ARISE AND SHINE UGANDA, a second family for all the volunteers!

My name is N’taho Emmanuella Djama, a volunteer from Côte d’Ivoire. I worked for Arise and Shina Uganda (AASU) for 9 weeks (20^th June 2012 – 27^th August).

In the beginning, I really missed my friends, my family, in a nutshell – my country! But I couldn’t just get on an aeroplane and fly back home, so I did my best to feel like Uganda was home.

For my work with AASU I chose the Community Education Project. It is one of the 4 main projects and at the heart of the organisation. The project is based in Kibuye, a village in North Eastern Kamuli district. Topics I taught included HIV/AIDS and other STD awareness (e.g. syphilis), hygiene and sanitation, and also good child nutrition.

It was a great experience for me! During the morning, the other volunteers and I walked around the village to talk to the community members and also to encourage them to come to our sessions. During this time the translators we worked with showed us different types of plants and animals, and taught us some words in the local language, Lusoga. I learned how to greet someone, how to kneel when talking with an older person (a sign of respect), and also how to thank someone. Let me give you some of the vocabulary I learnt from the translators in the village:

Oli otya? (How are you?); Wasuzi otya (Good morning) ; Bulungi (Fine, good); Webalé nyo (Thank you very much); Sebo (Mister) ; Inyabo (Madame) ; Méeka? (How much?) ; Miliki (Milk)

Sometimes the community members we visited would very kindly offer us Ugandan food for lunch – for example, posho (maize flour mixed with water), beans in sauce, and roasted maize. This was especially generous when we thought of how most people we were visiting were subsistence farmers, growing just enough (and sometimes not enough) for them and their families to eat. I enjoyed being able to spend this time with them and they also liked us to have photos taken with them. They are kind and amazing people.

In the afternoon, I organized my education sessions with the adults. I was helped by a translator who translated my English lessons into Lusoga, the local language. Most of the attendants was women; and they were always enthusiastic and open to acquiring new knowledge. These women are wonderful mums, and also wonderful friends for me and all the volunteers.

The night was time for relaxing. We all cooked together and would tell stories about our lives, our countries, our universities, all so that we may know each other more and discover the similarities and differences between our countries. I really learnt a lot about foreign cooking and the other cultures.

When we came back to town on Thursday after being in the village since Monday, it was just amazing. A meeting is organized by the Project Coordinator every Friday and where we discuss our week in the village – our achievements and also the challenges we faced. From these we worked together to propose ideas to help those in the village achieve a better life for themselves. The Project Coordinator always took care of us and listened carefully to our propositions. We would spend Fridays in the Arise and Shine Uganda Babies’ Home with the children – playing, singing, dancing, eating together and also sometimes swimming. During the weekend, we organized parties, visited some beautiful sites of Uganda, did some shopping and strolled about Jinja town.

At the end of my trip to Uganda I felt really sad, because I had gained a real family there with the staff of AASU, the volunteers and also the people I worked with in the village. I will always remember this wonderful organization. I thank everybody for making my travel to Uganda so exceptional. Don’t miss it! Join AASU, you will never regret your choice, I promise you!!!!

iPad Raffle and Matching Funds!!

Do you want to help Arise and Shine Uganda continue to serve the people of Jinja and Kibuye?

Do you want a new iPad?

Do you like magically turning $1 into $2?

If these apply to you then today is your lucky day!!

AASU is launching a raffle for an iPad and all the funds raised by "selling" tickets go directly to support our work on the ground in Uganda. 

The best part is that a private donor has offered to match every dollar raised up to $3,000! That means that each dollar given is doubled by this matching gift!!

Here is how it works:

1)  Go to http://ariseandshineuganda.bigcartel.com/ and decide how many tickets you want to "purchase." Each ticket equals one entry into the drawing. Add it to your cart and make your donation!

2) Share this blog post or the Raffle Store link via email, Facebook and Twitter with all your friends to help us meet the match of $3,000.

3) Every ticket will be assigned a number in order of purchase. 

4) The raffle ends on Wednesday August 15th at 10 am EST. We will use random.org to generate a true random winner from all the entries.  We will announce the winner by the end of the day and the iPad will be shipped to the lucky supporter of AASU!

Every dollar donated to the raffle will make a huge difference in the lives of our people. We work hard to make every penny count so we can serve the most people most effectively.

In 2010, Arise and Shine Uganda was founded with the goal of using education to transform the lives of vulnerable children and adults throughout the districts of Jinja and Kamuli in Uganda.

AASU uses a four-part approach to bring about sustainable community development:

1.) Income Generating Projects

            -The Beads Project

            -The Candle Project

            -The Tailoring Project

            -The Farming Sessions

2.) Adult Education and Outreach

            -Adult Literacy

            -Sexual and Reproductive Health

3.) Kibuye Village School

-Offering nursery and primary education to over 200 boys and girls and community development and education courses to local adults

4.) Jinja Babies’ Home

- Employing 15 caregivers and providing love, shelter, nourishment, medical care, and education to up to 40 children at any given time. The home works diligently to restore the children back to their families or to find local foster families when reunification is not an option.

Under the faithful oversight of Sharon and our team, these programs are successfully working together to improve the standard of living for vulnerable community members in Jinja and Kamuli.

The scope and reach of AASU is continually increasing as we seek to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the people in our community. 

We need you to help us continue our work. Buy some tickets and spread the word!!!!!!

*************CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR RAFFLE TICKETS**************

Kibuye? Where's that?

Bernice Lin, a kind and hard-working volunteer from Singapore with us here in Uganda for 6 weeks, tells us about her time with Arise and Shine.

BEHIND ALL THE SILENCE!

It has been such a long time since we last blogged!  There has been a lot going on since you last heard from us.

Just to give you a quick update, all is well at Arise and Shine Uganda. Classes at our Nursery and Primary School have increased from 3 to 6! We now have classes from nursery to Primary 5 and from 50 students a year ago we now have 250! We are surely educating the village, raising Uganda’s future generation.

We are also building 3 more classrooms to cater for the growing number of students in the school. This is going slowly but surely and we hope that before the end of September these will be usable. We will be sure to keep you updated!

The Babies’ Home is also doing well. As most of you know, we shifted to a new home where we have more space and shade. The children are looking happier and happier in their new home. We even have goats, chickens, and swings!  Our garden is also coming along nicely and soon we will be enjoying delicious home-grown vegetables.

We all love the Arise and Shine Children’s Care Home!

News about the children!

In the past few months we were sadly overrun with measles. This was such a tough time for us at the Care Home as all of the children got sick. Thanks to Sara, Shane and Shannon for coming to our rescue! That meant a lot to us. This family helped bring us a lot of medical supplies and lots of healthy yummy drinks. Thanks a lot for loving and thinking of us at such a hard time!

We have also had more additions to the Arise and Shine family!  We had 9 children move into our home since the last time you heard from us. They are well settled in and thriving under our care.

Last month 2 of our babies got adopted! Mariam and Khadil got a forever family! They are now in America; we are so excited for what the Lord has in store for them.

Last week was very difficult for everyone at Arise and Shine. Sharif has been very sick; he was hospitalized for a week in Nalufenya children’s ward, but we are very thankful to have him home with us now.

Sharif is almost 2 years old yet he looks like he is 8 months old. His appetite is so low and his development is so slow compared to other children.

Sharif is not an active child despite already being a toddler. He doesn’t walk or crawl and doesn’t even get interested in exploring his environment. His favorite things to do are sucking on his thumb and sleeping. He eats so little considering his age.

Even after being with us for a year he still looks so malnourished! When the doctors at Nalufenya Children’s Ward were told about his history, they were so concerned about his growth. They have done so many tests on him at the moment, yet they cannot find out what is wrong with him. More tests have been requested to further investigate his illness, and they are looking into getting his kidneys, liver, spleen and heart checked out.

He also suffered from measles during the outbreak in April, but he is now recovering from this at the moment.

Sharif is struggling with an illness we are all not sure of. The Arise and Shine family is fighting to find out what is going on. We need to save his life. Please follow the next blog for updates about Sharif.

Thanks for following us, we love you all!

African Dream

When we are young, sometimes we feel like we are invincible and we can change the world. This feeling can lead us to amazing adventures and in fact can lead us to fulfill our dreams. In aim to achieve our purpose we are able to do incredible things. We define the rest of our lives when we are young.

It’s this wish of doing something that is worth, that makes possible we have such a variety of young people volunteering for Arise and Shine Uganda. Our team is a mix of every continent, each one of us trying to be part of the same dream, sharing the same vision.

We came thinking that we could change the people and when we get here we just realize that we are the ones changed by the smiles of the children in the babies home and by the respect of the people of Kamuli district.

Here are the testimonies of our team during the past week.

Natalia – Brazil

“I’m already in Uganda for one month, and I’m just amazed by the people here. Working in the babies’ home just makes me see how it’s possible to be happy with so little. Simple gestures can make a huge difference with those kids, they can smile everyday even if they are fighting with troubles that I could never find myself facing. In the village, it’s not different, people are so glad and thankful that just showing them that we care is enough for making them feeling important. Let me share one experience I had these days: I brought a girl named Angela from the village to Jinja. The woman who takes care of her told me that her parents had died and she was feeling sick for a long time, but never getting better. She also told me Angela was HIV+. So we decided to bring Angela to get a properly health care in Jinja. We found out she was HIV-, which made me feel very glad. Then I took her to the hospital and now she has got the treatment for her sickness and is feeling better. Back in the village her step mother with simplicity and humbleness gave me a gift that I will never forget, four eggs and peanuts, it may not be a valuable present but made me feel that was worth every minute I spent in the hospital with Angela!”

Yuri – Japan

“Hi, Im Yuri, I’m a new volunteer from Japan! This week, I went to the village(Kibuya)at first time. It was really good! There are no water and no power, so we went to the well to get water! It was nice experience for me. I had Adult Literacy Class with Lily, the volunteer from France. There are 5-10 students, and it was my first time to teach English to adults but I did my best. I taught English words of parts of the body. Besides, I also had condom demonstration for adults. When I explain the way of using condom, I used banana to make them understand easier, and it was really good. They laughed at it so much.  When I was going back to Jinja, one of the students in Adult Literacy class asked me, ‘Will you come here next week again?’ to hear that, I became sooo happy. I’m really looking forward to meeting and teaching them again!”

  Madeleine – Norway

 

“This week the beadsproject have made big strides. First and foremost Sharon and I (Madeleine) made a project design and a plan for the project which hopefully will make the project reach its full potential. Second I started to organize the project which has been influenced by discontinuity, so now the ladies now have their own profile to ensure the right ladies get paid.             

Also this week I have undergone beadstraining, which is a lot more extensive than you would think. You have the cutting, the rolling, the gluing, vanishing and threading. And that's not all, you also have to think about what different papers make different beads. So now after 3 lessons hopefully I will be able to pass on my new-found knowledge.  This week has been very busy and exciting, I have big plans and hopes for the beadsproject!”

Femka – Netherlands

“Everybody deserves a change!

It’s my first week in Africa and it already feels like home! I will be here for 4 weeks and mainly will work with children with a disability in the Babieshome in Jinja and in the village in Kamuli district. This week we did the first pre-school lesson with three of the disabled kids and it was amazing! We gave them papers and color pencils and they got really excited. It was probably the first time ever they have made a picture on their own. From now on we are going to do the pre-school lessons every day and we are going to learn the teachers how to work with the disabled children.  People in Africa think that being disabled is a punishment and they are not accepted yet, so there is still a lot of work to do for us here in Uganda. Everybody deserves the same chance. Pay it forward!”

Maiken and Karoline – Norway

“Next week we are going to start having sessions about HIV/AIDs and syphilis in the center near the village. We are going to have sessions every Tuesday, with condom demonstrations and sharing out condoms. So this week in the village we mobilized for the sessions. We hung up posters in the center, and went around to talk to people about it. There were a lot of people that seemed interested, and I think that to hold sessions in the center will be a really good location for bringing a lot of people together, and also get more men involved in the sessions.”

   

Lili – France

“This week was the third week of adult literacy session for me. We worked together with Yuri, a new volunteer from Japan.  Besides teaching parts of the body, the verbs to have/to be and objects in the house, we held a conversation on Tuesday and Wednesday at the end of the classroom. And that was a cultural experience of its own! To the question “What is your marital status?”,  Harriett, Janepher, Rosa and Annett were actually bewildered to see that at the ages of 21 and 26, Yuri and I could still be single while at that age, they were already married and had 2 to 3 kids.

 Similarly, we encountered disgusted expressions on their faces when we told them that our favorite foods were raw fish, snails and frogs.  Finally, I felt proud when Harriett answered that her favorite hobby was to come to my classes to learn English. I just felt so touched to see that they were appreciative of our work and they were realizing the impact of English classes on their own empowerment.”

Sharon – Uganda

“HEY ITS THE VILLAGE LIFE .its sweet!!

       When one hears the word village, the person goes like ‘no…. I can’t go to the village’ but guess what? It’s one of the best experiences in the world! You know why? I know you don’t, so I will tell you why. I have been to the village myself and gosh…… I don’t really have the right words to use but I will try. I worked with adult literacy mostly in the lower class and ladies are the most active, though I have a gentleman. It can be lots of fun when they laugh at each other, when they know nothing on how to write their names. But I am glad, happy and proud to tell you that now I have the best students who have learned how to write their names. One good thing is that you always want to teach them because they are so devoted students who never give up. I’m an African who enjoys the village so what of you? You can give it a try. Promise you will before I continue. I do the translating too, for my white friends´…..and it’s amazing because my friends can’t get anything the villagers are saying and likewise the villagers don’t understand English. Let me take a second and laugh. Ha ha ha ha. It’s really funny.  Sorry I cannot say the whole of it because if I do you will not tune in next time. So if you want to know what’s going to happen to my adult class then join me! I remain Sharon Luda: the village girl.”

blog 12/02/2012

The week just past has been as vibrant and full as those that preceded it. The AASU team received more new, interesting and motivated interns; and so the dynamic between everyone feels exciting and fresh. We now have three new young Norwegian, and one Brazilian intern to contribute to the organisation’s projects and mission, who offer diverse and valuable knowledge and skills. As these new interns will be replacing many of those that have been around for longer, this signifies a period of transition and change for Arise and Shine, which is exciting and yet also sad for those who will be moving on.   

Once again, last week, several interns stayed in Jinja to work, and others went back to Kibuye village to further the programs in place there. In Jinja, Sophie and Isabella were busy travelling around to schools in Jinja, conducting workshops on Sexual Reproductive Health, and marketing and selling one of AASU’s products: Afripads. This was fun, interesting and rewarding! Sometimes we would be addressing classes of up to 300 students; all females aged between 12 and 20, and give presentations of roughly one hour. Firstly Juma would talk for about 20 minutes; informing the girls of issues surrounding sexual risks and behavioral change. He had a very engaging way of getting his point across, and would often use funny and quirky sexual analogies that had the girls giggling and smiling throughout his presentation. Following that, Sophie and Isabella would talk about Afripads; a sanitary pad that is suitable in impoverished communities, and that largely improves the sanitation of many women’s menstruation cycles. This week a total of 28 Afripads were sold, which was encouraging and rewarding; often only 5 or 10 of them will be purchased per week. A few things really stood out about these sessions. For one, the respect and admiration with which we were treated. From the moment we started speaking to the second we stopped, the girls were almost entirely silent, and 100 percent attentive; their wide eyes following you as you walked around the room talking, with interest and focus. I thought about how a class of similar-aged students would react to this back home, and am almost certain that such a talk (which was often taken out of their free time) would be met with audible sighs, eyes rolling, and incessant whispers circulating amongst the members of the audience. After the talk they would shyly come up and thank you for the time you had taken to talk to them, and for having chosen their school to do workshops with.  

  

In other Jinja-related news, last week a new volunteer arrived from France to help AASU in the field of finance. The plan is that she will work with David, the accountant of the organisation, to ensure that a solid and transparent financial structure is implemented at AASU. Accounting, budgeting, internal processes and reporting are the key areas in which they envision a change within the organization. This will greatly assist the functionality and efficiency of Arise and Shine, and is a welcomed and much anticipated change in the NGO.  

Otherwise, the other focus for last week was the furthering of projects in Kibuye village. Firstly, the Adult Literacy program is making slow but sure progress. Despite the fact that inconsistent attendance and varying competencies between students is rendering the work very challenging, advancements are still being achieved. The girls heading up this project decided to focus on practical vocabulary for this week. Topics such as local geographic forms, occupations, days of the week, and basic maths were covered; as these are subjects that arise often in the lives of these rural inhabitants. The beads project is also continuing according to plan, with the women making beads, and these beads eventually being sold in local and international markets. One of our Chinese interns is still working on setting up an online store, which would stock these products, and sell them to Chinese Clientele. Lastly, Mickey and Paul, the interns from Restless Development, also conducted some very informative research. They interviewed women who take part in the beads project, as well as attend adult literacy classes.  

  

The purpose of that is to get to know the local women better, learn about what motivates them to pick up new activities, in addition to whether or not Arise & Shine has improved their life quality. Information we gathered shows that women in the village are grateful for Arise & Shine activities, as they would not be able to get basic education and English language skills any other way. As for the beads projects, women we interviewed said that with money they made, they managed to buy chickens for their farms, pens and books for their children, and necessary commodities such as soap and salt for their families. We were lucky because all women we approached were willing to talk to us which shows their trust in the organization.

Data we gathered shows that Arise & Shine projects are indeed helping the community and we will use it next week when we’ll start fundraising for sewing machines so that women can start making bags.  

  

In summary, last week was a fulfilling one, insomuch as the completed work and continuation of AASU’s projects is concerned. Unfortunately the following week will be the last one with the organization for many of us current interns. This is creeping up on us unpleasantly, and we try and distract ourselves from thinking about it too much! It’s been such a great experience with AASU and Uganda that we don’t want to leave. But it’s given us the imperative to come back, which is the most important thing. A taste for Uganda, so to speak! 

Until next time, 

The interns of AASU. 
 

  

Sophie and her team.

We’ve spent the majority of this past week in a remote village called Kibuye, which is about three hours drive from Jinja.  Kibuye is a beautiful place: green and lush, and possessing an incredibly profound sense of space.  In our entourage were six female interns, and the project cordinator of our NGO, a Ugandan called Juma.  Juma is a lovely man, of playful and jovial temperament, and always eager to impart a gem of wisdom or various, cryptic Ugandan proverbs on us interns. During the car ride, every now and again he would turn around from his front seat in the car grinning and expressing words of encouragement (whilst being seemingly bemused at our inability to handle the rough drive).  Several redeeming aspects of the rough trip were the beautiful landscapes and forests we passed, and the children that would run out to see the car, smiling and waving. 

The conditions in the village were very basic, as was to be expected. There was no running water or electricity, and thus no sewerage or apparent irrigation systems. But things weren’t chaotic, far from it. Things were slow, drawn out, and interestingly orderly. We slept in mud huts under the silent sky, resplendent with stars. Meals are simple; cooked over a makeshift stove or fire at our campsite, and we all had fun fumbling around in the dark, trying to put together a decent dinner! In the morning, it was peaceful and pleasant to wake up to the sound of children playing around the huts, and to the smells of Ugandan women cooking Chapati for breakfast. And the people were so beautiful, so warm. You couldn’t walk past a gathering of women without them drawing you into their circle, hugging you and holding your hand, uttering warm words in their limited English and continuing on in the same way in their local dialect. They seemed to host an ultimate sense of respect for workers from the NGO. This leaves one feeling incredibly honoured, but also hugely responsible; a live reaffirmation that what we were doing had large and direct impacts of the lives of these people.

For the moment, interns are working on three main projects: those pertaining to Adult Literacy, Sexual Reproductive Health, and Social Entrepreneurship.  All of these projects present different challenges and difficulties, but are equally as rewarding when progress is made.

It was great to start working in the communities, but an overwhelming sense of what progress still needs to be made soon became prominent. As they were so isolated, life in the villages was so very basic. Families were very large (and often polygamous), and so the people poor, and the education (other than the NGO’s school) seemed almost non-existent. To illustrate this particular point; our adult literacy consists of working with the adults in the community to improve their English. The advanced class can, maybe, write the letters of the alphabet. The beginner’s class are just learning how to hold a pen.  The process of teaching for us was rendered slightly more difficult with the language barrier; the people communicated almost solely in Lusoga (their local dialect), but our translators were patient, and we got our points across when we needed to. The motivation and curiosity of the people was very encouraging, as they would come to classes with focus, determination and good spirits, very eager to learn.  And the positivity of the people was so enlightening: setting aside the obvious indications of extreme poverty, I could easily say that these people are some of the happiest I’ve ever met.  As the classrooms were not in the best of conditions, next week we hope to make them more presentable, and the environment more conducive to successful learning.  It was inspiring to learn that the women were so motivated despite their slow progress: they seemed to know that even if they wouldn’t reap the benefits of their current learnings, perhaps their children, or their grand children would.

The aforementioned social entrepreneurship program that we’re implementing was also progressing nicely. This program helps the women to make jewellery in a very cost effective way. They make beads from free paper that we obtain from Telecommunication, or various other companies. This is not only cheap, but also environmentally responsible, as paper that would otherwise be thrown away or burnt, is recycled. In explanation: we teach the women how to make the beads, and then the necklaces, and subsequently find local and international markets for their products.  This allows them to generate some income, and support their families and agricultural plots.

The sexual reproductive health project is also in a transitory period. The mornings we would spend doing sensitisation, which consisted of walking around to different households in the villages, and raising awareness on various topics of importance. And then in the afternoons, people would come and see us at the intern base in the village, and we would inform them on them programs and services that we were currently working on, and gauge their interest regarding the programs.  For sensitisation we were mostly working on birth control and family planning. Sophie had the idea of exploring the feasibility of introducing different forms of birth control in the village, and namely the method of Implanon. For those not familiar with the product, it’s a single-rod implantable contraceptive, providing more than 99% effective contraception for up to three years, and various WHO reports have researched and proved the efficacy of this method in developing contexts.  We spent time describing, and evaluating the reactions and opinions of people regarding the contraceptive. Our findings were overwhelmingly positive; most reactions went along the lines of – ‘I need this, after having 11 children, I’m tired’, or ‘Do you have this with you? Can we have it now?’, which was very reassuring.  The work was hugely rewarding, but also quite tiring. And of course, it’s important to take things slowly, and to be aware of the limitations and cultural differences present that make the introduction and implementation of new programmes lengthy and difficult.

All in all, last week was a very enriching one! We felt that progress was made on each of the projects, and had some wonderful moments with the people in the villages. We hope to be updating you very soon, in summary of the coming week! Thanks for reading,

The interns of AASU.