Good Bye Slums. Help 40 Uganda Women Build Homes.

Our surveyor has almost completed the boundary marking of our seven acre property.  It's been a time consuming task and we are very excited that this phase of the project is almost completed. We expect that as soon as next week, the architect will be able to take the surveyor's detailed topo map and begin finalizing the overall development plan for the project including finalizing project cost estimates.  Once this is done, we will meet with the women's group for them to review the proposed details of the plan and give their input as to any needed changes.  After another round of revisions (or maybe two!), we'll be ready to submit the plan for approval by local authorities.  

While the development plan is being completed and approvals obtained, we will begin installing fencing around the property, and our Jinja beaders will continue saving their earnings for down payments on their homes.  Simultaneously, we are also seeking out other potential NGOs, banks or others who can help us with construction and ultimate home loan funding for this project. We expect that this part of the project will take until early fall.

We had a productive holiday season selling our Ugandan women's jewelry to help them continue to fund their Uganda businesses and save down payment money. Here are some photos from our recent trip to Jinja this past July. We visited several ladies at their homes in the slums of Jinja. You can see the dliapidated condtion of their homes. It is also a very dangerous place to be at night.  That part is difficult to show in a photo.

Many thanks for your continued support on this very important long-term project!

Links:

• OU Web Site
• Shop for Beads & Help Women Earn

In our trainings with our Ugandan women, we share that they need to plan and be strategic about their businesses they do in Uganda.  We too, are modeling that concept with our home ownership project.  We agree with the adage that "Haste makes waste," and are focusing our efforts now on developing a thorough and solid plan for our housing development.  In conjunction with that, we realized during our planning process that it would be better to acquire at least a couple of additional acres of land before we moved too far along.

We're happy to report that in May, we did just that! We now have two additional acres which will allow us to accommodate more homes while still maintaining the look and feel of a not so dense housing area.  In the past couple of years, we have visited several low income housing developments in Uganda, and determined that we did not want to be re-creating a new slum area. From discussions with our women beaders, we know that they do not want "story buildings" but prefer homes or duplexes which have just one level.

So before our architect finalizes the development plan, we have requested that he incorporate the additional land into the plan. This means that soon, within the next couple of months, we should be able to begin work on some of the development wide improvements that will be needed on this land.  Concurrently with that, we will begin fundraising in earnest so that we have adequate financing for the first phase of the development.

Thanks for your continued patience and support.  We'll keep you updated as the next milestones are accomplished!

Links:

• Outreach Uganda's web site
• Outreach Uganda June 2015 Newsletter