Upcoming shipment: The web of poverty in rural Uganda
Masaka, in Uganda, is a beautiful combination of lush, fertile farmland and the red dusty roads that are the image of rural Africa. It's a place of close communities and warm family culture, yet the majority of the population lives in isolated villages that are suffering from poverty and a lack of resources to help them move forward and grow.
When a small community development organisation in Masaka wrote to us, requesting a shipment, they painted a picture of just how urgently the rural areas need help.
"There are a number of schools but they have no facilities," they wrote. "Academic performance is poor which then prevents the children from going on to higher learning." Hospitals are operating with no electricity at night, meaning that patients needing emergency procedures after hours simply cannot be helped. Farmers who want to expand their business and earn income by selling at the markets cannot even get to market to sell, because they lack bicycles or other transport, and because there is often no clean water source nearby, people need to travel long distances to carry water back to the village, meaning children may miss schooling or adults miss out on income-earning work hours.
"We work with youth, bringing them together through sports, music, dance and drama, but there are no recreational facilities such as balls, musical instruments, sports shoes and clothes, nets and rackets, training kits and so on."
The organisation has a great desire to conduct a research project into poverty in Masaka, identifying what it is that keeps people in poverty, and thus help them meet people’s needs more effectively, however they cannot go ahead with the research because they don’t have the computer resources they need to do so.
"Furniture will improve medicine storage and comfort of patients," they wrote. "Books, stationery and other items will help to give skills to pupils for better performance while electric equipment will facilitate night studies and other activities for better performance. Office furniture will enable staff to be comfortable for better service/work. In the end the entire community will be able to improve their well-being for better living standards.”
