Life in Africa » LiA Kireka

Seeking loans!

Shawn — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:28:38 +0000

We are getting closer to our goal of raising the money necessary to build the brick wall for our child care center! For those that don’t know, Life in Africa in Kampala is starting a child day care center. There are so many single mothers in the neighborhood, some of whom attend the LiA tailoring training discussed here, and they are in need of good quality child care while they work or train. The existing fence at the center, however, is made of papyrus and obviously can’t provide a secure environment for small children.

We are seeking funds in the form of loans, which will be repaid to each and every lender once the center is up and running and turning a profit. Please consider clicking on the Chip In button and lending even a small amount. These mothers and children need our support to become productive and responsible citizens. On behalf of all the moms and kids of Life in Africa, I thank you very much.

SECURITY WALL FOR CHILD CARE CENTER

peter — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:03:06 +0000

It’s approximately two months since I posted that Life in Africa Kireka developed a tailoring project that is aiming at training the teenage mothers, the teenage mothers are those young girls who conceived at early ages and can neither continue with school nor get married. The tailoring project is going on successfully with over twenty teenage mothers and their babies on the backs. This pushed us to think about how to get hold on the situation of training these young mothers with their babies on the back. Some times they find it difficult to concentrate on the training as they would need to consul their crying babies!

the organization came up with an idea of starting a child care centre that would help look after these babies during the day as their mothers are learning. Having thought of that, we didn’t know that it was such a good project that not only will cater for teenage mothers who are getting training at the center, but all the people around the center because more trainees with similar challenges are coming. It is really a challenge for even a lower class people mostly ladies who work as house keepers, industrial workers and venders to perform their duties better because of babies, some times they even loose jobs because of that.

Besides, Life in Africa Kireka is just 100 meters from the main road to the city and when we put our banner about the child care center opening soon, most of these ladies and gentlemen driving to work in the city had to begin inquiring about the service and most of them are very mush pleasant about the service as its easy for them to drop their kids as they go to work and pick them as they retire home in the evenings.

Stimulating toys and beds can be easily acquired for this development to take place. However the center lacks security wall and this will not make the parents trust us with their kids because the place is wide opened such that any one can have access to it including those interested in stealing other people’s kids for various reasons. So to make parents more confidence, there is immediate need for security wall. At one point, we have had papyrus fence which people tore and got their way through and we feel should have a lasting solution. you reading this could be one of the best lenders to this project.

To learn more about this project, and about the online community who has committed to managing this loan, please visit the ongoing discussion at ned.com.

Mushrooms for Kireka

evvy — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:24:07 +0000

Dark room construction

I am so excited to see this great project taking shape. The members of LiA Kireka are starting a mushroom farm at their center. Mushrooms have become very popular in Uganda and are served now in most of the hotels and restaurants. They have mostly been imported at a high price but there is a growing trend to grow them locally. And even the local residents have started buying the locally grown mushrooms and using them in their cooking.

They have used a small grant from Life in Africa USA to build the dark room needed to grow their gardens. They plan to set up around 400 gardens and are very confident that the enterprise will be profitable. The monies earned will help to support the center and will also go into a profit sharing fund that will be shared equally will all the participating members. There are around 30 members participating (mostly women).

You can read more about the workings of the Community MushroomCultivation Project and follow the discussions and planning. We will also be posting updates here. There is also more information and photos on their project page with a photo of an actual garden. Check it out, you might find it really interesting.

And while you are there, why not take a few minutes and make a small donation. It only costs $1.50 to start a garden. We are helping them to raise enough for 400 gardens. That’s less than the cost of a cup of coffee but the impact it can have on this community is huge.

Including Teenage mothers in Computer & Tailoring Skill Training

peter — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:51:52 +0000

As part of our efforts to transform the community through life skill trainings, Life in Africa Kireka thought that we should not leave behind the teenage mothers of Acholi quarter. There are more than 3,000 displaced families in Acholi quarter, and the numbers of teenage mothers contribute to this. The life at this IDP (internally displaced persons) camp is very miserable and young girls have faced some serious conditions in this place. Due to lack of school fees, some drop out of school at the levels of primary seven to even senior four due to such problems and end up idling at home. Some end up joining their parents cracking stones in the quarry or making paper bead products to make ends meet.

At the end of the day, they are approached by men at the quarters who lure them with their money they get either from gambling or from the quarry works and make them pregnant at early ages! Having conceived at this age, they are either rejected by these men, or get married to them under new hard conditions. So the life cycle of poverty and suffering just continue like that. As concerned community, we have thought of how we can break this cycle, and that is giving them life skill training that would help divert their minds from these distractions.

The only life skills training we can give them at the moment are computer basics and tailoring. These are some of the skills these teenage mothers can acquire in a short period of time, and begin their own businesses such as a secretarial bureau, or perhaps they could acquire and open up a boutique. At the end of their training, we shall see how to help some of them to acquire the equipment to start their own businesses through small loans. Also, some may get the chance to be employed by sole proprietors who would need people with such skills. Whatever the case, these teenage mothers have to go beyond stone quarry or paper beads.

So far we have registered ten (10) teenage mothers who are undergoing the training, working on the computer together with the young boys who began a little bit earlier. Tailoring will kick off as soon as we get someone who can help volunteer in that area. And we have a very big number to register in tailoring because even those who do not know how to write and read completely can grasp these skills.

Grace Briefing teenage mothers

Training in progress

Lia Kireka with New York University students

peter — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:27:40 +0000

These are some of the photos taken early this year when New York University students’ dance group visited Uganda and performed with Lia kids at National Theater. It was very interesting to see our kids performing just like NY students despite the fact that training was only for four days.

Making Recycled Beads in Kireka

evvy — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:23:23 +0000

On my last visit to Uganda, I spent almost six weeks working with the women of Kireka to help them set up a program of group production so they could make their beads and jewelry faster. It was an amazing experience and I think that I learned as much as they did. They are an amazing group of women and we can all learn so much from them about resilience, determination, and how to survive in a world where the odds are stacked against you.

Before, the women all worked on their own at their homes. They struggled to find the paper, the supplies, and the time to create their jewelry. And it was difficult to get the jewelry to have any consistency. Lengths were different, colors were different, stringing methods were different and it was impossible to count on any consistent quantities. But, the new program has them coming to the Kireka center for a few days each week to work together as a group. In this way they can create necklaces that are all the same length and the same style. They can create bracelets that are all the same size. And they can have access to supplies that make the job a whole lot easier.

But the group production also offers something else that I had not thought of. It offers them an opportunity to socialize. Their lives in the camp are hard and at home there is always so much work to do to maintain their families. But at the center, sitting on mats working in this group, they can talk, laugh, share stories, ask each other for advice, and just be friends for a few hours. Sometimes they sing together, sometimes one stops to nurse a hungry baby, and sometimes they cry together over some recent tragedy that has occurred. They do all this while creating the beautiful jewelry that we hope to sell for them to make their lives better. And as I sat on the mats watching them work, I was amazed at how much joy they were able to find in just coming together to work.

I hope you will visit ourCraft Shop to see what they have been able to create.