Winchester Rotary has been involved in yet another District Grant Project to provide a Mobile Library for the schools of Kasese in Uganda, run by our partners there, Great Lakes Peace Centre.
The idea arose in January 2023 when a Winchester Rotary team of eight were visiting the various projects which we are supporting there and looking at a library we had installed in a school. One of the party, Naz Saeed, the wife of Winchester Rotarian, Dr Kordo Saeed, suggested equipping a mobile library which would serve more children economically. We set about the task of fund raising in the region of £10,000 for this and a great start was that it was made our Project for the International Weekend in April 2024 and gained a contribution of 1250 Euros from each of our twin clubs in Le Havre and Oberhausen, as well as a similar contribution from ourselves. We then secured a donation of £800 from Ringwood Rotary which was matched by a District Grant of £2,000 reflecting the respective contributions of Clubs in the District at the time. GLPC secured a donation of around £2,000 from one of their partners, Act for Transformation (a German charity), which covered the purchase of the books.
A van was acquired and fitted out and books soon started to arrive. We were still clearly short of our target, but the President of Poole Rotary, Jon Exton, visited Kasese on a trip to Uganda and was so impressed that he ensured we secured small contributions from his Club as well as Parkstone and Bournemouth North Rotary – and Winchester made a further contribution.
In the meantime GLPC were working hard to secure Memorandums of Understanding with four Schools to act as a pilot for the scheme and these were signed earlier this year. These have now been evaluated and the scheme set for expansion and we have now made our final report to District on the Grant expended.
The photos alongside this article and a brief report from GLPC (click here to read) give you a picture of the Project and those of us going to Uganda at the end of June (the second visit by Winchester Rotarians this year) will be inspecting and learning more about the development of the programme. We in Winchester Rotary have achieved the implementation of a very worthwhile programme with investment of our own funds representing less than 20% of the total costs -the clear benefits of working in partnership with other organisations and in particular other Rotary Clubs.
Excellent result all round !