PBF work with rural communities in western Uganda district of Kasese

IPOA is a community-based organization started by Thomas who is a very competent community organizer in Northwestern Uganda, Kasese district. With support from PBF, the community has benefitted in various sectors of Agriculture, soil conservation, vocational training, and water harvesting.

As a rich Agricultural area with a lot of rainfall, several lakes, and rivers, the area has recently been invaded by foreign investors most of which are Chinese with the support of the government. The fish which is the traditional staple food is no longer available to the local population because the Chinese investors have acquired rights to fish for export. The local scan no longer affords fish. They are only left with bones because all the fillet is either exported or can only be bought by the rich in the cities.

This sorry state of affairs has resulted in malnutrition due to lack of proteins in the diet of young children exposing them to high mortality rate.

Human rights are to be accepted, also in Kasese

As IPOA, we have started a campaign of training local farmers, school children and their teachers in alternative fish farming which involves digging and construction of small ponds along the streams so that people can have rear fish for domestic consumption and sell the surplus.

We are training locals to unite, build their sustainability capacities by adopting modern farming and also to be aware of their human rights. We provide them with information, training, seminars to be able to hold their government accountable and find solutions to emerging problems.

Apart from food security approaches, we also train the locals especially young men to learn and practice the traditional ways of prevention and treatment of diseases and other risks like snake bites. Herbal medicine is an alternative to the pharmaceutical products which are beyond the reach of rural communities.

Summary

The Peter Bachmann Foundation has for a long time been a reliable partner to IPOA. These training target rural subsistence communities most of whom are poor orphaned children and widows. The goal is to improve food production through organic gardening, better sanitation, and hygiene, environmental conservation, nutrition based on indigenous foods, income savings, natural medicine, and natural healing, teamwork and so many other self-help skills.

By Thomas, director of IPOA