As any farmer will tell you, critters both big and small are a persistent threat to gardens. Ensuring a bountiful harvest full of fresh fruits and vegetable requires keeping pests under control. We helped farmers at our four greenhouses in Nakivale and Oruchinga fight of the small critters with fungicides and pesticides. But we still hadn’t solved for how to keep larger creatures’ paws off the juicy tomatoes and plump eggplants. So, today at the Juru Greenhouse in Nakivale, we started building a fence to encompass the greenhouses and the plots of land surrounding those buildings! It was a big endeavor to undertake, but today we were able to pour the cement that would be a foundation for the fence. Innocent, one of the members of the greenhouse, told us how the protecting the harvest from animals that come and take fruits and vegetables will directly impact the community: “It will improve the income of the members of the house.  Before, they often suffered from diseases, … [Read more...] about Cementing Our Futures

It takes a long chain of people to get food from the field and into bellies. But because the chain is long and interconnected, it’s also ripe with opportunities for support. In one such chain, we have the super flour mill in a neighborhood called Juru, where residents can pay to have their grains milled. Milling helps prepare grains for cooking and eating. There are a number of larger mills throughout the community in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, but the Juru mill is one that ARC and its staff know well. We visited Adrian one morning to see what might be helpful for him and his colleagues as they keep the mill running. One challenge they identified was with accounting – it can be difficult to find a safe space to keep the money they earn. So, we decided to get the group a safety box to store their money and records! When we spoke with Adrian, he said, “it will help us to store our money. Thank you very much for the box you have given to us. Thank you for following up with … [Read more...] about Milling About

Food is related to so many aspects of our lives, not the least of which is income. So, when trying to tackle the problem of food security, it’s important to provide support on multiple levels. Today, we spent the day working in the community surrounding the Juru Greenhouse, looking for ways to help make the surrounding community more food secure. We decided to focus on supporting wages. Although growing the food itself is the first step, it’s also important that the local community be able to pay for it. So, we decided to support a women’s sewing cooperative. This group of approximately 20 women already knew how to sew, but they didn’t have the equipment to run the type of business they wanted to. We remedied this by bringing the group four sewing machines! One of the women in the group, Maria, spoke with us about the impact these machines would have.“I had no hope of getting a sewing machine to support myself as girl. Now, I will be able to earn living and also train … [Read more...] about Sewing Our Way to Success

There's a lot going on - and growing - inside our greenhouses. When the greenhouses aren’t being used to grow seedlings, they’ll often grow tomatoes or other plants that need to climb. To help them with this, we decided to buy all four greenhouses trellising and galvanized wire to help maximize the space to grow! The galvanized wire will run across the roof of the greenhouse, securing the trellising wire that will hang down for the plants to crawl onto. Maximizing space is key in the Nakivale and Oruchinga refugee settlements. Whether it’s corn fields with bean plants growing in between the stalks or sorghum drying on the roof of a house, it’s common to see space used for multiple purposes. Prince spoke about this exact approach: “Food security is one of the most challenging in refugee settlements because of the limited space of land allocated to them by government. Adopting modern farming practices at household level is the way to go.” … [Read more...] about Climbing Higher and Higher

When setting up a healthy water and irrigation system, there are so many variables to get right. After you’ve controlled for storage, water quality, salinity, pressure and more, distribution is the next challenge! At the Juru Greenhouse in Nakivale, water distribution is potentially the biggest problem. Lake Nakivale is just down the hill from our fields of cabbage, onions, eggplants and tomatoes, but lugging water up the hill and to the far ends of the fields is taxing. We’ve been able to solve the problem of getting the water up the hill to storage, but the farmers still face problems related to reaching their crops. To solve this, we bought small flexible pipes that the farmers can use to funnel water anywhere they like. Then, using the tarps from day 29, the farmers can dig small reservoirs and fill them with water, making their jobs much easier and their work more efficient. As we learned before, the greenhouse community estimates they lost approximately 6,000 USD … [Read more...] about Sometimes Pipe Dreams Do Come True

Many of us probably take water towers for granted – they seem ordinary, just a place to hold drinking water plus maybe a town name or logo. But there’s a lot more going on under the surface. Though we might not think of them much, water towers provide the major benefit of water pressure, which helps keep everything flowing smooth and strong. We wanted to see if we could bring some water pressure to our new tank at the Juru Greenhouse in Nakivale. We decided to build a stand for the tank and pipeline. The stand is more than just a new perch for the water tank. The stand’s slight elevation creates gravity, which adds pressure that the farmers can use to reach out to the farthest corners of the farm! Elizabeth, one of the women working at the greenhouse, shared with us the larger impact the water tank and tower will have: “It has been really hard to get water, but now with the irrigation system, it will be easy to irrigate our crops.” Making it easier to water and grow means … [Read more...] about Under Pressure

When water is scarce, there’s nothing worse than watching it go to waste. But without a reliable water storage system, the Juru Greenhouse in Nakivale can’t save up water. This makes it difficult to water all their crops, especially in drier seasons. Consistent water access and storage are common problems in Ugandan refugee settlements; even when farmers are able to get water from the lake or rainfall, there’s no secure way to store it up. To help remedy this problem, we bought a 10,000-liter water tank for the Juru Greenhouse. The team in Juru estimates they lost approximately 6,000 USD worth of crops last year. A huge part of this loss had to do with thirsty plants. The standard method of watering, which involved carrying water up the hill from Lake Nakivale each day, simply couldn’t reach enough of the crops. While we worked on an easier and faster way to get water up the hill yesterday, a water tank will add stability and security. Prince, the chairperson for the … [Read more...] about When It Rains, It Pours

There’s nothing easy about lugging a container of water up a hill from a river or lake. And for the farmers at the Juru Greenhouse in Nakivale, this is a daily task that can feel never ending. The greenhouse workers in Uganda carry water from Lake Nakivale to their crops for irrigation. They're hard workers, but with all that time spent going up and down the hill, they’re only able to reach a limited number of plants. The group already had a pump to get water out of the lake, but the only way to get it up the hill was by foot. So, we decided to buy a pipe for them and dig out a pipeline! The group was so excited about the time and energy they’ll save with this new pipeline. They started organizing and planning how to use the new technology right away. One of the women told us, “we’ve become so tired of carrying the water up the hill, day after day. This will make such a big difference to our little group.” … [Read more...] about Pump It Up

In refugee settlements, people do amazing things with very little. No matter how limited the resources, simple items are transformed with incredible creativity; plastic bound together becomes soccer balls, while metal bikes are repaired with wooden poles. Innovation is everywhere, and the greenhouses are no exception! Water is one common problem in Uganda that calls for a creative solution. Without a centralized irrigation system that allows for the crops to be easily watered, it can be difficult for farmers to take care of all their plants equally. In the most basic system, farmers will haul water from the nearest water source — a lake, borehole, or the like – and water their fields by hand. To solve this problem, some local farmers came up with a creative solution. Instead of individually hauling water, they created small water reservoirs with tarps that could catch rainwater and water funneled from other sources. So, we decided to get all four of the greenhouses tarps that … [Read more...] about It’s a Tarp!

To run a successful business or cooperative, it’s important to keep your finances are in order, especially when you’re working and sharing with others. Many of our changemaking efforts — including the greenhouses — involve combined finances, where a group of people works together and pools their earnings. However, sometimes these groups don’t have a safe place to store their money or financial documents. To encourage better bookkeeping and meet a security need, we decided to buy each of the four greenhouses their own safety deposit box. These boxes provide each of the groups a set place to store their combined earned money and accounting documents. Prince, the chairperson of the Juru greenhouse, had positive feelings about the finances of the group and welcomed the additional support. “This area did not previously have a market," he explained. "But because of this project, our community has been able to open a small market. So far, the money we have gotten from here, we’ve … [Read more...] about Savings, Savings, Savings