Happy February 29th! If it’s your birthday, aren’t you so glad it’s finally here?!
The past month (except yesterday!) has been hot and dry in Kampala and at the farm. While that’s not so great for the last of our cabbages, it’s been wonderful for our heat-loving veggies like the eggplants Ronald is picking in the photo.
We’ve got more seeds going in almost every day for new produce and the girls at the compound have been excited by the changes in their diet — which is also a great nutrition boost!
We have a new project in the works, which we’ve been talking about for 2 years now:
Adding in a Farming class to Skills for Life!
We will be starting with a shorter course with 5 girls, timed for weekends and the term break to work out the kinks — like housing and feeding them for days at a time, who will be the chaperone, what Derrick will teach them exactly, etc.
But we are VERY excited that the farm is at the place now where we can bring this skill to our girls. For, while some grew up in the village, many were born in the Namuwongo slum and have never grown the first thing. The Rotary Club in the area has built a greenhouse in the slum… but hardly anyone uses it. What if our girls develop the skills to use it, and can provide fresh produce for their families?
GAME CHANGER!
We’ve also had the neighbors of Mikisa Farm coming to ask Derrick how we’re growing so much — and so differently than the traditional (inefficient) way. This will give us an opportunity to bring in some of them to learn, too.
What do we say? Go deep to change a culture!
We are so appreciative of all your support and encouragement.
Mwebele nnyo!
Jennings
PS Our project to make liquid soap for the next couple of months is 84% funded – we just need $40 to finish it and buy the materials. If you’d like to donate today, here’s the link!
PSS Last year, either the IRS or our accountant made a keying error on our address and it currently shows we’re in Butner NC (27509) instead of Raleigh (27609) in their database. We thought we’d fixed it with a new filing, but it is still showing incorrectly, so searches in their database for 1018 using the correct zip or city aren’t showing us. Rest assured we ARE still a registered 501c3 — you can just put in our EIN of 26-3867682 and NC and find us. We’re still working on getting it corrected!
