A bit about us

Ngombor is a word in Alur

Ngombor is a word in the Alur language that has no exact English translation. The word ngombor describes the sense of optimism and achievement that comes from perseverance and diligence. It represents our commitment to foster holistic rural community development through community engagement and innovation to create a prosperous and empowered community in greater Nebbi.

Ngombor CDA is based in Nebbi district in the West Nile part of Uganda, near the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border. While there are many highly capable people and impressive community leaders, there are substantial challenges around accessing opportunities and resources. According to the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (UNBS) Demographic household and Health Surveys (2024) the Greater North region has the highest percentage of people experiencing poverty. For context, it took about $300 USD to register Ngombor as a community organization, in a part of the world where the average household income per month is about $60USD. 

In a region of great potential that suffers great financial inequality, we want to ensure people can access agricultural and IT skills and opportunities in a way that is sustainable and connected to community.

We’re so glad you’ve chosen to give us a chance and read our first newsletter. Many hands make light work, and now, more than ever we need to find ways to connect awesome people in different parts of the world, in different parts of their lives, to each other. It’s really easy for folks in rural and remote areas to get isolated, or for people to make assumptions about them from afar. In fact, that’s easy for anyone, everywhere right now! So, thanks for being part of this.

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

What to expect

In every issue of the newsletter, we will include:

• Latest news and developments as we build a Permaculture Farm, deepen IT literacy and build opportunities in Nebbi

• Details about topics of particular interest, such as building construction or water harvesting

• Updates to our farm photo diary

The newsletter should get to you once a month, though you may get a second email this month once we get a donation button!... working towards a donation button has been a bit of an adventure.

We are an officially recognized organization with Goodstack, so if you have a workplace or organization that does giving through Goodstack please let us know!

To make sure you get our emails

Reply “Hello Ngombor” (or Liz, Vince, Winny, Laurine, Cosma etc) to this email. Please send us a question or two!

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Many years in the making

A new endeavor with a long history 

Like any large endeavor, Ngombor has many origin stories. It started decades ago, it started in January 2025, Ngombor officially became an officially registered organization on 10 April 2025. One of Ngombor’s great strengths is that it builds on decades of relationships and trust. It expands on an existing informal community saving and loan group in Nebbi, the connections, relationships and trust of community leaders with many years of dedicated service. It expands on a decades-long friendship my father (Dennis Argall) had with Vince Ulargiw.

The latest news and developments!

What has been achieved since Ngombor officially registered in April is breathtakingly fast on one level, but only because it comes from a very strong and centered place. As astronauts like to say, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. There is a lot of joy in getting things done right now, a lot of pent-up desire and capability finally getting some room to grow. 

We’re following the seasons as we are able to find them (and sometimes create them), and we’re excited by all that has been achieved in our growing season so far.

A season of connection and growth

In the West Nile part of Uganda, most of the agricultural production occurs in a single rainy season of about eight months, from late March to late November with the main peak from August to October and a secondary peak in April/May.

April

Ngombor’s activities started by looking outwards in April, when Vincent Ulargiw, Lekyuru Winny Hope, Laurine Afoyorwoth, Ofoyrwoth Cosma went to Kampala for an incredible PyLadies meetup. PyLadies is a worldwide group of women software developers who love to write code in the Python programming language. That session expanded people’s understanding of data science and its role in agriculture. You can read a bit more about it on the Impact page of our website. 

Cosma, our Youth Coordinator, has started organizing IT skills meetups every Saturday. They have held two so far, and he is working on attracting more local young people in the community to join in. As students in Nebbi work together to build their IT skills, we look forward to finding many ways to collaborate with PyLadies in the years to come.

May

In May, Lekyuru Winny Hope and Vincent Ulargiw went to the Permaculture Uganda in Butumbala in Uganda’s Central District to complete a 12-day, 72-hour Permaculture Designer course.

While most of us would have felt pretty tired after a 12-day intensive combining practical hands-on skills plus theory lessons, Vince and Winny got home and immediately went into action. By the end of May, work had begun on our first building, raised garden beds and irrigation beds were constructed, and a seedling nursery built and planted.

You can see more of that in our Google Photo Album.

June

For much of June, members watered the seedlings in the nursery beds three times a day while we waited for the rains to come. Then, at the end of June, the rains came at long last, and members were able to plant some of the seedlings collectively in an acre on the farm and took other seedlings home to grow. In June we were also donated 1,000 tree seedlings from the Nebbi Forestry Department, so we’ve had a lot of planting to do.

Donation button shenanigans

At the end of June, ngombor.org went live, but we were shy about doing a big public announcement because getting a donation button has been a bit of an adventure.

Uganda has been through some hard times; Africa in general has been through some hard times. Because of this, while you can fairly easily Western Union Money Transfer cash to an individual in Uganda, it is exceptionally challenging to send money to an organization. Liz (co-founder and yours truly) has been exploring options and jumping through hoops since January, and for the last month or so, she’s been convinced that “next week” would finally be the week when potential donors could go through a normal donation process.

Last week, after facing yet another barrier, Liz had to lay face down on the ground for a little bit and have a cry. But she is fairly certain that next week, or maybe the week after, we’ll finally have an arrangement where people can easily send money to Ngombor.

One day, she’ll probably write a whole essay about it.

This coming season

Sustained attention, new friends and bringing in a harvest

Ngombor Community Development Alliance has a clear picture of what we want to achieve next. Thanks to about 53% of Ugandan members’ donations and 46% international donations, the foundation and walls of our first building are completed. 

Now that the seedlings have been planted, there’s over an acre of vegetables to attend to, more trees to plant, and more swales to construct. Swales are shallow channels with gently sloping sides, designed to capture water, so that it goes into the soil rather than running off (or worse yet, creating erosion). Swales can significantly contribute to the health and biodiversity of the land.

Our membership is incredible and will be working hard to take care of the land, support each other and build opportunities. People are donating incredible amounts of time, but there are some things that will take international donations if we are to get to our next stage of development.

With international donations, we will be able to:

• Buy more trees for our food forest

• Add a roof and complete the building this season

• Buy and install water tank so that we have irrigation abilities beyond hauling in water

• Install solar panels, batteries, wiring so we can power electronic devices and have lights in the house.

While the Ngombor membership attends to the land and builds towards their first harvest, Liz is working on some fun fundraising packages (like instructions for how to run a snack drive/fundraising activity to collectively sponsor a goat/beehive/cow, etc.) and building out international volunteer onboarding materials. If you’d like to get involved or beta-test the Snack Drive instructions, please email [email protected]. 

In this season, we’re also exploring how we can connect with like-minded organizations, in Uganda and internationally. We are stronger together, there’s much to learn from each other, and there are global challenges best faced together. If there’s an organization or individual you think we should be connecting with, please introduce us!

A small favor to ask

If you like what we’re doing, please forward this newsletter to someone else who might like it. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, please consider subscribing (and keep passing it on if you like it!)

Thanks for being part of our global community, and don’t forget to reply to this email with at LEAST one question!

Ngombor Community Development Alliance