By Ijeoma Mba | Program Officer
The Foundation for Community Development and Empowerment (FCDE) works to maximize economic, social and environmental opportunities of organizations at the frontline of community development. The FCDE partnership model focuses on fostering sustainable development by supporting local organizations possessing a vision and who actively work to address their communities’ needs. FCDE believes if organizations have the technical knowledge, personnel and funding to run effectively, they will make a lasting impact in their communities.
Ndongo United Herbalists’ Association (Ndongo), a local partner organization, is an organization FCDE continues to support because of your generous donations. Working in Bwera, Mukunyu and Nyakiyumbu subcounties in Kasese District Uganda, Ndongo is taking a new approach to poverty alleviation and malnutrition by providing education and training, environmental awareness and farming best practices to its program participants.
According to The Cost of Hunger in Africa report, Uganda loses UGS 1.8 trillion (US$899 million) annually- about 5.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product - due to the effects of malnutrition. Ndongo helps households establish kitchen gardens, make herbal medicines, has provided food supplements to over 180 households and helps community members find new ways to address their health concerns. “People are suffering from malnutrition and poor health, especially pregnant women, children and adults. We give households the support to fight it,” says Thembo Boniface, Ndongo executive director.
Recognizing the availability of nutritionally viable food is only one piece of the puzzle, support is given to local farmers to maximize their production. Florence Idembe, a staff member of Ndongo, mentions, “Farming can be a lucrative business for the community. We teach people not to just plant for their stomachs. Subsistence farmers can become commercial farmers.”
Zaulia K, a member of the Ndongo Cooperative- a program of Ndongo, now feels different about her farming. Zaulia has been farming for 25 years and comes from a family of farmers. Before joining the cooperative, she would mix crops on the same land and cultivated haphazardly. “There are times when my ½ an acre of beans would only yield 80 kg. Now I plant groundnuts. On one acre I planted groundnuts of 14 kg and my output was 280 kg. Ndongo even helps me market my harvest. I am seeing profits.” Regina K is able to be proactive about her farming, “My goal is to increase my farm from half an acre to two acres in the next two to three years. Ndongo United’s continued support in bulking harvested crops helps me raise money to acquire what I am dreaming of.”
Capacity Building for Community Led Initiatives
FCDE’s brand of sustainable development embraces the importance of local people and thoughtful capacity building. With implementing offices in Kasese and Rukunigiri, the foundation accepts 8-10 organizations for each office yearly to be local partners. These organizations are grouped into cohorts and receive ongoing support in the form of technical assistance, strategic partnership development, one on one consulting with staff and resource mobilization. Organizations selected for each cohort are committed to meeting their missions, actively work in their local communities and share a willingness to improve service delivery and quality of programming. Their projects are entirely locally led and are sustained by community members.
“Before FCDE, managing the organization was difficult, such things like a needs assessment and baseline survey were nonexistent. The foundation has helped us create an organizational structure and improve our program implementation and reporting. They are supportive and guide you through processes and follow up with you to see your progress. With their support, we have secured an 8 million UGX grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Trainers Network (SATNET) to expand our work. We can now better support our program participants” says Boniface.
Because of your donation, FCDE can continue to support organizations like Ndongo and help them better serve their communities. Your donation ensures sustainable development in some of Uganda's most underserved communities.
To learn more about FCDE’s work and the organizations it supports visit www.internationalcommunitydevelopment.org.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
