AASU’s first community project is focusing on the village of Kibuye in North Eastern Kamuli, on the shores of the Victoria Nile. Kibuye has an estimated population of 60,000 people and is spread over 27 by 35km. The majority of the population is highly dependent on subsistence farming and barter trade within village in order to survive.
Before the project began, Kibuye was dependent upon one borehole for safe drinking water. Due to long lines when collecting water many have been choosing to fetch water from the river, which has caused illness through water born diseases. The village also only has one school, consisting of two classrooms accommodating roughly 600 children. The children that can’t walk the distance to the school simply don’t attend. The majority of children do not attend school, either due to distance or family circumstance, consequentially 80% of Ugandans over the age of 15 are illiterate.
So far within the Kibuye project AASU has been able to buy four acres of land at the East end of the village on which we have built a bore hole and are currently building classrooms for the Arise and Shine Nursery and Primary School which is due to open for the start of the school year in February 2011.
In November en December I worked as a volunteer
for Arise and Shine Uganda. Besides my work in the babieshome in Jinja I worked
at the tailoring project in Kibuye. In the Netherlands I raised some money so I
could buy fabrics and teach the ladies how to make bags which we can sell to
volunteers and gift shops. In total 25 ladies joined the project and they were
very enthusiastic and well willing to learn new things! Even though they don’t
speak English and the interpreter wasn’t always around, I had a great time with.JPG)
