Aid Africa's founder Ken Goyer went to Southern Uganda in the fall of 2004 with an International Rotary Club project to teach three ways of cooking, with the Solar Cooker, The Hay Box or insulated cooking box, and the Six Bricks Rocket Stove. The Rotary Club has taught these cooking methods in many countries. After classes in Jinja, Ken went to visit the wildlife at Murchison falls... and then he had his first encounter with the camps for Internally Displaced People in Lira, Northern Uganda. Out of all the places in the world Ken had worked, he saw Uganda, especially Northern Uganda, as the place most needy and desperate and the place that he could do the most good. He felt he could make a real difference there. Ken learned that almost two million people lived under the direst of circumstances and was determined to return to the camps and help these people in any way he could.
Why were people in IDP camps in Northern Uganda? |
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Beginning in Lira
Our first project took place in the spring of 2005 with a stove project in IDP camps near Lira. Eventually, we completed stoves for families in all of the urban camps there and started making stoves in the more distant camps. During this first project we identified the circumstances of sick babies dying, their births and deaths never recorded – never a statistic, only a tragedy for the family. We started our medical mission of transporting babies to the hospital. When the International Lifeline fund took over our project, we moved up the road to Gulu. |
About the same time, we also worked with the International Lifeline Fund to start another stove project in Darfur, Sudan – until it became too dangerous to continue there.
Move to Gulu
In the fall of 2006, we began working in the city of Gulu on our own as Aid Africa. We became incorporated in the United States and obtained nonprofit status with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) corporation. We are also incorporated and have charitable status in Uganda. |
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We have an office in Gulu, a Toyota van, a truck and seven local staff members. After one intensive year, we already had an operational team making stoves and taking babies to the hospital. Our present goal is to expand our operation and to become more efficient. We want to make stoves for all people in Northern Uganda and see that all sick babies receive timely medical attention.
Also, we have started a tree nursery for reforestation and a program to repair and dig wells and build sheltered springs to provide and protect clean drinking water. 120 out of 200 refugee camps around Gulu did not have sanitary water. Aid Africa helps women in Gulu by selling their bead necklaces made of recycled paper. We are also paying the school fees for fifteen children in Gulu and support an orphanage with seventeen orphans in Jinja, in Southern Uganda. |
Continuing progress
In Summer 2008, five volunteers from the United States went to Uganda to help our project. We built stoves, sheltered a spring, repaired wells, took babies to the hospital for life-saving treatment, and visited the children we support in our orphanage, “Pearls of Africa – Rosette’s Kids”.
We also checked on our growing tree nursery near the former Monroc camp, where we are growing orange trees. Orange trees are grafted onto lemon rootstocks. At first, we bought the lemon seeds to grow the root stock. But then we figured we could buy lemons, give lemonade to the kids, and keep the seeds to plant in the nursery. Our lemonade party was a huge success and a huge amount of fun.
Our entire staff partnered with Solar Cookers International to do a three way stove project in Arua, over near the Congo border. They had quite an adventure. |
Lilly, our horticulturalist and Peter, president of Aid Africa at our nursery. |
Changing circumstances, continued need
As of April, 2009, the Ugandan government is systematically closing the camps where many Internally Displaced People have lived for over twenty-two years, and sending the tens of thousands of people back to their ancestral villages. The people were sent to the camps by the government when their villages were destroyed. So now, they have to build a new home to live in. The U.N. feeding program is discontinued to force the people out of the camps, but they have not had a chance to grow and harvest crops. Some people are looking for work as laborers to make money to buy food, but work is scarce. Hunger is widespread.
There are no wells in the villages and people must drink surface water that is terribly polluted. People are dying of starvation and water borne diseases. Now, when a woman’s child is sick with MAD (Malaria, Anemia or Diarrhea) how is Aid Africa to know her child needs help? These tragedies are hidden now because they are spread through all the anonymous villages. Aid Africa’s goal in saving lives is much more challenging.
Aid Africa is already addressing these new circumstances.
Larry Winiarski and Issa Otuukenne
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Larry Winiarski and Ken Goyer, two of the inventors of the Six Bricks Rocket Stove, are developing simple inexpensive techniques to dig bore holes and pump water. Their ideas are based on centuries old techniques adapted with a few modern innovations. One is called a cable tool and essentially smashes a hole in the earth. That is how most wells were dug here in the U.S. before diesel augers. We have the ability to provide new wells for a fraction of the cost charged by commercial well drillers. Their ideas are working very well and we have great hope that Aid Africa will be able to supply fresh water to many people across Northern Uganda in a short period of time. Water is life!
Larry is also working on a new and improved rocket stove that is quicker to make. |
Changes in Gulu
In spite of the dire circumstances facing the people trying to return to their villages, things are looking up in the city of Gulu as of May, 2009. All it takes is for peace to break out and people take the chance to get to work. Roads are being repaired, shortening travel time. New construction is everywhere in Gulu, offices, hotels, homes. There are lots of jobs for bricklayers, plasterers and laborers. People are finding jobs and spending money. Many banks are opening. The restaurants and bars are busy every weekend evening. The Internet cafes are numerous and full. High speed Internet connection is likely to arrive soon. It is important to note that none of this activity in Gulu affects the lives of people in the villages. They remain remote and isolated. |
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Outside town, on the roads to the villages, there are a lot more chickens, ducks and turkeys. Cows, goats and pigs seem to have appeared from nowhere. Apparently many people had taken their livestock south during the conflict and had just recently returned them to the north. Northern Uganda has lots of sunshine and wonderful fertile soil. All they need is rain – and time. They’ve run out of both.
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Where we are now
In July 2009 we went again to Monroc camp, now reverting to a trading center where people come to exchange goods and news. Most of the people have returned to their traditional villages from this camp and were glad to be there because it was home and they are no longer being threatened by the rebels. However, they did not have crops already established. They have planted, but there is now a draught, there is not enough rain and water here to make the crops thrive. People were glad to be home, but all said that the most important thing for them now was water. So Aid Africa has changed its emphasis from efficient stoves to clean water. Our staff travels through villages, repairing broken wells and digging new ones. A broken well is like having none at all and there are at least fifty broken wells in the area where we work. But not many organizations want to do the repair work. For others, it isn’t very exciting work, but for us it is thrilling when we see thirsty people getting a drink. |
Signs of hope
The long-term outlook is looking up. With a recent donation, Aid Africa was able to purchase and distribute 300 hoes for people to use in their gardens (farms). With a little rain, people can grow more food than they need just for subsistence and they can sell some of the crop to make money. When people are asked what they want money for, most answer they want to pay their children’s school fee. Education is highly valued and people know that for their children to lead better lives, they need to go to school all the way through secondary school.
Not all the problems have been solved or are even solvable. But Aid Africa’s Ugandan staff is enthusiastic and that enthusiasm comes from the heart they have for their work. They all know they are doing good work on behalf of the very poor people they see. Aid Africa has a huge job to do and we can do it with your help and contributions. We see the strength of the human spirit alive and well. It’s what makes us want to return there.
More about Aid Africa and its evolution
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Aid Africa staff, from left to right: Gloria Aromorach, Daniel Bam, Freda Amolo, Rosette Kirangi, George Ovola, Issa Otuukenne, Priscilla Apio, Lilly Acan. |
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