District 9705 Grant: Assisi Centre for Justice and Peace - Uganda
During the reporting period, a total of $A10,100 was sent to former Rotary Peace Fellow Emily Nabakooza in Uganda for the Assisi Centre for Justice. This consisted of $5,000 from a successful District Grant Application, $500 from the Rotary Club of Canberra East, $500 from Rotary Club of Paddington (Brisbane) $1500 from club members and the remaining $2600 from the Club’s International Service Budget.
The purpose of the $5,000 District Grant is to assist women food stall holders to re start their small businesses closed by COVID-19 lockdown.
COVID-19 has struck hard at the many women in Uganda, who survive by market trading fruit, vegetables and fish. The markets have been closed to combat the pandemic and the small incomes that sustained families have been lost.
Ugandan Rotary Peace Fellow, Emily Nabakooza, is working hard to help provide a small replacement income and basic staple dry food to help these women and their children and grandchildren survive extreme poverty. Emily was selected as a Peace Fellow in 2017, sponsored by Rotary International, and graduated with a Masters Degree from the University of Queensland in Conflict Resolution, studied in 2019. She also studied extreme poverty and how to overcome it in low income countries. Emily has established the Assisi Centre for Social Justice and Peace in Kampala, Uganda, and is working through this crisis with some of Uganda’s most impoverished families.
The Rotary Club of Canberra has successfully applied for a Rotary Foundation Grant of $5000 to empower Emily through Rotary District 9705. The grant has been increased with the help of Club and member contributions totalling $10,100. Already, funds that have been sent to the Assisi Centre have enabled one small trader to re-start her business. Josephine sells her smoked fish to restaurants in Kampala, but without any money, she could not buy fish. Now with a small grant she has bought more fish, smoked them, sold them and has made a small profit.
Emily has written: "When I am able to provide women with food to cook for their families, or a small sum to help them get back to work as a trader, they call me ‘the Rotary Lady'. I am humbled by their gratitude to me and I pass their thanks on to Rotarians in Australia who are making a difference to Ugandan families."
Any readers who would like to assist Emily and the Assisi Centre financially, can contact President of the Rotary Club of Canberra, Desmond Woods, at Mobile: 0427 663 449, or desmond.woods51@hotmail.com
