WELCOME TO UGANDA SPACE ORGANISATION

We are a community based non-profit organisation economically empowering impoverished women, youth, and children through education, evangelical/ pastoral work and social business enterprises like poultry and solar lantern microfinance projects , providing care for orphaned and children in need in rural uganda.

OUR VALUES

Foundation- Our work is driven by what we believe to be best for our communities and their goal of fighting poverty and living better lives. As a disciplined, revenue-generating nonprofit organization, we remain accountable, focused and motivated to achieve our community needs.

Volunteers- Our volunteers drive our success as a company. We strive to recruit and retain a diverse group of dedicated volunteers representing the best talent available. Uganda SPACE work to ensure these volunteers feel valued and supported, and that they have opportunities to develop and grow.

Work- Uganda SPACE do what it takes to achieve results. We are purposeful in providing high-quality, responsive and innovative services. We endeavor to work in close collaboration with our communities to develop models that challenge the status quo and raise expectations for what is possible in the effort to increase community achievement.

Culture- We believe in a healthy, productive work environment. We strive for a trusting, supportive culture that emphasizes collaborations and flexibility amongst all community members. The communities push themselves to higher levels of performance, they celebrate their successes, and learn from their failures.

Our Village Banking Scheme
We solve the problems of poverty in rural communities of Uganda through education, use of entrepreneurial approaches, training, and provision of seed capital for income-generating small businesses. We use a grassroots model of economic development. We partner with established groups of women in rural uganda and provide them with small loans and business skill trainings. Seed capital loans of a range of $150 to $ 350 go to trained groups with approved loan applications. We fund the following village businesses:

1. Solarlantern, ecostove building and sales
2.Crop production (beans, cassava, tomatoes, sweet potatoes)
3.Animal husbandry (chickens, pigs)
4. Skilled service and construction (Art and craft, pottery, tailoring, carpentry)
5. Retail business ( kiosks, restaurants and cafes, household goods)

Our Business Training covers:

1. Solar lantern and ecostove manufacturing skills
2. Marketing skills
3. Book and record keeping
4. Confidence building

Our business training helps new entrepreneurs gain confidence, overcome the typical challenges of a new venture, understand local market opportunities, become self-sufficient and grow their businesses.


Our projects include:

1. Solar lantern and Ecostove microfinance project

http://solarlightingmicroenterprise.wordpress.com/

2. Poultry and Piggery microfinance project

3. Explore Uganda tourist and accomodation project

We provide affordable community tourist services;hotel reseravations tourist destination to interesting places in, gorilla tracking and accomodation to travellers and visitors to Uganda.

4. Education for orphans

We have over over 150 orphans in need of food, accomodation, medical care, educational materials like books, pens etc.

5. Orphanage home and school

We have over 150 orphans in need of food, accomodation, education, love and support from care takers. You can help us to feed a child, educate a child, parent a child!!!

6. Pastorial and Evangelism community project :

Over 500 impoverished women, youth and children have shown interest in the program. We are seeking partners to help us in implementing this program. Many of the women in this community need spiritual counselling, hope as they have lost their husbands as a result of HIV. Many are the caretakers of their families.

Currently, we are interested in expanding our evangelical/pastoral program in our rural communities mainly for the impoverished women, youth and children. We have over 500 women, youth and children in our organisation who have shown positive interest in the program.We are interested in partnerning with individuals , groups, established ministries, churches to help us in establishing our program by helping us in staff empowerment, fundraising for resources to build a church, caring for our orphans, adapting our parentless children, obtaining bibles and establishing an economic project for the impoverished women and the children.

7. Water Sanitation and Health awareness program

Uganda has a problem with access to water and the quality of its water. Uganda's water resources are unevenly distributed across the country and among different sectors of the population. For most families in rural communities, collecting water places a huge time and nutritional burden in women and children. As the government strives to supply safe water to the fast growing population, there is another problem of quality caused by pollution around towns and soil erosion as a result of poor methods of farming.

Uganda SPACE has developed a holistic water and sanitation program in which we aim to have water with in 1.5km of every home and not more than 300 people to use each source.We have also implemented the use of rainwater harvesting technologies in saving water for use during the drought season. The program also entails the educating of the communities about the care for water catchments, wise use of water resources and benefits of improving water access and quality in relation to health and poverty reduction.

We are seeking project partners, donors and advisors in starting our pilot project in Kyamuyimbwa village in Masaka district. In this village, scarcity of water affects the lives of women and children. Many women spend hours every day walking to a water source and then standing in a line. Children especially girls, are also tasked with fetching water. Women have less time for productive activities like cultivation, poultry and piggery rearing, attending to their children, and making of crafts. Older children need time for school and home work.
Uganda SPACE believes that availability of water leads to the drastic reduction of health problems such as dysentery and diarrhoea and will allow the women to carry out the sustainable agricultural projects like poultry very well.



HOW YOU CAN HELP

Dear our beloved supporter, friend , brother and sister. We would like to express our gratitude for the interest you have expressed in our projects.

We have a number of projects that need your support like paying school fees for our over 150 orphans, The children of Uganda SPACE Organisation have the same needs as children anywhere in the world but with no mum or a dad to provide for them.
They need clothes, food, books, toiletries and so forth. Their home needs to be maintained, staff paid and may be that small gift at Christmas. We provide a holistic and rounded approach to the education of the children in its care, covering: Primary, Secondary & Tertiary education; Vocational training.

You can also offer small loans to the impoverished women in form of capital to start economic empowerment projects, donating computers, books, digital cameras to our organisation,

Volunteering with us, Supporting us financially to start our Evangelism community projects and building homes for our orphans.

You can support our tourist project since the money we save in that project is used to empower womens' projects and take care of the underserved children.

Please take a look around our blog, and if you would still like to know more, or get involved, you are very welcome to contact us.

Uganda SPACE Leadership

Uganda SPACE is a primarily volunteer led organization with three full-time paid staff members and a paid office clerk. Project volunteers receive small allowances for transportation, food, lodging and communications for field visits.

Mr. Kayemba Robert, Chairman
Kayemba is a co-founder and the Executive Director of Uganda SPACE Organization. He is a volunteer to the organization. He previously served as the Director of Community Services for a local community non-profit organization, providing oversight of projects and case management services carried out in the community. Kayemba left his village and went to Kawempe, Kampala where he founded a group for impoverished women and children, which supports education of impoverished children and employment opportunities for impoverished women in the slums areas of Kampala City. Kayemba returned to the rural communities of Masaka district with a commitment to engage in community-driven recovery efforts that address issues impacting women and children, particularly those in impoverished rural communities. From 2001-2005, Kayemba served as a project coordinator of economic empowerment programs for the Kabonera Women’s Group. He received a higher diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Kyambogo University in 1995 and a certificate in Project Planning and Management from Makerere University in 2001. Kayemba was raised in a rural village in Masaka, but now lives in Kampala. He is married a and father of four.

Ms. Nagawa Brenda, Vice Chairwoman
Nagawa is a co-founder and Director of Women on staff with Uganda SPACE Organization. She is from Kyamuyimbwa village in the Kabonera sub-country. She is a co-founder of the Tweyambe collective, a self-help group for rural women in her village, which is the foundation of the Uganda SPACE member community. Nagawa has been instrumental in the design and initiation of the Poultry Microfinance Project. She brought in an agricultural team from the district to teach the rural women about modern poultry farming. SPACE staff remain very grateful to her, knowing that without her help it would have been impossible for them to do their work in rural communities of Masaka. Thanks to her effort, 30 members joined the group. She received a primary teaching certificate from Kabukunge Teachers Training College and has an experience managing poultry projects. Nagawa has personally benefitted from her association with Uganda SPACE in that the members were a great support in helping her rebuild her life when her husband passed away. “I feel great pride and a sense of responsibility towards this organization.”

Ms. Nakimbugwe Maria, Treasurer
Nakibugwe is a co-founder on staff Director of Educational Programs and Finance Secretary for Uganda SPACE. She was previously the head teacher of Kyamuyimbwa Primary School in the rural community. She brings more than 20 years of experience educating children and mothers from impoverished families. During her tenure as a headteacher, she gained an appreciation of the hardships a rural woman goes through in educating their children. She feels that educating girls will do much in raising the standards of living in rural communities. She holds a diploma in Secondary Education and a certificate in School Management from Kyambogo University. She is married with four children.

Ms. Nalubega Teddy, Project Coordinator
Nalubega is a volunteer Project Coordinator to the organization. Prior to this, she was the Assistant Project Coordinator of Tweyambe Women’s Group. She has a certificate in Project Planning and Management from Makerere University, and is pursuing a secondary education degree at Makerere University. Her responsibilities include new project development, recruiting project partners and donors from Uganda and internationally. Nalubega is on the teams responsible for developing the Poultry Microfinance Project and the pilot Solar Lighting Microfinance Project. She recruited project volunteer, Genice Jacobs from the United States into our organization.

Mr. Wangi Godfrey Mario, Project Supervisor
Wangi is a volunteer to the organization. He holds a degree in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry from Makerere University and has three years experience managing rural farms. Wangi works with the rural women running the poultry project and delivers progress reports to the project coordinator and committee.

Mr. Kasinja Tonny, Volunteer Coordinator
Kasinja has been working as Uganda SPACE’s Volunteer Coordinator for the past two years and is a volunteer himself. He is the coordinator of the Solar Microfinance Project and an Advisor to the Poultry Microfinance Project. Kasinja holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering and previously worked with various rural farms to provide alternatives to hydroelectricity. He is a published author of physics textbooks and co-owns a family automotive repair business in Ndeeba, Kampala city. His responsibilities include recruiting students from Makerere University agricultural program to work on the Poultry Microfinance Project and training local and international volunteers. Kasinja is collaborating with Genice Jacobs and Professor Toby Cumberbatch of the Cooper Union in developing the Solar Lighting Microfinance Project.

Ms. Nakilyowa Evelyn, Secretary
Nakilyowa is on staff with the organization. She holds a diploma in secretarial studies from Buganda Royal Institute and is a student at Muteesal University studying for a degree in Project Planning. She previously worked as a community organizer for women in Kampala. She has been mobilizing women to participate in economic empowerment, health education and gender equality projects. Nakilyowa has worked as a village local council secretary for the past 10 years and brings strong technical and communication skills to the organization. Nakilyowa is married with three children.

Explore uganda-tourist services

In addition to community services, Uganda SPACE also offers tourist services to the visitors of uganda.

Our staff helps you to discover Uganda at your own pace. You will find a wide range of suggested itineraries of tour and trekking to help you to Plan your tour and trekking in Uganda. We will provide you the best options.You can take an advantage of our experiences to travel & trekking in Uganda with highest quality personalized services at a minimum cost.

We provide customize services. Make your own itinerary for your tour & trekking. Just you tell us where you want experience inUganda and what is your interest are – we will work it out uganda special for you.

We offer services in tourist destination to attractive places like artistic temples, monuments, museums, zoos, lakes and rivers.

Our aim is to see that the income of tourism filter down to the village and artisan level, where people are living without modern facilities, through our hiking and trekking program. We belive that the money got from these programs will be used to empower women economically and sponsor children and orphans to various schools.

contacts

Uganda SPACE Organization - Kampala
P.O Box 8438 Kampala, Uganda
Telephone: +256782304817 or +256773423060
E-mail: ugandaspace@gmail.com

ENERGY PROJECTS

Solar Lantern Microfinance project

In many parts of Uganda, people do not have access to electricity, and many impoverished rural families must rely on kerosene lamps and candles as their only source of light. The cost of of kerosene is increasing every year and families in the Kabonera sub-country typically spend an average of $2 per month for parafin. Recognizing the health, safety and environmental hazards created by kerosene lamps and parafin candles, we are committed to offer communities a safer, more sustainable lighting source for their homes and enterprises.

Uganda SPACE has adopted a holistic approach to improve the lives of the impoverished rural people through the use of renewable energy to power their agricultural projects like poultry, piggery etc. The avoided cost of kerosene and the ability to extend productive working hours in the agricultural project, more so the poultry microfinance project would produce income to pay for the lighting solar lantern systems.

In April 2009, Uganda SPACE began working with volunteers from The Cooper Union, Center for Sustainable Engineering, Art and Architecture, Materials Manufacturing and Minimalism program on a plan to pilot their a solar lighting system called Socialite that they have had in development and field testing since 200X. Field tests of the system are currently in place in Kenya, Burundi, Ghana and Rwanda. More information about the program can be found at:

http://solarlantern.blogspot.com/

To pilot this program, we will be fundraising raising money to purchase 2-3 kits at cost through The Cooper Union at $1,500 each. The system consists of a package of components containing all materials and supplies needed for villagers to construct and maintain their own home grown solar lighting system. Each kit contains the materials to build 50 lanterns and a solar recharge station. The first kit will provide lighting for the Poultry Project and participating women's homes. Remaining lanterns will be built and marketed to neighbors as a means to pilot as a possible microenterprise. Pre and post sales consumer research will be conducted to evaluate the project for future expansion. Students from The Cooper Union will partner with engineering students from Makerere University to design and deliver training to participating women. Five students from Makerere are being recruited by Kasinja to deliver training to participating women in Kyamuyimbwa Village. Professor Toby Cumberbatch from The Cooper Union will be meeting with the management of Uganda Space in Kampala and will be visiting the village site in June 2009 to finalize plans for the pilot, which is slated for December 2009.

Uganda SPACE will distribute the lanterns to rural villages. The villagers will pay an initial amount of the lantern and the rest will be paid in monthly installments for 3 years.

Ecostove Project

The Microfinance Ecostove Project seeks to reduce deforrestration in the rural areas, as well as the amount of time rural women spend collecting fire wood and the unhealthy effects of cooking in smoke filled kitchens. Improved stoves can make cooking with fire easier, faster and safer. Improving the combustion efficiency is necessary to reduce unhealthy smoke and harmful emissions and better heat transfer efficiency can significantly reduce fuel use. To remedy this problem, Uganda SPACE and students from Makerere University have designed an Ecostove suitable for use in rural homes. It includes an enclosed firebox, with insultated walls and a chimney, which increases fuel efficiency and takes smoke out of the kitchen. The wood stoves which can be constructed within the home using earth and bricks at a cost of $10-$40 each and paid for in installments.
Besides offering concrete solutions to the environmental, health and safety concerns of home stoves, Uganda SPACE's Ecostove Project will involve community members in stove production, installation, and advocacy. The program will be promoted by demonstrating the ecostoves in villages and public fairs. We will consult with local community groups to identify women to be trained as a stove technicians and conduct classes in stove construction, repair and maintenance in Uganda SPACE offices. Trained technicians will be contacted by Uganda SPACE to build stoves in the families of rural areas.

The project is presently in the planning and budgeting stage and we are targeting a start date of mid 2010. Engineers from Makerere University have drawn up plans for the ecostoves and we are conducting consumer research on design and affordability. We plan to partner with established manufacturers, such as Ugastove, to train about 20 women to build and maintain stoves for others in their communities by March 2010. With each of the 20 woman building three stoves per month, We aim to built 1,500 ecostoves by the end of 2012 and 2,500 ecostoves by the end of 2015.

POULTRY PROJECT

Poultry Microfinance Project

Uganda SPACE's first economic empowerment initiative is to implement a sustainable Poultry Microfinance Project for rural women. We believe that the microfinance model will help move away from the donation style of just giving products away for free and will give women a sense of ownership and dignity. By partnering with a reputable Microfinance organization (MFI) and establishing credit among the villagers, we will overcome the hurdle of covering upfront startup costs and create a program, which is both sustainable and scalable. FINCA Uganda and various other MFIs are being considered as possible partners. Volunteers are engaged in discussions with FINCA both in Uganda and the United States. We are being advised by the staff of Arcfinance (www.arcfinance.org) as to the best funding alternatives for our organization.

PILOT

In March 2008, we initiated a pilot in order to valid our model for the poultry project. Thorough a local women's group called “Tweyambe”, we identified a needy 65 year old woman named Divina from Kyamuyimbwa Village to test the program in her home. Divina is a single mother of three and grandmother of two whose husband passed away 10 years ago. Prior to the project, Divina earned a maximum income of $1.5 per month from the local sale of chicken and produce from her garden.

We provided Divina with 150 exotic breeds of layer chicks, five bags of growers feed, four bags of layers feed, necessary vaccines and drugs, a charcoal stove, feed troughs and a poultry house. We gave her the responsibility of supervising the project and she received monthly visits from our Uganda SPACE project coordinator, Nalubega. In three months, the chickens were full grown and producing eggs. Divina was able to collect 150 eggs per day, which she could sell for $1 each in the village shops. Three months later the birds were ready to be sold as off layers and each was sold at shs. 6,000 (US $3). This translated to a total profit of $4 per bird ($600). This could sustain a village family in a month. A rural family needs only $2.5 to be sustainable When asked about the benefits of the poultry project, we were surprised and inspired by Divina's story. Divina uses the monthly salary to pay for paraffin, soap and salt, but could not afford to buy sugar. But with the poultry project, Divina explained that her life had changed completely because the profits she got from selling eggs alone could help her to buy home basic needs and she could now afford to buy sugar. Uganda SPACE confirmed that women like Divina could potentially earn $40 a month from this project when the number of birds are increased to 500 and Uganda SPACE would retain $50 a month from each participant to expand the project.

Uganda SPACE leaders met with the community members in November 2008 to evaluate the project and develop a project plan. We agreed to provide 500 chickens, 6 bags of growers feed, 5 bags of layers feed, 2 feeding troughs, drugs and medicine to 60 women in the first phase of the project. In return, each woman would agree to construct a poultry housing for herself and purchase lanterns to enable her to extend her work day. The women will retain 20% of the income from the sale of eggs; 70% will be reinvested by the women to purchase more birds and supplies and 10% will be retained by Uganda SPACE to expanding the project. The same percentages will be applied when the birds have stopped laying eggs and are ready for sell. The community leaders and project committee members will share the responsibility of collecting the money and eggs and recording each woman's payment records.

The Poultry Project has 20 active participants and 40 other women have expressed interest in joining. Five student volunteers from Makerere University have been recruited to train the women in modern poultry farming, management and marketing of products and project committee members will supervise and evaluate the project on an ongoing basis. We are seeking an advisor to teach us about natural/organic poultry raising methods. We plan to begin training 20 other women in September to November of 2009 and begin the expanded program by January 2010. We seek to have a total of 60 participants on board within five to eight months of the launch.


Girls' Education Program

We believe that quality education is the key to overcoming poverty in a single generation, and is fundamental to creating a secure future for individual communities and our country. To meet this enormous challenge and immense opportunity, Uganda SPACE is planning to open an education center and health care program at the Kyamuyimbwa village project site to meet the needs of girls ages three to 17. We aim to eventually provide basic educational and residential facilities for 200-250 girls. In addition to a well rounded academic curriculum for primary and secondary schools, we will offer the girls personal development opportunities, English language training and the chance to expand their talents in fields such as the performing arts and handicrafts. The education center will also offer community education classes on such issues as the eradication of child labor, literacy, and the right of every child to attend school. The health care program will offer quarterly health checks for all children, including those who do not study in the center and will also serve women in nearby slums with preventive, curative and referral services.

In it's first year, we were able to raise $ 3,700 from individual donors in Uganda and provide full scholarships for eight girls to attend primary and secondary schools. Next year, we seek to raise $10,000 for this program and expand the opportunity to 30 girls. By 2016 we would love to have 250 girls and an estimate of $81,000 will be needed for this.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Our organization serves impoverished women and children in Kampala and the Kabonera sub-country of Uganda. Kabonera is one of 12 sub-countries in the Masaka District and has a regional population of more than 37,000. A large portion of the women in this community are primarily caretakers of their families and depend on small scale agriculture for a living. The region has very limited resources with respect to electricity, clean water, healthy facilities and schools.

We are initiating our initial pilots with the Tweyambe collective, a group of 40 rural women formed to support one other with financial assistance, food and firewood in times of need. The group, whose name literally means “let's help ourselves" comes together to assist with family emergencies, lifecycle ceremonies and for community-based initiatives such as road clearing, planting trees, water collection and to renovating homes for the elderly.

OBJECTIVES OF UGANDA SPACE

Mission

To work with impoverished women in urban and rural Uganda to eradicate poverty and improve the quality of life for them and their families.

Objectives
1. To economically empower impoverished women through microfinanced enterprises, such as the poultry, solar lighting and ecostove projects and other income generating programs.
2. To educate the impoverished girls by paying school fees and providing supplies and in some cases housing for primary and secondary education.
3. To improve the reproductive health of impoverished women through public educations programs and the provision of health services.
4. To improve the lives of impoverished women through the use of renewable energy resources , access to water and use of micro-irrigation to improve their agriculture.