December 2009:
This is the story of Joan Okello, who enrolled in the Eagle’s Next Micro Loan program and received $73. Joan is a locally trained nurse, but was unemployed by the government when they had a big layoff due to budget cuts. She lives among a large community of people who cannot access medical help, there are no nurses or medical facilities near her area.
With the $73 dollars from Bright Hope she was able to purchase some medicine and began treating her local community from her hut. She took care of people with malaria, cough, flu, stomach aches and other small cuts and infections. Little by little she continued to serve and save until she was finally able to open a small drug shop.
Apac area is known as the highest center for malaria not only in Uganda, but the world. She has saved the lives of many people in her community. Because of her many people do not have to walk great distances to find a government hospital that most likely do not have medicine. When we last saw her she said that she can now fend for her family medically and the lives of others. Joan is able to buy scholastic material for her children and pay for their tuition. They used to live on a bland diet of cassava and beans, now they can afford to buy chicken and raise goats. The micro loan has changed their entire life…she says in her language ‘Apwoyo matak’ meaning ‘thank you very much’.
August 2009:
Notes From the Field
John Dyer, a Bright Hope team member, met up with Stephen Ewac in Apac Town to check in on the progress of the micro loan program that was started in April. These are his comments from the field:
Joanne is a single mother of five. To invest in their future she has been doing her best to keep them in boarding school. In April she was one of the widows that was chosen to receive loan from the church. The church encouraged the beneficiaries to be creative and invest in a project they were excited about. Instead of growing peanuts and beans Joanne decided she wanted to address the lack of healthcare in her community.
She converted the back room of her home into a medical clinic. She purchased a number of basic medicines, a thermometer and some bandages and sees anyone in the community in need of basic medical attention.
I visited family after family, success story after success story. Each person I met was filled with gratitude. So much so they showed it by showering me with gifts. I received bags of peanuts, bunches of bananas, a chicken and two families even named their oxen after me!
June 2009:
Micro-loan job skills training complete and first loans made!
In April 2009, the initial 100 women in the program were trained in Micro Finance which included topics such as food security, the micro-loan process and small business practices. As the word spread about the training, more than 260 attended the three day training session. The following was taken from the report filed by Bright Hope’s Ugandan field staff, Linda Carpenter:
“Stephen Ewac (the local program coordinator) and the local pastors mobilized the nine church communities within the Apac district and participants started arriving at the central location of Ayera Church. The attendees slept in the church on grass mats and in neighboring households; approximately 260 attendees were present. There were frequent times of community singing, prayer and worship as well as the training sessions.
Pastor Lawnsome Etum-Akezi from Lira carried out the bulk of the teaching on the biblical basis for self sufficiency, providing for our families, and tithing to the church. He has experience in micro finance within his own church, so was well qualified to outline the nature of the scheme.
Sessions were also led by the pastor of Ayera church, the ENM evangelist and Rev Butch Dodzweit gave an inspiring talk on King Hezekiah. The local chairman of the HIV/AIDS awareness group attended the trainings and encouraged the participants to make the most of this opportunity to improve their livelihoods and to show members of the wider community that people living with AIDS can contribute to society and care for their families.
The maximum loan given has been 200,000 Ugandan Shillings (approximately $100) and the minimum 110,000 Ugandan Shillings ($55). Some examples of small businesses started with the loans are: vegetable gardens, expanded cassava and groundnut cultivation, and animal husbandry (pigs).
To summarize, the general feeling at the end of the training was”God has blessed us with good fertile land, and our friends at Bright Hope are willing to help us use our talents to help ourselves. We want to be productive and active members of the community despite living with HIV/AIDS and through hard work these loans will help us provide for our families and improve our standard of living.” In July, Bright Hope staff member, John Dyer, will be visiting the project and provide some initial stories of the impact of the program.
February 2008:
The Widow’s Mite: Sacrificial Gifts from a Ugandan Refugee Camp
Our partner in Uganda tells us this story about his visit to a refugee camp in the northern part of the country . This camp is home to thousands of destitute men, women, and children displaced by decades of civil strife and oppression.
“I had just completed a training seminar for pastors and church leaders in this region, followed by an open evangelistic outreach. During the outreach, I shared the love of Christ with the people, who had suffered for so long. I told them that God cared about them and that He would bring them hope for their future.”
After sharing the Gospel message with a large crowd of people, I was preparing to leave the camp. Suddenly, one of the camp leaders placed a small box in the middle of the crowd. He asked the people to come forward and give me whatever they could to show their appreciation of my visit. “Butch gave us the Word of God,,” said the leader, “and now we need to give something to him.”
“I didn’t want to take anything from these people, who were in such obvious and desperate need themselves. I was greatly humbled in my spirit and I couldn’t even speak, as I watched them come forward one by one to drop whatever they could into the box. I remember seeing an elderly woman, crippled and hunched over, as she dropped 100 shillings (about a nickel) into the box. A few people carried their chickens (one of the few they had) and placed them near the box as their gift.” The total of this collection was about $58 U.S. dollars, which doesn’t sound like much, but considering it was given by people in this kind of poverty, it t was a remarkable gesture indeed.
“The people in these camps are not beggars,” Butch said. “They want to work and earn a living. They want to take care of their families. But they have very little, if any, way to make a living, in their current situation.”
Your gift to Bright Hope’s projects in Uganda and with refugee families will help people like these to gain a foothold to a better future. Thank you for remembering them.
