading local institute and was able to use his skills while working as a camera assistant for the award-winning film “Mwansa the Great.” Leonard is now passing this knowledge to the younger children.

YOFOSO’s Children Featured in Award-Winning Movie

The children from Garden compound in Lusaka, Zambia, are now receiving international recognition from Zambian filmmaker Rungano Nyoni's award-winning film Mwansa the Great. Scheduled for twenty-five different festivals, the film has been traveling the world all this year, making notable stops in Madrid's Cineposible International Festival, the VIS Vienna Independent Shorts, the Tarifa African Film Festival (Spain), Curtocircuito Na Rúa (Spain), and the London International Film Festival.

Nine year old Samuel Mwale has been coming to the centre at YOFOSO since its inception, excelling in drama and traditional drumming. The pinnacle of Samuel's emerging career so far is his starring role as the young Mwansa in “Mwansa the Great”.

Samuel Mwale's acting skills earned him a scholarship, even before he starred in "Mwansa the Great." His school fees are paid for up to grade twelve. This is particularly beneficial to young Samuel and his family, since his father died in in 2006, leaving his mother to care for him and his four sisters.

The soundtrack of “Mwansa the Great” features the traditional drumming of seven to ten of YOFOSO's children. Also, a senior youth at YOFOSO, Leonard Charles Phiri, also worked as the camera assistant for “Mwansa the Great”. Leonard was trained in video production at a leading local institute and is now sharing his knowledge with the younger children at the centre.

Zambians and the community of the YOFOSO social centre eagerly await “Mwansa the Great” to return from its world travels and finally screen in Zambia. The creators of the film are working on exposing the film internationally before returning to Zambia. American film festivals in Austin and Chicago have decided at the last minute to screen the film in October, so there is evidence that is gaining a lot of ground.

Lusaka Tournament a Success

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With the successes of the inaugural Lusaka Tournament, Lusaka and the surrounding compounds experienced firsthand the joining of a profound vision and extensive community collaboration. This monumental youth sports tournament and health awareness event was held the week of August 22nd in the Chiwama compound of Lusaka, Zambia. 56 teams came from 7 compounds of Lusaka to compete in soccer and netball, while learning valuable life lessons in religion and HIV/AIDS safety.

The Garden compound's own Young Gunner's competed valiantly and came within sight of total victory. The under 10 Young Gunners ultimately lost to Mr. C.D Academy of Chaisa Compound in the semifinals, while the under 17 Young Gunners were knocked out in the quarterfinals by Black Boys of the Matero Compound. Although neither of YOFOSO's teams won it all, both the Young Gunners lost to the eventual champions in their age group.

young gunners

The overall success and impact of the Lusaka Tournament depended on the strong partnerships created by the organizing committee chaired by Mulenga Cliff", founder of Youth for Sport, Restoration, and Rehabilitation (YOFOSO). Every evening, Campus Crusade for Christ-Zambia taught the Word of God to the visiting teams camped at the community school, Cobete. Grassroots Soccer, a leading NGO dealing with HIV/AIDS issues among the youths in Zambia, educated the youths about safe health practices, gave counseling, and even tested some of the participants for HIV. More than 450 youths graduated from their program at the end of the tournament.

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The Lusaka Tournament was an initiative by the Lusaka Youth Sport Initiative, a network of local coaches from the participating communities. Because of the lack of funds for the tournament, each team had to pay a small participating fee, the highest being K50,000 (about $10 USD) for the under 17 teams.
Alive & Kicking" donated five balls, while Grassroots Soccer" donated three balls and two jerseys. These donations, plus six trophies and six sets of jerseys purchased from the participation fees, served as the prizes.

“We are hoping that this is not the last event we will be holding,” committee chairman Mulenga Cliff says. “It is our sincere hope that we be able to find sponsors for our event, as community teams have an uphill battles to raise funds to participate in the tournament.”

The communities surrounding Lusaka, and the children from the Garden active with YOFOSO, will experience the longterm legacy of the Lusaka Tournament for years to come. The partnerships made within the community are strong, with some pledging to continue support, but there can never be enough guarantees.

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(Submitted by Kirsti Shields)

A pioneering new alternative-fuel-generation program is making sparks in Wakitaka village.

The innovative scheme is the brain-child of Wakitaka’s youth development group, founded in 2008 to engage local youth in sustainable, income-generating activities.

Concerned by the community’s reliance on fire-wood, the group conceived the idea of converting wastes like coffee husks, sawdust and household refuse into easy-to-store fuel briquettes.

By selling the briquettes at a competitive price to individual families and small-scale community industries such as local bakeries, the group hopes to generate income to support community-development programs while cycling precious resources back into the community economy.

It’s a brilliant scheme. After all, the raw materials are generated locally, and collected without cost. Diverting domestic waste to the project cuts the village’s reliance on costly and ecologically-unsound refuse-disposal programs. “Fees that traditionally have been paid to garbage collectors can now go to support local developmental programs,” notes Emmanuel Menya, Wakitaka’s village representative.

Menya goes on to explain that there are ecological benefits too. Once the infrastructure is in place to manufacture fuel briquettes, the village’s consumption of firewood and charcoal will be slashed, allowing local woodlands – depleted by decades of firewood collection - to regenerate. Admittedly, reforestation will not occur overnight - but it won’t be long before the landscape starts to show signs of recovery. Moreover, the new briquettes promise to burn longer than conventional solid fuels, meaning that fuel supplies need to be replenished less often. They also promise to produce less smoke than conventional solid wood fuels, creating a healthier cooking environment.

Every member of the community stands to benefit from the project. Unemployed community youth – particularly those with little formal education or training - will have opportunities to develop key sales, marketing and project management skills while working towards something they know will truly transform their community. Whatever their level of involvement – from gathering raw materials to training youth from other communities in briquette-making technology – each participant will gain an understanding of the power – and the potential – of innovative thinking.

That’s not all. Community residents will benefit from a cleaner home-cooking environment, a stream-lined process for disposing of household refuse, and a greener and healthier natural landscape. Women in particular, who are traditionally responsible for the grueling and relentless task of collecting firewood, will find new hours in their day. But it’s not just families who will benefit. Local businesses, such as bakeries, which need a reliable supply of solid fuel in order to operate, will also benefit from the new scheme.

There’s a few hurdles to jump before the briquettes are in everyday use. “We solved the manpower issue by recruiting local youth to aid in waste collection and distribution of briquettes to local consumers,” Menya says, “But we still needed machines to help crush waste, blend it with chemicals, and mold it into briquettes.”

For this, they turned to the Youth Entrepreneurship Facility. Every year the YEF, in conjuction with the International Labor Organization (ILO) invites young entrepreneurs to present proposals for innovative projects that will sustainably meet the needs of applicants’ local communities. Competition for funding is fierce. Candidates advance through a rigorous screening process. Of the more than 500 proposals submitted this year by Ugandan youth organizations, only fifteen reached the prized inspection level. One of these was WYDG’s briquette production project.

Attached to the award is a $8,000 grant - enough to start up a plant to fabricate press machines and implement the infrastructure needed to get the project up and running, Menya notes. The grant will also allow the group to hire full-time project manager, Joel Kakaire, to oversee the project’s implementation. But it won’t stop there. Right now the WYDG plans to offer briquette-making, sales and marketing training to other youth groups, and make its new machines available for individuals and communities to purchase at a subsidized rate.

“This is just the start,” Menya notes. “There’s so much potential to expand the program.”

With WYDG’s ongoing training in entrepreneurism, there’s no telling how far they will go.”

Since 2005, Sushmita Lahiri, Local Representative of Kalna, has been teaching children at her own house. This week we received some very uplifting news.

Local Representative Sushmita Lahiri writes:

“School shifted from my house to its own building ! ! ! Yesterday, Tuesday the 5th of April 2011 !”

Sushmita writes she has been scrubbing off the old paint during her leisure time, and she was able to hire a painter to paint the first part of the building.

“The children are very happy in the new school! At this moment, only a part of the total building could be made fit for use. Please be assured that as soon as other parts complete and made ready for use, I will let you know!”

Congratulations Sushmita! We’re waiting for more positive news.

Read more about Kalna, and find out how you can help:
http://www.nabuur.com/village/kalna

Sushmita teaching at her house

(Story by Kirsti Shields)

Boards are being dusted down in Elmina, Ghana, in preparation for local representative Bernard Benyah’s latest community initiative – a colorful season of free-for-all educational theater featuring prominent local and national performers.

“We needed an impactful way to explore the behaviors, attitudes and societal structures that are feeding the area’s escalating HIV infection rates,” Benyah explains. “Infection rates rose 0.8% between 2007 and 2009. We had to get people talking.” Harnessing music, song and theater to explore issues around HIV infection, Benyah hopes his pioneering Culture for Development program – Dramatic Theater with a social conscience – will get people opening up about AIDS.

There’s a lot to talk about. Lack of access to accurate information about HIV handicaps residents’ capacity to make safe, informed lifestyle choices. In the harsh Ghanaian economy, with high rates of HIV-related mortality, widows and orphaned youth are particularly vulnerable. Many fall prey to older, sexually-active adults who promise money in exchange for sexual services, putting them at heightened risk for HIV infection. Knowledge about contraception is patchy too, Benyah points out, as evidenced by Elmina’s flourishing abortion industry. Once funding for his program is secured, Benyah envisions specially-trained education and outreach teams visiting up to thirty area villages and reaching hundreds of vulnerable residents. “By educating people about abstinence, contraception and safe sexual practices we empower them to make positive choices and positive changes.”

“But it’s not enough to teach vulnerable individuals to advocate for themselves,” Benyah adds. “Society must learn to advocate for them too.” Historically, according to Benyah, Ghanaian society has shunned HIV infected individuals. Once exposed, many lose prized roles at home, at work, and in the community further depriving them of positive support structures. As part of his work, Benyah hopes to train local community members as counselors to help mentor individuals and families impacted by HIV/AIDS and to nurture a culture of positivity of acceptance within, and towards, the HIV positive community. Here too, he sees a critical role for theater. “Theater’s powerful, yet non-threatening. It makes people feel connected.”

In a society where HIV is rife and those known to be affected are routinely ostracized, even ousted, a feeling of connectedness sounds like a good thing.

(Story by Kirsti Shields)

Tired of battling drought and an ever-declining livestock market, many Maasai farmers are tempted by outsiders’ offers to buy their land and resettle their families in nearby towns. “It’s devastating,” explains local representative Paul Kilelu of Kajiado Village. “Our land’s our biggest resource. If we abandon it - we lose everything.”

Paul urges struggling farmers not to sell but to consolidate their land-holdings into tracts of sustainably-managed land such as the Empaash Oloriento Nature Conservancy. Intelligently preserved land, Paul explains, can support vulnerable wildlife species and attract tourists. “Eco-tourism offers us a way to keep our land without being dependent on precarious climate and livestock markets,” he insists. “It’s our best hope for the future.”

Paul hopes his latest innovation - a local-language radio station presented by the community, for the community, and focusing on issues affecting area residents – will get people talking about conservation. Using on-air theater, documentaries and call-in sessions to educate local landowners about sustainable land-use Paul hopes to make eco-tourism a household word. “After all,” he observes. “Eco-tourism’s about more than making a living. It’s about saving the land. It’s about preserving our identity.”

Stay tuned.

- To get involved with Kajiado Village, please click here.

[The following is a post by guest blogger Kirsti Shields]

On a dry day the treacherous 10-mile trip from Belo to Mbessa – through Cameroon’s Ijim Mountain forests - takes four hours on foot. In the rainy season it can take nine or ten. Now, thanks a pioneering taxi program, a Belo elder reaches family in Mbessa in less than thirty minutes. A mother used to toting her child to hospital gets there and back in a morning.

Surprisingly, these are just the incidental beneficiaries of Reverend Teh’s innovative mission. The true beneficiaries are less recognizable. Most are between four and fourteen years of age. The majority have no immediate family to care for them – because they are orphans, or because their surviving parent is incapable of parenting them due to serious mental or physical illness.

Struck by the plight of children like Juliette, 10, who lives with her ailing grandmother – herself a struggling subsistence farmer - and ten other children, Teh Francis - local pastor, educator, and Jinkfuin village representative - conceived the Goodness and Mercy Mission in 2007. Central to his vision was GMM’s Sponsorship Program, which to date has found sponsors for more than 50 vulnerable children. But sponsor recruitment is a slow process; many children wait years for a match.

In 2009 Reverend Teh – working with Nabuur neighbors – founded Jinkfuin Elementary school to provide unsponsored youth with a subsidized education, but these children remained gravely disadvantaged. “We had to find a sustainable way of supporting them,” Reverend Teh recalls, “until they found a sponsor.”

“Running a motorbike taxi – with proceeds directly benefiting these children – was a logical idea,” he says. Many local roads are only passable seasonally, he adds and even under optimum conditions can’t be navigated on four wheels. Car-taxis operate on more serviceable roads but don’t depart until they are fully-loaded imposing lengthy waits – and crowded journeys – on passengers. The need was there, but the funding wasn’t.

Then, in 2010 Teh Francis’s project proposal caught the eye of Paul Stahlberg from Catalyst Exhibits, a US-based marketing company. With CE’s support, GMM first motorbike taxi hit the road running in 2009, picking up fares at a central point in Belo town and making upwards of 20 runs a day. Thanks to sponsorship by US moving company Bekins Van Lines – facilitated by Paul Stahlberg – two more bikes have been added to the “fleet.” “But we need more,” Teh Francis adds, “more, so we can help more children.”

The motorbike-taxi project has proved both profitable and sustainable. The 20-mile round-trip from Belo to Mbessa costs about $18 in the dry season – doubling when rain makes navigating the hilly terrain difficult. Shorter runs on better roads cost less. So far proceeds have “bridged the gap” for 25 unsponsored children like Juliette, and have also funded computers for an ICT program. “What we thought was a little thing has become a big thing,” says Reverend Teh. “Many have been helped.”

At www.gmmafricachild.org you can read the profiles of children – including Juliette - still waiting for sponsors. “Many are in desperate situations and need immediate intervention,” the Reverend Teh implores. Sponsorship starts at only $15 a month, but until there’s a cyber-equivalent of GMM’s taxis to get word where it needs to go it’s up to us to help spread the word.

Visit www.gmmafricachild.org for more information.

Let’s all get on board!

(Guest blog post by Tweet-A-Net coordinator Maria Zandt)

25 April – World Malaria Day. Appeals to donate mosquito nets pop up every minute on twitter. Amongst big campaigns such as Malaria No More or Roll Back Malaria, a couple of Nabuur volunteers twittered “Tweet A Net”. Malaria is still endemic in 95% of Uganda and accounts for 70,000-110,000 child deaths annually in Uganda.

Three local representatives from Wakitaka, Mawoito and Jinja Central teamed – up with Nabuur (an online volunteering platform) volunteers to raise funds to buy mosquito nets for the children in their villages. And indeed, when ordinary people put their unique expertise and energies to extraordinary use, virtually anything is possible. Tweet A Net used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to reach donors and spread the campaign’s message - that for just 2 euros - less than the price of a latte – you can protect a child from malaria.

Tweet A Net raised between 1 April and 25 April 415 mosquito nets (831 euros or 1104 USD). 115 people became fans of its facebook fan page, various organisations and individuals retweeted the daily Tweet A Net messages on twitter; special thanks goes to Jennifer and Romina. Other volunteers, as Ginger, spread the word amongst their friends and colleagues. Betterplace.org, a platform hosting the Tweet A Net fundraising page, offered Tweet A Net to become a guest blogger on their blog. Thanks to Nabuur storyteller Kirsti, a wonderful story about the impact of mosquito nets in the villages was written.

Thanks to the generous support by 27 different sponsors, 415 mosquito nets will soon be purchased by Emmanuel, Tonny and Paul in Jinja and then shared equally amongst their three villages. The mosquito net distribution will be used to raise public awareness and teach families how to prevent and combat malaria. Tweet A Net is still looking for interested organisations who could provide the community with information on malaria and its prevention.

Donations can still be made at http://www.betterplace.org/projects/3436-1000-mosquito-nets-for-uganda-t....