We’re on GoFundMe!

It’s time to make a splash! 

The rains have finally come to Northwest Uganda, and in Nebbi and it’s been a busy time at the farm. Hundreds of teak and white teak trees have been distributed to Ngombor members, we’ve planted over an acre of vegetables. Our GoFundMe ready to take donations. Liz is no longer beating her head against every online financial transaction service she can find and finds this relief blissful.

Ajolorwoth Justin (Ajolo) has volunteered to live on the farm to ensure plants are not stolen or mature trees chopped down for charcoal.

Since May, Ajolo has been staying in a blue tarpaulin shelter, but we hope we’ll get a completed building with a proper roof soon. Getting a building with a proper roof will also mean that we can get a water tank that will harvest water from the roof. The rainy season ends around late November, so if we can get a roof plus tank in place we’ll not just get Ajolo out of a tent, we’ll have water to help us take care of our new food forest in the dry season. Annual vegetable crops can follow the rhythm of the seasons, but establishing trees takes year-round effort.

To support these goals and to help Ngombor get to its next level of development we’d love you to support us. We’re still looking for partners and ways of supporting more direct giving, but this GoFundMe campaign will help us get urgently needed funding in the short term.

If you donate now, Ngombor’s shelter situation will go from this:

 To this:

If we can get to $1,000USD we can finish the house. When we achieve that goal it will mean:

• Ajolo will have a bedroom with a solid floor out of the rain

•  Vince will have somewhere to stay when he works on the farm for multiple days

• We’ll have a visitors room when other volunteers come to help us

• Committee meetings won’t need to be cancelled when there’s rain

• We’ll have an office, so that we can centralize more administration on the farm

• We’ll have a storage room with a solid floor, protected from the elements

If we can get to $4,000 USD we won’t just finish the house, there will be access to running water (as long as we can get the tank installed while there is still rain) and solar powered electricity! Once we have electricity, we’ll be able to have external as well as internal lights, substantially improving safety as well as comfort and ability to do work after dark. We’ll also be able to plant more of the food forest and dig swales to make our wild areas more biodiverse and abundant.

As Project Food Forrest states, “a food forest, also called a forest garden, is a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three dimensional designs, with life extending in all directions – up, down, and out.”

If we can raise more than $4,000 USD  we’ll be well on our way to getting livestock, which will include building enclosures, cultivating and harvesting animal feed as well as purchasing the animals. We’ll start small, with chickens, but if we can reach our stretch goal of getting a cow that will super charge our agriculture as we’ll have on-site access to cow manure.

Some items, especially from overseas (such as solar equipment), have quite set costs that are beyond the reach of most farmers in the West Nile. In a place where the average household income is $60 a month, a $25 or $50 donation has a large impact. 

Once we have essential infrastructure in place, we’ll also be in a better position to invest in our IT program, such as laptops that can support teleconferencing (providing access to virtual meetups and more interactive online training) and getting a good quality camera so that we can send better photos and videos to you. The video quality from member’s personal phone cameras is especially grainy!

Sponsorship tiers

Sponsor of Future Excellence?

When you donate through the GoFundMe or direct bank transfer, you’ll have sponsorship options!

Would you like to be a Sponsor of Future Excellence and get naming rights to a chicken? Chickens won’t give us food, income and our first lot of home-grown manure to use as fertilizer. Once our chicken flock is established, we’ll be in a position to give chickens to others.

If you sponsor as at the “We’ll Have a Cow” you’ll be able to name one of our first cows. This magnificent beast won’t just look at us solemnly with that all knowing gaze cows have. She’ll provide milk and a super charge our agriculture with a whole different level and quality of manure!

Go to the GoFundMe to see more fun sponsorship levels and bad puns! Once you (or your group, you can always collectively sponsor a goat) have donated, we’ll reach out to you around sponsorship details and what you’d like to name your animal if you’re sponsoring at a livestock level.

A donation now would mean so much

We’d love you to join us and support us at a such a critical juncture. We’re excited to see what names you come up with!

This was just a quick update from us, now that there are ways you can financially support us! A small amount of money can have a big big impact in the West Nile.

Stay tuned for our August update where we’ll send you news about IT meetups, tell you about how the plants are going and hope to have exciting news about construction.

- Liz Argall, co-founder and member of the international volunteers team

Ngombor Community Development Alliance.