6/18/14 Today is the end of a very productive three weeks visiting Pilot Light projects and now my work is just beginning. We have bigger and better projects than ever and amazing new partners join our current partners. If I have managed to peak your interest, made you feel something, opened your eyes to something …
Month: June 2014
Meeting the people at Children of Peace Uganda
6/17/14 Northern Uganda was terrorized from 1988 until 2006 by Joseph Kony and his LRA army. Most people already know that he used kidnapped children to build his numbers and many of those children, some now grown up, either escaped or are rescued and have to find a way to restart their lives. Currently, the …
Disappointing visit in Mulanda/Lwala
6/16/14 My very first projects in Africa were in the side by side villages of Mulanda and Lwala in eastern Uganda near the border with Kenya. Most of the homes are traditional huts built with peaceful, well groomed yards and gardens. My good friends Dorothy and Fabian come from these places and their extended families …
Last Day in Rwanda 2014
6/13/14 On this last day in Rwanda, we visited two projects, the Murama Pig Cooperative, formerly the Murama Pig and Chicken Cooperative, and the Kamatana Fish Farmer Cooperative. The pig coop has been one of our very successful projects in the past and I was very sad to see that, because of recent drought here …
Meeting the Women of MCDC
6/12/14 For the past three years, Pilot Light has had a project that we call the Market Cooperative, which is a group of ladies who work in the market in Kigali, Rwanda. They share costs and give each other small loans to increase their incomes. We have recently partnered with the Women and Children Development …
Potential New Partner
6/10/14 It has been an incredibly long day, so I will keep this brief. We met today with a potential new partner called LADA (Literacy Action and Development Agency). We are considering working with them on a Rice Farmer’s Cooperative. Arthur, the director, took us on a 2 hour drive on dusty and bumpy dirt …
Coffee Farmer Visit 2014
6/9/14 This morning we left Kabale, descending from the mountains, past the enormous flower farm belonging to President Museveni’s wife and into the rolling hills covered in banana trees to see our Coffee Farmer Cooperative in Rukingiri, a town about two hours away. Father Ignatius, who is a young priest with unstoppable energy and a …
An Addendum to the Last Few Days
6/7/14 Addendum to last few days: I feel like I have been so tired each night that I have been missing the real flavor of this trip so far, in my attempt to get the blog written so I can sleep and all the while having connectivity issues. Today is a free Sunday until we …
Day 2 Batwa Village Visits
6/7/14 Today was wow! The rain stopped and the area where the four new Batwa groups live is spectacularly beautiful. They are in the beginning stages of the project, as we have only been working with them since January, as opposed to two years with the other groups. The theme of the day seemed to …
Batwa Village Visits Day 1
6/6/14 Finally, it is the end of a very very very long day, so I will be brief and elaborate more tomorrow. This morning, my husband, my colleague Delphin and a group from our partner AICM, led by Bishop Kayeye and I visited three of the four Batwa groups from the first phase of the …