Organizations established

Our three organizations registered with the Uganda Registrations and Services Bureau (URSB) as non profit NGOs (Limited with guarantee), moved its operations after the corona outbreak last year, due to the uncertain situation and unknown outcomes of the pandemic development. Offices was moved from safely from Nsambya Kirombe along with the school and all of our equipment and farm animals. The operation was handled swiftly and securely, and we established in Mukono district just outside of the capital Kampala.

Greater Africa has acquired access to land for building a new children’s school, Greater Africa Junior School with a capacity for 200 children. We have kept our promise to the children from families who could not afford school. All the children who wanted to attend are provided for by Greater Africa. Despite that they do not have any sponsors.

Through the process we had a very positive co-operation with the local authorities. They have seen the schools value for the local community, and even decided to build a higher quality road from the main highway to our school. We have constantly been in dialogue with local authorities during the building process of the school, making sure that all requirements are fulfilled to the highest possible standards. We are looking forwards to further cooperation with our community work.

Our nonprofit support organization in Norway has had a hard time during this period, due amongst other things the necessary massive focus on corona, rather than African issues. But towards the end of the year, interesting cooperations was taking shape. An organization called Amigo was formed in order to support Greater Africas work, and to cooperate with other actors in Oslo to do this. The project planned for volunteer activities starting in spring 2022. There will be follow ups on this project on our partners page during 2022.

2021 has also been a year for networking, research and planning for new fundraising initiatives and partner cooperation for the future. The lockdowns has provided conditions for working differently, and we have made the most of the appearing opportunities.

We also have plans for rebranding our website to show our identity more clearly, and to produce more content for other platforms to interact with our website.

All in all, it has been a very productive year with our local community projects in Uganda, and prosperous conceptional development of our Norwegian branch.

More in-depth details of our achievements can be read below.

Greater Africa Rising Family Foundation

We still have about 1500 community members, as we stopped registering new members after the enormous demand in our starting weeks of 2019. We wanted to stabilize our organization before opening for more members, so that we could provide more for the ones we have.

During the year 2022 however, we have found the value of numbers could be beneficial for illustrating our value, getting more acknowledgment from showing the popularity of our methods and the demand for the what we provide. This could in turn enable more funding, partners and support, which is needed.

We have waiting lists for memberships from before, and several networks who wants to be registered under Greater Africa. Amongst others there is a network of 30.000 farmers. But we will prioritize the local communities of our current location, and are planning to start campaigning for membership in the region next year and open for registration.

Greater Africa Development Fund

Since our activity groups were disrupted by the corona lockdown we were forced to regroup and rebuild our activities from the ground up. But since we have been able to build up other parts of our organization, the foundation for training and activity groups are stronger than ever. We now have access to several plots, establishments and equipment where we facilitate for our community members. GAF Development has a coordinating role and responsibility for ensuring safe conditions for receiving donations from Norway, and our Strategic Co-operation Agreement signed with the other organizations makes sure of this, together with the high level ethnical framework and secure systems of our branch in Norway.

Greater Africa Research Center

Our R&D has developed concepts and strategies for our other Ugandan organizations from the start, building on decades of research capacity within our staff. This department has expanded its fields of operations beyond the development of programs and projects. We now also have practical experimentation with farming techniques based on long traditions of local knowledge, with great success. Both in our plant nursery and our farms we have developed good practices based on the findings in our research, with very good results.

The other field of part of our new endeavors is done from our Norwegian branch, doing research on African knowledge. African societies has enormous amounts of knowledge that the world knows nothing about, that can contribute to solving problems the global community is struggling with today. As an example, we are looking into if the environmental challenges can be reversed by using authentic knowledge from African societies. The other aspect of this work is to find out if there are knowledge that can be promoted to contribute to higher acknowledgment and respect for people of African decent, and so to increase the balance of human worth in the global community.

This research is also combined with our practical work in the local community in Uganda, and integrating with the conditions of our modern society. There are others who shares similar approaches, like for example Nnabagereka Development Foundation, with the Queen of Bugandas Ekisaakaate camps where children and youth learn how traditional values can complete the fulfillment of modern society approaches. We still have over 50 business concepts in the pipeline that are developed for our community members, that we are planning to implement once our other projects are stabilized.

Greater Africa Foreningen

Greater Africa’s Norwegian branch is firmly established with a stable foundation. We are registered with the authorities as a nonprofit organization, and have a high level of competence on economic misconduct established in our ethical framework, and high standard systems for handling donations and funding. This competence was built on a series of seminars, conferences and meetings with highly experienced professionals within the fundraising sector, and experts within aid- and development, fin-tech, digital identification, anti-fraud, social business, impact investment and other fields related to our work.

Some of those we sought advise from were institutions like the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NORAD (The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation), Norges Innsamlingsråd (The Norwegian Council for Fundraising), Innsamlingskontrollen (The Norwegian Control Committee for Fundraising), Red Cross, Ernst & Young and many others.

Our Ethical framework include requirements for our Ugandan counterparts, and management of handling donations and funding in Norway in accordance with the standard for fundraising organizations. We are using a professional platform in cooperation with our partner Solidus, who provides the technological solutions and expertise.

Our website has donation solutions integrated with secure systems for safe and transparent transactions and documentation. This makes us able to handle donations and information in a simple manner in accordance with the relevant legislations and standards. During 2021 we also planned for integrating new solutions adapted to new technology, to make it easier for donors to contribute and still have the highest standard of security and appliance with the legal requirements and recommendations. This will be implemented in 2022, and will also make it easier to campaign on several other platforms such as social media, and with QR-codes and more.

Greater Africa Norway is also looking for new candidates for our board, and new partners in the country. We started approaching people in our network and had meetings with other organizations during the fall of 2021, and will continue to identify potential resourceful board members and partner organizations in 2022.

Programs

Education

We have reached a much higher level within the educational section of our organization, due to very hard work during the lockdown. We have built a new school, the Greater Africa Junior School. There is capacity for 200 students, from pre-school to 5th grade. We have built three large school buildings, additional classrooms, a kitchen, toilets and many other facilities. We’ve had very good communication with the local authorities during the building process, and made sure to fulfill all the requirements as swiftly and professional as possible. The results are positive and the authorities are very satisfied with our progress and solutions. We have continuously cooperation with them.

Still, we do want to heighten the standards of the school. Even though all conditions are sufficient according to local standards, like the sanitation requirements and so on, we consider that the children deserve better conditions. We are making efforts to get more regular donations from contributors in Norway.

We would also like to expand, so that we can offer education for the many more children who needs it.

Our Education program was established by the foundation of Greater Africa Educational Center, on February 4th 2019. This institution is providing education for children from families who cannot afford school, and is an initiative of GAF Rising Family Foundation. The school also started 7 practically oriented activity groups for children. Education is also provided as adult training, in the activity groups administered by GAF Development Fund. Additional knowledge for the activity groups are provided by GAF Research Center. The latter is also aiming at developing an amended curriculum for the school, to seek approval from the authorities to include more local history, traditions and heritage alternatively to some content within the standard British teaching plan.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING

During 2021 we have built capacity for entrepreneurship training, broadening our agricultural segment. We have acquired access to more land, more types of crops, animals and an agricultural nursery. We have experimented with local techniques and raised our knowledge. We have also built capacity for training in catering, as we have gotten better facilities, more equipment and experience.

From the start we established 9 activity groups, that GAF Development Fund have been arranging for the community members. The thematic schemes for the groups are based on the identified skills and interests within the community, and relevance and potential for practical end results and outcomes for the participants. GAF Research Center is conducting overall evaluations and developing concepts for entrepreneurial endeavors. So far, there are over 50 concepts on different scale levels in the pipeline.

BASIC NEEDS

Our basic needs program is still not in operation, due to insufficient funding. Getting donations has been challenging from the start, and for the whole organization the contributions are extremely minimal. We simply do not have the capacity to get this segment of the ground yet.

Many of our community members are in difficult life situations, and we want to provide for those who need it the most. The objective is not dependency, but to assist people to reach a level where they can be able to attend our other programs, so that they can become self sufficient.

Some members of the community are struggling with health issues, poor housing, inadequate sanitation facilities or lack of basic needs like mattresses, clothes or shoes.

We did get some small donations from Norway earlier, that has been successfully utilized for its purpose.

We have planned for the future to arrange for collecting clothes and other items within Kampala. Many amongst the middle class locally are very found of charity and like contributing. Collaborating with churches can also be productive and assist us with the workload of organizing collection and distribution of donated goods for those who are in need of getting their basic needs covered.

Culture

Greater Africa has a strong belief that there is a lot of knowledge within the traditional cultures of African societies. We seek to a large extent to find local solutions for local challenges, and GAF Research Center serves as a knowledge institution in this regard.

Our founder of Greater Africa in Norway has 20 years of research on African knowledge, and 10 years of experience from the cultural sector of Uganda. During 2021 he has promoted African knowledge in Norway, and in 2022 the work and attention to African issues will intensify.
We are also working with other experienced resources within our network, and new collaborations will come to create awareness of African knowledge in Europe.

We practice culture in various forms throughout our projects. 

DANCE 

Uganda has a large and very active cultural sector, and dance is a segment with great opportunities for making a living. Weddings, corporate events and tourism initiatives frequently hires skilled dance groups. Very many performing artists of the popular local music scene are also hiring dancers for their shows and music videos. We identify talents at an early stage and provide training for youth to develop their skills.

DANCE TROUPE 

Our dance troupe will finally be re-established in January, when we open after the lockdown. Some of our best dancers are with us from we started, and there are many new recruits that joins our program.

Little Lions Dance Troupe was established in January 2019. A series of auditions was arranged in the Nsambya Kirombe area, and 47 children were enrolled into the program. Training was provided on a daily basis under the direction of Nsereko John from the renowned Ndere Cultural Center.

MUSIC 

Greater Africa has a huge capacity within the music sector, and big plans for next year. Firstly our music, dance and drama activity group for children and youth will start in January. The next step is to start building the Entertainment section of our organization. We want to acquire a new plot in a good location, so that this section can be more visible for the area. There will be a stage and equipment for arranging concerts. Our network contains more than 300 of the professional artists of Uganda, and other professionals within the music industry.

The new entertainment sector will also contain culinary experiences, our restaurant will open here. There will be space for sports and other activities, a few bungalows, and stands with arts and crafts. This will be a cultural center, a visible part and positive representation of Greater Africa.

The music profile can have impact for the local community, the region does not have any facilities to receive their favorite artists. There is potential for spin off effects by the attention this facility creates, attracting visitors, other projects and so on.

About 90 percent of the music to be heard around Uganda is local music, so this is very popular and has more impact than it would in most other countries. Within our community members we have youth with musical talents, and there will be opportunities for them as well, such as professional advice, career planning and stage training.

We also have a connection with Tilapia Trust, and are able to provide digital distribution for talented upcoming artists. They might also be able to provide free studio time for young talents.

This stage of our organization development is quite costly, so in addition to fundraising we are currently examining options to raise money for this specific project to be able to start at the end of next year.

Health

We are planning for a health program in the future, as many of our community are challenged with various health conditions. Diseases like sickle cell, HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, fistula and pneumonia are some of the diagnoses they are struggling with, and we would like to assist with this in any way we can. Also here, we would like to draw from traditional knowledge in addition to modern medicine, to make use of the practices and techniques that has a proven positive effect. As we have seen during corona, universities in Uganda have been able to identify the positive effects of many traditional herbs through scientific research. Medicine based on these findings have even gotten official approval from the government.

Environment

All of our environmental endeavors are branded under our MyGreenPlanet(c) program.

Our basic approach is founded in the awareness that African societies have enormous amounts of knowledge that has gotten no attentiveness from the global community. We have seen that traditional knowledge prove to have better solutions than common practices, as there are less damage on the environment, better outcomes when it comes to quality and nutrition in produce, larger social impact, and better results within many segments in several other perspectives. We are also open to the possibility that traditional practices could reverse the environmental crisis.

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Especially within our agricultural projects we have several perspectives on how to effectively minimize or even reverse our footprint, and to lay out environmentally efficient practices for others to follow.

It is said that agriculture was practiced in Uganda far earlier than the common thought that it started in the Levant. The Bachwezi people are said to be the first to practice both planting and harvesting the land, and hold cows by the source of the Nile. We cherish these origins, and thrive on learning and implementing the traditional knowledge that lies within the local population, that has managed to provide for millions of people for tens of thousands of years.

Using nature’s own principles like combining projects in ecosystems is both environmentally sound and economically sustainable. Examples of this is cross farming using manure and urine from animal holding for fertilizing the soil for growing food and medicinal plants. Traditional farming techniques goes far deeper than permaculture and ecology.

Projects

Greater Africa Educational Center

We have acquired land for the new junior school, of 11.400 square meters (2,85 acres). We have completed three major school buildings during 2021, and other facilities. The school has capacity for 200 students, from pre-school to 5th grade. There is a Headquarter building, a kitchen house, Education building with 5 classrooms, a Library building which includes a staff room, a storage building, 2 toilets for adults and toilets 8 for students, snack shack. The building intended for teachers quarters is actually three houses in one, and is now used as a dormitory until we build a new one.

Our new school is called Greater Africa Junior School, and is located at the Mukono side right outside of the capital Kampala, Uganda. When the new school year starts we will have a full staff and 8 teachers employed at the school. We will continue to have activity groups for children and youth teaching traditional education in addition to the standard British curriculum. With time we will apply to the authorities for implementing an amended curriculum, so that the children can learn more about their own history and culture.

Training Center for Agriculture

We have established new training centers for more diverse agricultural practices than we started with at our garden by Salaama road from the start. Our main crops are beans, onions, sweet potatoes. We have also had experiences with eggplants, cassava, matooke (plantain) and several other plants during 2021. We also have a nursery where we grow and experiment with several food- and medicininal plants. We also have an animal farm, with chickens, goats, sheep, cows, rabbits and dogs.

We have managed to get higher quality in our chicken farm project during 2021. It is a common opinion that small scale chicken farming is easy, but it has actually proven to be quite challenging. Poultry gets sick a lot, and crave high maintenance both sanitation and medical care. We have now upgraded our facilities, with a more professional chicken coup, and engaged personnel with higher expertise on our team. We have a seasoned farmer who has specialized in chickens, and a veterinary with high knowledge of chicken health.

We have also started working with a higher quality breed of poultry. They are a bit more expensive, so we have reduced our amount from 200 to 100. The restaurant requires about 360 chickens a month to have a stable business, live chickens about 150. So our goal is to reach a level where we produce a minimum of 510 chickens per month. But the eggs are already creates a stable income.

The farm projects provide food for the school children, staff and employees, ingredients for the restaurant and products for the shop. Agriculture is an important part of the ecosystem of Greater Africa.

Our next stage for our agricultural section is a training setup where we use 1-acre plots for training locals, and assisting them in establishing their own businesses. We are planning to get ready for launching this program by the end of next year.

Conclusion

We have proven to have strength and endurance in the core of our organization, as we have had not only durability, but progress and elevation through the very difficult times of the corona pandemic and lockdown. We have been dynamic and creative, and managed to adapt through the developing situations for our society. We have also proven that we have built our foundation right, as we have had several legs to stand on. As some sections were affected by restrictions, we could shift our focus and transfer resources to other areas of our organization. We have also shown that our staff has good management skills, maintaining good communication with local partners and authorities and managing to maneuver and achieve our goals in the unusual circumstances of 2021.

However, our engagement has cost us a lot. We have struggled, emptied our own pockets, and performed over expected ability. Our passion for making the vision of Greater Africa succeed during this period has made us more dedicated than ever before. Some of our leaders have willingly lowered their quality of life to make this work. Some have also comprised their health as a result of sacrificing a bit too much to provide opportunities for the children. We have done what it takes, and believe it will all be worth it when we succeed.

What we have learned, is that we are capable of never giving up, as we have a strengthened belief in who we are, what we stand for and the mission we have for the society. It’s all about getting stability in our projects, we just have to endure and keep working until we make it. We definitely need more donors. We hope to get donors in Norway who contributions on a monthly basis.