Did you catch the hype and fury around the KONY 2012 video about Uganda last week? The video, by Invisible Children, Inc. told about the violence in Uganda in the recent past. However, many people in Uganda are presenting their own responses to the video.

“How do you tell the story of Africans?” asks Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan blogger, “because if you are showing me as voiceless, as hopeless… you shouldn’t be telling my story if you don’t believe that I also have the power to change what is going on.”

Godfrey shares the growth of SIA in his community.

How people and organizations present their work is as important as the work itself. Is the grant recipient downcast, child-like, and dirty? Or are they smiling, confident, encouraged?

Meeting all our Spirit in Action Small Business Fund Coordinators last summer in Kenya confirmed for me that THEY are the work of Spirit in Action. Our coordinators are not voiceless or hopeless – they are leaders working to make their communities better places to live.

Today I want to share some excerpts from my interview with Godfrey Matovu, SBF Coordinator in Uganda, about his work to uplift and empower his fellow community members. I hope that listening to him tell his story will also confirm for you that Godfrey, and all of our SIA partners, have the power to change their communities.

Godfrey Matovu:
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: “One time a local leader asked and I had to explain about Spirit in Action and what it is doing. I explained to him: SIA is bringing people together in Uganda.

Ugandans learning how to weave baskets

COMPASSIONATE WORK AT THE CROSSROADS: ”I organize and I train [people] and people know they are welcome to learn or to work. So these things come through Spirit in Action. One of the local leaders said, “this thing that you are sharing, is very good. Why don’t you start over there [at the crossroads] – they are drunkards.” So we are targeting the youth at the crossroads. I started teaching them how to start a business; the handicraft work [like weaving, pottery, and brickmaking]. I tell them “you can make this, you can make this.” We started to gain respect. So far we have trained thirteen people. I am planning more small workshops, for the school dropouts, and those who have lost their parents to come and to start doing this quality work. So that is why I give.

ON DEL ANDERSON, SIA FOUNDER: ”I tell people that Del Anderson came from a poor family. So he decided also to help the poor. I tell them and they understand.

HELPING THOSE WITH HIV/AIDS: ”There are people who are not involved in these programs who are suffering. So what do I do? I just care and counsel them, just give them advice when they are sick or suffering with AIDS. What do I do? I just counsel them; tell them how to handle the sick.

DEALING WITH PREJUDICE: ”Sometimes, most especially in Africa, when you are suffering from HIV/AIDS, some people they fear to touch you, they fear to be near you. So I go there and I am preaching the word of God. I again talk to them and the members who are around, tell them not to avoid him or her, just to get friendship with him.

Godfrey and Tanya in Kenya, August 2011

DEFINING CARE: ”I remember I went to one family and met with a man who was sick. He had skin that was [bad]. He was not doing much bathing or washing. So I started helping, that is what I call care.

GIVING THANKS: “So I have to thank you for this brotherhood of workers. It is not easy but I am doing very good. They are doing very good. We have the groups there [in Uganda] and we are doing good.”

Thank you, Godfrey, and all SIA partners, for serving God by empowering others! We are honored to support these committed change-agents.

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A round-up of some of the exciting things to cross my desk in the last week:

1. Empowering Women at CIFORD – I finished making a video (with Boyd’s narration!) about this great community organization, which we visited last summer. Spirit in Action, with support from the Charles Wentz Carter Memorial Foundation, awarded CIFORD a grant to hold more girl’s empowerment workshops this year!

2. Community Involvement in Uganda – This article tells an encouraging story about a conference that (gasp!) included local leaders in the discussion about rural electrification, access to capital, women in business, and access to technology for youth. “While the panel topics were nothing new for a ‘development’ conference, the panelists were not your usual invitees. They included primary school students, village brick makers, local farmers, and young “tinkerers” who had built their own home-made radio.” Full article here: Uganda: Villages in Action Bringing Poor People’s Voices to the Forefront

3. New digital camera made it safely to Malawi – Canaan Gondwe, Small Business Fund leader, wrote, ‎”Tanya, We are overwhelmed with the performance of this new camera. We are witnessing quality pics. Connecting them to computer and importing them is also easy.” We can look forward to many more photos of the exciting progress in Manyamula Village!

4. News from Balayiro Women’s Self-Help Group – I got a wonderful letter in the mail from this thriving group in Kenya. They received a small cash grant to buy local seeds for the group. “We prepared the seeds in the seedbed. Luckily enough there was moderate rainfall and warm weather. Now we are expecting a good harvest! Traditionally, in Luhya community, farmers do save the indigenous seeds from year to year in crop recycling method, covering them with ashes from the burned firewood.” They grew:

Jute Plant – A leafy green, rich in betacarotene, iron, calcium, and vitamin C, eaten with Ugali (maize meal).

Spider Plant – The leaves, stems, pods, and flowers can all be cooked and eaten. The leaves are bitter, but the bitterness can be bleached out with boiling water. A group of farmers are growing this plant in Minnesota for the Kenyan diaspora here!  

Black Nightshade – This nightshade is not poisonous, as we tend to imagine here in the West. The barriers and the leafy greens are eaten and are highly nutritious.

5. Quote on compassion – (from a women’s retreat I attended last weekend): “Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant wit the weak and wrong…because sometime in your life you will have been all of these.”

This basket from a small business in Uganda will be one of the auction items!

P.S. Save the Date – May 5^th Celebrate Spirit in Action’s “Sweet Sixteen” Anniversary! We booked the Islandia Clubhouse in Alameda, CA and I began pulling out some of the silent auction items that we brought back from Africa! More details to come soon.

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The first week of December, Nalu Prossy, gathered together 18 people to prepare them to start and run their own businesses. Nalu, a Spirit in Action Small Business Fund local coordinator in eastern Uganda, is soft-spoken and hard-working, and when I met her this summer in Kenya, she told me that this work “is in my heart, I have that spirit of helping others.”

Nalu Prossy shows us some of the baskets made by SIA business owners in Uganda.

This new round of small business owners came from the rural villages of Isegero and Nakigalala, south of Kampala (see map below). The 18 people formed themselves into 5 groups, chose a leader for each group (4 of the leaders are women), and started to think through their business plan. Two of the groups are families and other groups are colleagues and friends that have decided to go into business together.

Please join me in welcoming these five new Spirit in Action-supported businesses in Uganda! We’ll follow their progress over the next year as they face challenges and become successful in their chosen enterprises.

* Brick Making and Pottery – “We will produce and sell our wares along the roadside.”

* Mat Making – People use mats for many things in Uganda, for sleeping, sitting on in the house, screens, and drying food in the sun.

* Chicken Rearing – This is a family business led by the mother, Betty Nabuso.

* Mat Making –  This group already has needles, thread and weaving skills that they will contribute to the business.

* Tailoring and Sewing – This family business will take advantage of the inexpensive cloth made in Uganda and will use the sewing machine that they already own.

Related Posts:

• Quote of the Day: Nalu Prossy
• Welcome our new coordinator, Nalu!
• Realizing potential with just $150! Small Business Fund FAQs
• Nalu was also highlighted in our Winter 2011 Newsletter, which you can download here.

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Nalu Prossy, a SIA Small Business Fund coordinator in Uganda, met with the SIA Administrator (Tanya Cothran) and the 7 other Coordinators in Eldoret, Kenya this August to review our program and its impact in the communities working with SIA. They took one day to visit the SBF grantees in the Eldoret area and saw several impressive businesses!

To learn more about SIA’s micro-grants through the Small Business Fund, see SBF FAQs.

To support these programs, see Support SIA.

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It so exciting to receive reports from SIA’s Small Business Fund (SBF) in the mail. It gives us a chance to see, three months after the first grant is given to a new group, how the many different enterprises are progressing. This report, from SIA SBF Coordinator Godfrey Matovu in Uganda, is a good reminder that, in addition to earning a profit from their business, the leaders also gain social standing and respect in their communities.

Here is a glimpse of the real gains experienced by the entrepreneurs, and some photos of the latest successful businesses that your donations help fund:

“It should be acknowledged that the business has brought members together in cooperation with one another but more especially it has changed the social image of the members. In conclusion, they can now have better health services, better meals and so many changes in their economic lives.”

Nyend Edwade, new business leader, with a brick mold.

I love this picture below, in spite of the fact that you can’t actually see their faces, because it shows the backdrop so nicely. I like to see the building, the trees, and the big pots which the group will sell in the market place.

Kakaire George and Malondo Timoth making pots.

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