The location of Uganda in Africa presents its own unique set of challenges and benefits for the people living there. Uganda borders Sudan, Lake Victoria, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Congo and Kenya. This is the area where Give Us Wings is present in the eastern town of Tororo along the Kenya border. Meet the people of Tororo—the farmers, the widows, the orphans in Kayoro; the men and women with disabilities in the Mari Group; the women and children in Ngiyo Ber who have created a new life outside of the slums and the member of the Hare Group who hope to do the same; the beekeepers, the people selling vegetables, the women digging with hand held hoes to make a few cents in the fledgling Dio Chuny and Katona Mbera Groups. Each has their own story. But they are bound together with common threads of desperation, determination, care and hope. They are all looking to Give Us Wings, and to each other, as their only hope of giving their children a life of safety, health and education.
If you were to visit the Give Us Wings groups in and around Tororo you would meet the amazing group of people in the Kayoro Group who are determined to care for the widows, orphans, and the young people in their community. They’ve improved their agricultural production by completing organic farming training. They’ve worked hard with Give Us Wings to rebuild homes and their lives, providing education for the children. They are now looking forward to have a health clinic on site.
Further along you’d meet a small group of men and women with disabilities. The Mari Group members make money by doing small repairs. Some do light carpentry work. They are determined to work together on a project, perhaps a carpentry business, despite the stigma they face.
Just outside of the town of Tororo, you’d be welcomed into the Ngiyo Ber Women’s Estate, as the women there have proudly named it. Once living in the overcrowded, crime–ridden slum area known as Bisou. This courageous group of women living in unimaginable conditions, dreamed to move with their children to some land to farm and a build a safe home. And they have. They now need fruit trees which will help the soil, and provide nutrition and shade.
Back in Bisou, another group is hoping to do the same. Members of the Hare Group watch in sadness as their children scrounge the streets for scraps of food. At night they sleep on the damp, dirt floor in a small room with the lingering stench of home–brew, which they make as a source income. The women of Ngiyo Ber are acting as mentors, and Hare Group members see the results of their hard work and generosity from Give Us Wings donors.
Two small groups called Dio Chuny and Katona Mbera are doing what they can to survive, and are hoping to start small businesses, and increase their beekeeping business.
Tororo, Uganda is a place of challenges and hope.
Kayoro Group Project
Kayoro Village is located just outside Tororo, Uganda. It is in the eastern part of Uganda, very near to the Kenyan border. Give Us Wings met the 40 families in the Kayoro Farmers Group in 1998. Kayoro means “walking together in the pursuit of knowledge†– men, women and children are walking together. In this…
Ngiyo Ber Women’s Group
They are valiant, intelligent, some serious, some funny, some shy, some not. They are the hard-working, loyal, generous, courageous, determined–oh so determined–women of Ngiyo Ber. They lived in a slum in Bison, Uganda. Many were farmers who fled war and/or famine in Northern Uganda anywhere from 10 to 26 years ago. The core group literally…
Hare Group
The Hare Group consists of 36 members living in the filthy and dangerous Bison Slums in Tororo, Uganda where the Ngiyo Ber Women once lived. They are women ages 20-40. 95% of the women are illiterate, forced to leave school in primary grades because of lack of funds. Some have not attended school. All have…
