Photography, Stories, Travel, Uganda

Uganda – A Credit union

July 27, 2011

Note:- This is a post that was on an old blog that is now offline. I went looking for the images and realised I had not transferred them. One of the more fascinating visits was to a micro finance project in the form of a community run credit union. Plan again are involved and help train and set up the credit union. Because of the limitations on the ledger system they use, they limit themselves to 20 odd members. The setup is very simple, with a weekly meeting, held under a tree in the village. A committee is elected to run the credit union and all the members contribute by savings and repayments of loans. It was incredible to listen to the stories of the members of what they borrowed money for

One woman borrowed to buy some chickens. She now sells the eggs to other in the village and surrounding areas
A man used the money to buy goats. He sells goats milk and cheese as a result.
One enterprising man, bought a bicycle. He uses it to run errands for people to other villages

The really interesting thing was to see people pay back the loan and then borrow again to add to their ability to generate wealth for themselves.

For more informmation on the excellent work by Plan International, see their website www.plan.ie

Photography, Travel, Uganda

Uganda – Sponsoring a child

By Gerry on

July 24, 2011

- Photography, Travel, Uganda

Note:- This is a post that was on an old blog that is now offline. I went looking for the images and realised I had not transferred them. Continuing our visit Plan Internationals projects, we visited a sponsored child. The child in question was sponsored by Merv is called Joan and is approximately 12 years of age. The Plan office is in Kamuli about 60Km east of the capital Kampala and Joan’s village is about 20 minutes away. We stopped on the way and bought some goods for the family – simple items like cooking oil, biscuits, soap, rice and orange juice. What I did not expect was the families reaction to what to us was some very simple and cheap gifts. They were incredibly grateful and insisted on giving us a whole range of foodstuffs back ( see the image below). It was quite a collection: an enormous Jackfruit, a bundle of sugar cane even a chicken! Obviously, we might have had a few problems bringing that lot on a flight back to Ireland so we gave them as a gift to Joan. Oh, watch for the image with Joans report card – “Could do better” is a pretty good summary.

For more information on the excellent work by Plan International, see their website www.plan.ie.

Photography, Travel, Uganda

A Ugandan School

By Gerry on

July 23, 2011

- Photography, Travel, Uganda

Note:- This is a post that was on an old blog that is now offline. I went looking for the images and realised I had not transferred them. In 2008, Along with a friend of mine, Merv Colton I visited Uganda and spent round 12 days in the country. Part of the trip was a visit to some projects run by the charity Plan International. Anyway, one of the first places we visited was a school run by Plan. The school had a pupil count of round 700 with 7 teachers ( Now theres a pupil -teacher ratio!) and 5 classrooms. 2 of the classes are held outside under a tree – even in very heavy rainfall.

For more information on the excellent work by Plan International, see their website www.plan.ie