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GrassRootsUganda.com Update

13th November 2006
 Working.  Working.  Working.  

I've been working very hard on GrassRootsUganda.com and what's more, I'm actually enjoying it.  It is consuming me, but in a good way.

I've stopped working with MACRO altogether.  I just couldn't do the volunteer tourism anymore.  MACRO's heart is in the right place, but they are just so disorganized.  They make lots of promises, but fail to follow through on them.  I've stood in front of many a crowd and promised that MACRO will provide such things as:

  • Livestock so they can become self sufficient
    Including: Chickens, pigs, goats and bees.

  • Education 
    For both the adults and the children.

  • Construction
    Schools and latrines.

  • Craft Projects

When MACRO doesn't deliver, then I end up feeling like a liar.  Yet another mzungu (white person) who promises the world, but delivers nothing.

MACRO has done some good work.  The have built schools and done many an HIV/Malaria/Sanitation talk.  It just takes too damn long.  Hence, I've decided to move on from MACRO and pick up one of their projects (craft) and run with it.

So, how's the craft project going?  Good question!  I'm glad you asked.

Setting up craft villages
With the help of the ever wonderful Rose, we have got bead making groups occurring in the following villages:

  • Buvunya
    Buvunya was the first village we set up shop in.  

    Details of our trip there can be found here.

  • Namukama
    Namukama is the most isolated of our villages (with the possible exception of Kitgum).  It is a one hour taxi drive to a town called Nkokonjeru, followed by a half hour boda-boda drive to the village itself.  

    The lack Coca-Cola advertisements is indicative of just how isolated Namukama is - every other village I've visited has Coca-Cola signs.

    The Namukama group has twenty-one ladies in it. 

    I visited Namukama with MACRO a few months and met a truly wonderful lady there called Alaisa.  Alaisa is poor even by the standards of the very poor Namukama village.  She looks after her own three children as well as her sister's two orphaned children - one of which has AIDS.

    When I was in Namukama village with MACRO, we mentioned that we intend to set up a craft project, like MACRO does in every village we visit.  MACRO encourages the villagers to make crafts with the materials around them.  To date, nobody has ever done that. 

    Everybody that is, expect Alaisa.  She came up to us just before we left and showed us some seed bracelets she had made.

    Alaisa is the reason I chose Namukama as a GrassRootsUganda.com village.

  • Naggalama
    Spike, who has helped out so much with GrassRootsUganda.com, lives in the village of Naggalama.

    She was mentioning the project I had going to Lawrence - the leader of the NGO she works for.  Lawrence liked the idea so much that he wanted GrassRootsUganda.com to pay and visit and set up the project there.

    I was looking for a forth village so I accepted and the GrassRootsUganda.com road show set off again.

    We had our greatest ever response at Naggalama with a total of twenty-three ladies present.

    We also filmed a mini-documentary on GrassRootsUganda.com while we were there.  More on this below.

  • Kitgum
    Rose is from Kitgum.  I was keen to visit there to see what was going on, as well as set up another GrassRootsUganda.com village.

    Rose had previously visited Kitgum and taught them how to make the beads, so no training was necessary.  I only had to interview the ladies and collect the beads they had already made.  I brought them some supplies (stoppers, paper, plastic beads and so on) to work with.

    One real and practical problem with Kitgum is that the current on going peace talks might collapse and the civil war breaks out again. Traveling to Kitgum would become too dangerous.  The ush20,000 ($NZ16.61) seven hour bus trip does not help either.

    Ideally we will be sending Rose up once a month to collect eighty or so necklaces.  That way we will only be paying 500ush ($NZ0.42) per necklace for transport costs. 

    My visit to Kitgum was a real eye opener about the troubles that the Acholi people face.  More info on my trip can be found here.

Getting Others Involved
One thing I am really enjoying about GrassRootsUganda.com was that I am getting other people involved in it as well.  I am getting volunteers using their God-given talents to help out the impoverished of Africa.

Both Spike and Chris have been very helpful.

  • Spike
    GVN - the organisation I volunteer through - sends out a newsletter once a month to many well intentioned people all over the world.  The newsletter contains many interesting projects that volunteers are doing.

    I think GrassRootsUganda.com is an interesting project and worth a mention in the newsletter.  GVN was happy to lend their support.

    I, of course, have an ulterior motive.  If a lot of people read about GrassRootsUganda.com, then hopefully lots of them will buy necklaces.

    Spike is a budding journalist and I got her to come along with me to Buvunya to write the article.  A early draft of the article can be found here.

  • Chris
    Chris has just finished an animation degree in Canada.  

    I wanted a video to be made about GrassRootsUganda.com for three reasons:
    • One: As a promotional tool
      I am hoping that most of the sales for GrassRootsUganda.com will come from people buying twenty at a time, selling them to their friends, church groups or workgroups and then the profits get fed back to Uganda.

      I want to give such people as much promotional material - such as the video - as possible.  

    • Two: For use on GrassRootsUganda.com
      An "About Us" video on the website has gotta be useful.

      Makes us look more professional as well.

    • Three: It's cool to have a video made about GrassRootsUganda.com

    Since Chris has an obvious interest in video production, he seemed like the obvious guy to make the video.  Chris made the comment that he was pleased to be using his skills in a way that would benefit Africans.  That made me feel good.

    Video should be appearing here on www.crazymalc.co.nz in the "not too distant future".

First Payments!
Buvunya village was the first village to receive a payment from GrassRootsUganda.com for the princely total of ush26,000 ($NZ 21.59) for thirteen necklaces.

Since that first payment, we've purchased another 200 total necklaces about ush400,000 ($NZ 332.23) across the four villages.  

We are paying the village an advance ush2,000 ($NZ 1.66) per necklace.  Any other profit that is made is fed back to the ladies.  I think it is important to give the ladies some sort of advance for each item they supply us.  I also think a lot of Africans get skeptical when well meaning Mzunugus (white person) come in, promise the world, and then deliver nothing.  Hence the advance of ush2,000.  

All up, I've given about ush700,000 ($NZ 581.40) of my own money to get GrassRootsUganda.com up and started.  It is a loan though.  I think it is important that GrassRootsUganda.com stands on its own two feet and is not just propped up by my Mzunugu money.  So, ush500 ($NZ 0.42) from every sale goes to me until the loan is paid off - which will be 1,400 sales.

It the meantime, it is slowly but surely, bankrupting me.  Not that helpful giving my current financial state.  This should all change though when the money starts flowing back in.  

Of course, if you want to help me and the impoverished women of Africa, don't hesitate to buy a necklace.  Or, better yet, but a whole stack of necklaces and sell them to your church group or workmates!  The website is not quite going yet (see below), so just contact me if you're interested.  

First Sale!
Some sales have been trickling in though.  About twenty in all.  Amy - a fellow volunteer - was the very first person to purchase a necklace from GrassRootsUganda.com.  Props!

In all we've made about twenty sales so far.  All to volunteers and all for ush5,000 ($NZ4.15), all though some have given a little extra.  Many volunteers have expressed interest in taking a bunch back to their home countries.

We will be selling the necklaces locally for ush5,000, which is more expensive than some others I've seen around.  But much cheaper than the Beads For Life group who sell theirs for between ush20,000 ($NZ 16.61) and ush25,000 ($NZ 20.76).  

Beads For Life really target the Mzunugu market though and you see their products in the high end tourist places.

Beads for Life are doing a very similar project to what I am doing.  I am strong believe in working together with people, even if they are technically your competition.  So much so, that I am going to visit the Beads for Life people, say hello, explain what I am doing and even bring them some supplies - paper, varnish and so on.

Their goals are the same as mine, namely empowering African women.  The have an online store as well at www.BeadsForLife.com.  Pay them a visit.  Buy some beads.  It will help some African women put some kids through school and that's what it is all about.

Problems
This wouldn't be a business venture without some problems.  Here are the things that have been most annoying:

 

  • Lack of an American Bank Account
    This is my biggest problem.  The solution I chose for GrassRootsUganda.com (www.commercestarterkit.com) has saved me a lot of time, but requires that you have an American bank account.

    I have some American friends trying to sort this out for me.  Hurry up guys!

  • My Laptop
    Ugh.  This damn thing is just so slow.  Too slow for development really, but I am struggling through it.

    To date, this laptop has been:
    • Dropped in the Philippines

    • Rained on in Ghana

    • Roughly handled by dickhead baggage handles en route to Uganda
      So much so, that the DVD player on my computer no longer works.

      The airport staff insisted that the laptop could not be taken on as carry on luggage due to (the then) recent scare at Heathrow Airport.

      The slapped a fragile sticker on the bag in Ghana.  The fragile sticker was no longer on the bag when it got to Uganda.

    Still, the numerous stickers, missing screws and sellotaped-over DVD drive bay gives my laptop oodles of character.

  • Bandwidth
    The Internet here is just slow.  Not super slow, but annoyingly slow.  I use to make an hour long trip to Kampala most days just to get some bandwidth.

    The new internet place that has opened in Mukuno has reasonable internet speeds is saving me having to make death-defying trips into Kampala.
  • Power
    Power used to be on here every other day.  It is a lot better now, but is still can be annoying.

The Future
There is still lots (and lots) of work that needs to be done, but I am feeling confident that this can be a success.

My biggest fear is that his whole thing will collapse when I go home.  I so don't want this to happen.

This is where the ever wonderful Rose comes in.  Rose is doing plenty of work in Jinja working with ladies who have fled from Northern Uganda.  She has also done some work with street kids.

She approached me the other about the possibility of Leslie (the volunteer coordinator here) sending some volunteers her way.  I told her that it is a real possibility because:

  • She's cool
    I am always raving about Rose to other people.

    This gets her off to a great start with Leslie.

  • The North is trendy at the moment
    Thanks to movies like Invisible Children, events like the Global Night Commute and certain volunteers going to Kitgum, a lot of people know and care about the people of the north.

    I'm sure many keen volunteer would jump at the opportunity to help such people.

I mentioned the idea to Leslie and she loved it.  She was looking for a presence in Jinja (where Rose lives and I recently went white water rafting) and a group with a purely female focus.  What Rose is doing matches this nicely.

Rose is going to be pivotal in keeping GrassRootsUganda.com going when I have gone.

So, I figured I combine these two activities.  Help Rose set up an NGO in Jinja, and work with Rose to get systems in place for GrassRootsUganda.com.  Hopefully, as Simon would say, we can exploit the synergies.

This will mean that my $US100 that is currently going to MACRO, will now go to Rose.  That's cool in my book.

This will also mean that I might end up moving to Jinja to live for the last part of my stay here in Jinja.  That's also cool, as I will be the only Mzunugu in the guesthouse in December.

 

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(c) 2005 and 2006  Malcolm Trevena. 
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena.  Feel free to link to this page.  Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want.  Just make sure you sight me as a reference.