Help me get this plant off the ground now.
How you can help:
1). Let’s develop this plant as a single team*. (*see details below).
2). Make a contribution via this fundraiser, or create your own fundraiser on my behalf by tapping “support” on this fundraiser.
You can also create a fundraiser on my behalf on a totally different platform, say GoFundMe. *If you are using a totally different platform like GoFundMe, please first let me know so I can link your page here.
3). Make a wire transfer using the information in #4 on this page.
4). My nonprofit (the UCF) is part of the Benevity Causes Portal, a platform where employees from all the world’s biggest corporations (including Google, Apple, Microsoft, SAP, Coca Cola, Cargill, Sam Sung etc) can make donations that are matched by their employer.
If you work at a company that is part of Benevity’s employee workplace giving and corporate matching gift programs, one way you can help, is by making a donation that will be matched by your employer. To do so, please search for ‘Uganda Community Farm (Nabwigulu)’ on Benevity.
Note:
To show the total support I have raised thus far, I will be adding (to the fundraiser in #2 above) all offline contributions made via wire transfer, and those made via employee workplace giving & corporate matching.
Ownership?
This plant shall be 80% owned by the rural poor farmers who will be growing the crops that this plant will be working on, with the other 20% owned by the UCF as a way of sustaining our underlying work of training and supporting rural poor farmers in our region.
Funding needs:
I am seeking a minimum of $240k to get this plant off the ground.
But considering people’s circumstances here, and the geographical vastness of our region, I have six alternative funding goals altogether.
My minimum goal of $240k will only enable us roll out our work on a basic level. My next goal is $620k and so on. My biggest goal overall is $200m, and if raised, this will enable us scale our intended work across the whole of Busoga, a region the size of Gambia. Budget breakdown.
Let’s develop this plant as a single team.
Come stay with us at the UCF even if only intermittently, or if you can’t, place one or two people from your team at the UCF, then work directly with us as ONE team from start to finish, to help us develop this plant, by sharing knowledge, and recruiting your network to also come help.
The UCF office has a large hall that can provide onsite accommodation for those who would like to work together with us on this plant as one team. Alternatively, there are hotels in Kamuli town only 25mins away.
The UCF also has a dump truck that could help with basic local travel; running preliminary construction activities for our intended plant, and it could even be used by our volunteers to visit nearby tourist sites, e.g., during those days when there is no work that is due at our project site.
As regards water, the UCF has its own borehole, and borehole water is what is considered to be the safest in a place like ours. But bottled water is also available in nearby towns. And lastly, we have enough local food for any number of volunteers, and most of it is grown by ourselves.
Your role:
During the installation of this plant, we will seek technical assistance from people like TechoServe, Partners in Food Solutions, AfrII.org, Natural Resources Institute UK & specialized entities like Alvan Blanch.
If appropriate, we will also seek advice from the Uganda Development Corporation, the government agency that led the development of the Soroti Fruit Factory, and we may even seek advice elsewhere in Africa, for example the BenFruit Plant in Nigeria.
So, as a volunteer during the installation of this plant, part of your role may be a) engaging/liaising with people from the agencies named above, or b) coordinating onsite activities and sharing ideas, and c) again, recruiting the people from your network to also come join in.
Most importantly, for slow-maturing crops like mangoes, pineapples, oranges, once it becomes clear that we are going to have the money for a fruit processing facility too, we will immediately start giving out fruit saplings (mango, oranges etc) to rural poor farmers across our region.
And so, part of your work as a volunteer may also be:
a). helping with establishing fruit nurseries, or sourcing saplings from other agriculturalists, b) coordinating the supply of these saplings to local farmers across our target region, and c) providing these famers with basic agronomic training on the crops being provided to them.
To see why we will be doing this, read our intended Business Model.
And before I forget:
The money that I am asking the world to give me, has never, ever been given to any person of my caliber. But because of the biting poverty in our region, and the fact that there is simply nothing that is happening to stem poverty, that money is exactly what I am asking of humanity.
And because this money will be coming from the global community with the benevolent goal of helping us stem the yoke of poverty in our region, I want this money to be spent in the most open way possible.
As such, during the development of this plant, I would like to have a finance team that comprises 50% international volunteers, and 50% people from the UCF who will be responsible for overseeing how the money we have raised for this plant is spent, and sharing with our supporters across the globe the progress we have made thus far.
This is one other thing you can help with as volunteer.
Timeline:
We will begin developing this plant once the money we have raised is at least $240k, and we will specifically begin by installing a cereal/grain cleaning facility.
The overall time/duration that it will take us to complete us this plant, will depend on the size of the plant that we will install, and this will depend on the amount of support that humanity can help us raise.
But overall, it will take us 1-5 years to complete this plant, as follows:
#1). The cereal/grain cleaning facility will be completed in Year 1, and farmers will start bringing their produce to this facility the same year.
The UCF will also start providing our target farmers with grain seed & other inputs the same year. (We are already doing this on sorghum).
#2. Both the cassava starch facility, and the system for making High quality Cassava Flour, will be complete by end of Year 2. The UCF will start sourcing the right cassava cuttings (like Narocass1) and supplying them to local farmers across our region by the end of Year 2.
#3. Our fruit facility will be complete between Year 3 – 5.
But again, supplying our farmers with fruit saplings for mango, oranges, and pineapples, shall begin immediately, i.e., in Yea 1, once it becomes clear that we are going to have the money for a fruit facility.
And once this facility is complete, we will also start providing our target farmers with the right varieties of passion fruits — only after this facility is complete, because passion fruits are quick maturing.