How independent Travellers can help remote communities

Since retirement I travelled to many different countries and had many experiences. However a visit to Uganda some four years ago captured my heart, the people have so little but they are so welcoming and also eager to learn and especially educate their children, in the hope of giving them a better life.

After touring around my local driver  asked me to visit the project he had started in his village, with a view to employing a few local people and enabling visitors to stay in the area and hopefully spend a few shillings in the village while they were there . It was in a fantastic position - rural and some 5 hours journey from Kampala but on a main road where tourists passed straight through on their way to see the mountain gorillas or en route to Rwanda, & Burundi or Congo.

Children only ever saw Mzungus go straight past & at first were afraid of me but now that has changed. My driver Denis had the shell of a house up - made with local bricks and iron sheets on the roof but lots needed doing before it was habitable...the rest of my money went in the local hardware shop.

I came home, did some fundraising and within 6 months was back there again...and then again...and again.  Now Uganda Lodge as we call it is suitable for volunteers and vtravellers alike, not luxury but certainly comfortable.   We have formned a CBO (Commmunity Based Organisation) to find out the best ways we can help the villagers and one of the first things we did was build and open a nursery school for 2-7 yearolds.

Now we have built a semi permanent community hall and a brick-built craft centre -workshop. We have some computers and sewing machines plus other tools are are currently looking at the best ways in which to utilise these to teach new skills.

One challenge is they are subsistance farmers with very little disposable income, so they are unable to afford to pay a teacher - at the moment we are hoping to attract some more volunteers out there. Our plan is not to charge any volunteer or registration fees and just £10 per day for food and accommodation. This will then enable volunteers who do have additional cash or monies from fund-raising to spend it how they wish - rather than charging heavy fees up front & then not knowing where it is going.

A small group of volunteers recently got together and bought 150 mosquito nets, a generator, TV?DVD player. sports equipment and writing materials  for theree local schools - none of this would have happened if I had not met Denis and he requested I visit Ruhanga. I hope it is just a beginning.

Ruhanga is a beautiful area and Yes perhaps there are others worse off but I believe in places like the refugee camps & where there are vast areas of drought it is only large Charities or gvernments that can make a difference.

This is something that one person can start off and perhaps could be duplicated in many areas?