July 2016 Uganda Lodge Newsletter

 

 

Updates From                                                       

UGANDA LODGE                                                   July 2016

& Ruhanga Resource Centre 

PO Box 368 Ntungamo SW Uganda

                 www.ugandalodge.com  www.volunteerinuganda.org

 

Greetings to all our friends and supporters, past volunteers & sponsors

My first port of call on this visit to Uganda was to watch our Director Denis plus 9 of his staff run in the Masaka Marathon at the beginning of June. All 10 runners completed their agreed distance and had a fun weekend at the same time
Staff members who ran in the race with Denis were: follows: 
Dr EDWARD Muliira – RICHARD Kabutu – POLLY Mugemya –  NICHOLAS Ahimbisbwe –  DENIS Kisekka  – TONY West  – HELLEN Najjingo – AGNES  Tumukunde – PROSSY Nuwagaba

Their fundraising page is still open and you can support their projects in Ruhanga by donating  https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/denismarathon

We have entered two patrols in the up-coming Scout camp and have chosen 10 girls and 10 boys  who are practicing hard to improve their Scouting skills. The ladies in the tailoring class are making up new uniform shirts for them, thanks to a UK leader who volunteered some time back and bought the material. We are now looking to find about £250 towards their attendance, equipment meals and transport  costs. Are there any Scout/Guide patrols in the UK who would like to support them? I will put up a BT Fundraising Page for this soon.

Our school kitchen was refurbished recently and the fireplaces strengthened to facilitate the huge cooking pots needed for the beans and posho – a maize meal that make porridge and the main basis of lunch & supper. Each term we serve 50,000 mugs of porridge and 26,000 plates of food to our boarders, day students and school staff.

Due to our current  low International volunteer numbers we are hosting nine Ugandan Medical Students from Mbarara University. They have been assisting Dr Edward doing outreach work from our Medical Centre in the surrounding villages and visited many families, as well as gradually screening our own schoolchildren. We still hold a Dental Clinic each Monday although unfortunately this is no longer supported by Dentaid. However thanks to ASE consulting continuing to pay our staff salaries etc we are able to keep this important service going.

Since being out here I have been on a couple of trips to QE National Park with Denis and volunteers going on safari and have seen how the work he is doing in two rural fishing villages is starting to impact the local fishing communities.

At Kisenyi on Lake Edward Denis is building a large grass roofed shelter that will be suitable for both al-fresco dining, and camping under.

At Kasenyi in the north of the QE park on the shores of Lake George the four Bandas are great, a large water tank has been erected, septic tank dug and  the showers and flush toilets are working efficiently.

Denis’s land here stretches for hundreds of metres along the shore of the lake and back towards the park boundary. It is possible to see whole families  of elephants coming down to the lake to drink, as well as Waterbuck, Uganda Kob,  Hippos, Warthogs, Hyenas and even Lions or an occasional Leopard without entering the park boundaries.

If you know someone who may looking for an investment or partnership enterprise do suggest they contact Denis as there are massive possibilities for upmarket Lodge and accommodation on this land. Many International tourists already pay several hundred dollars a night to be this close to the lions etc  & frequently a smart tent is all that is on offer!

Back to Ruhanga and our school; the children are growing up fast and most families are very appreciative of the chance of a low cost but good education being given to their young children, especially when compared to what is on offer from the government. However we do still have many unsponsored children and although we give them all free porridge & other benefits, we really do need more kind offers of just 90p a week to help us provide these facilities. See www.sponsorachild.co.uk

As two of the classes have more than 70 pupils and two teachers each, Denis has started digging out the foundations for two more classrooms up on the road side of the school compound. Together with the PTA, he feels that right now this has a higher priority than getting the vocation training restaurant completed. Each classroom will cost about £5,000 to build to a good standard and match the other classrooms..Can you help this new endeavour?

Are there any more of you out there willing to do some fundraising for us towards these two new classrooms?  Please contact me – I return to UK on 4th Aug. A relatively easy and fun way to raise extra funds is by collecting unwanted items from friends and family and taking them along to a local Car Boot Sale. Many organisers give a discount for a registered charity, and its possible to make £200 & more in just a few hours.

.Many of you will remember Faridah – one of our recent volunteer coordinators out in Ruhanga. I went to visit her in Kampala and she is now a proud Mum of a lovely baby boy. Congratulations to Mum (& Dad!!)  Farida is now helping to update our facebook pages at ‘volunteer at Uganda lodge’ and ‘Ruhanga Development School’ so please keep watching and ‘like’ these pages.

If you are a previous volunteer or visitor to Uganda Lodge and would be prepared to send a few lines of hopefully good feedback  to lisa@ugandalodge.com she will put them up on some new volunteer and travel websites she has managed to get free adverts on. Please contact her for more details and we will be most appreciative. Did you enjoy one of Denis’s famous safaris, or go gorilla trekking, or meet many of the adorable children and help serve them porridge ore assist in the classrooms or Medical centre? Please help others to have this same experience.

Some other GREAT NEWS that has just come in – we managed to borrow some money so our Scouts could take two patrols to the local District camp. – and the results were – the boys came FIRST out of 12 male patrols and the girls came SECOND out of 9 female patrols. How did we manage that – I am asking myself??? They were competing mostly against other expensive  private school groups who had far more to spend on equipment etc than our kids – BUT they made it it!!! Many of them had lost their voices with so much singing & cheering all the way back home.

Our challenge now is that both patrols have  been invited to the National Scout Camp in Kampala at the beginning of September and although we hope they can contribute some of the cost, we are going to need to find another £500 or more to get them there. For some it will be their only chance to even visit their capital city.

Please contact me for details of Benson & Allan – their Scout Leaders – and to donate, search for Ruhanga Development Scouts on BT Donate 

Thanks to all those of you who have already visited Ruhanga or sponsored children and support the many ongoing projects now taking place in this beautiful corner of rural Uganda. that are benefitting the local community. Enjoy your summer break wherever you may be going – but please  think about booking a return flight to Entebbe later in the year for under £400 from LHR for a couple of weeks or longer in this beautiful country

Thank you and best wishes to you all

From  Ann McCarthy & Denis Aheirwe