About Kifamba Zukuka

Outline

Introduction
Aims and Objectives

Staffing

Program Implementation

Work Plan
Monitoring
Budget

Target Beneficiaries
Resource Center
The Birth of Zukuka

Introduction

Rakai District is one of the Districts in Uganda which were greatly affected by the Liberation war of 1979. It was the entry point of the AIDS pandemic in Uganda in the early 1980’s. The effect of AIDS and the Liberation war of 1979, left Rakai with very many problems. Many people died due to AIDS and the number of Households headed by widows and children increased.

There has been comprehensive efforts to address some of the Development programmes in terms of improved infrastructure in schools, health centres, communication networks in terms of roads, telephones (mobiles) and the District and Sub counties Administrative structures are in place. All this has been done by both Government and Donor Support like DANIDA, UNICEF, WORLDVISION INTERNATIONAL CARE & RELIEF, CONCERN, LWF, etc.

Having put in place some of the basic infrastructures, one would automatically assume the poverty levels would be lowered. This has not been so, the rate and the levels of poverty reductions, still call for a much more focus which centres at the Household level of support in terms of food security, Income generating Activities, Adult Education and Sensitization, Environment Awareness Programmes and all that calls for Empowering the Homesteads to become sustainable.

Realising the above needs of society the people of Kifamba united for a general cause and mobilized themselves into a self-help group which in July 2004 was launched into an NGO to become Kifamba Zukuka Programme. Its main purpose is to mobilize all the efforts in a given homestead to become productive to earn a living of not less than Ten Million shillings per annum.

The main aim of Zukuka is to improve the lives of all Ugandans focusing on the people of Rakai, targeting the people of Kifamba with a pilot project in the three villages of Kijumba, Kasitamu, Kawenda Nyanga and Lwemisege. In the near future Zukuka will roll out to the entire sub county of Kifamba, the District of Rakai and to the whole country given the availability of resources.

In this 1st year of the programme, the pilot phase requires a funding input of 2,000,000,000/=. Some funding has been mobilized from various stakeholders like like The Uganda Global Fund, Rwenzori water who are sponsoring the printing of the magazine, and various individual well wishers. Zukuka is very grateful for all such financial and moral support.

Zukuka also hopes to mobilise funds and material input from;

Central government
Donors and Friends
Community Contribution
Fundraising innitiative

Zukuka programme came about after a detailed consultation of the various stakeholders like the Rakai District Political Leadership, the District technical staff and the Kifamba Sub county leadership. A number of Consultative meetings were held at village level to consult the participating Community on how best to manage this programme.

Following procedure of management of organization, KZP has been structured conveniently with an Executive Committee comprising of members from the participating villages whom are progressive elders offering advice to the whole running of the programme. There is the management, a group of professionals recruited to run and manage the daily activities of the programme. Since Zukuka as an NGO is supplementing government effort, the District Local leaders and the Sub county Political and Administrative teams are doing the supervisory function of the programme Extension Staffs and the Community Services Department together with Zukuka staff are providing training and mobilization as well as technical support of this programme. Because close Monitoring is one of the Key components for the success of this programme, all stakeholders are doing periodical monitoring of the progress of ZUKUKA Programme.

Zukuka has already taken off, and as required from the beginning each of the 200 households was required to set aside a 2-3 acre piece of land on which the activities were to be carried out. This was the model in the beginning. Various people achieved from this as they yielded highly as unexpected.

A work plan has been drawn out and it is expected to center on every 5 households, which will work together in all round preparatory activities. Demonstration structures in form of Cowsheds for zero grazed cows, goat shed, chicken and improved based banana suckers have been used. Major findings showed that beneficiaries had similar social economic problems. Ever since the programme+ took off a change in people’s lives has been realized. During the season people had enough food for home consumption and some indeed got a surplus for sale.

A water irrigation system is expected to supply water in all the three villages as soon as the gardens are prepared. Since the three villages share one permanent water stream, it is hoped that everything will go on as planned.

Zukuka has gone ahead with her plans and many agricultural activities are commencing to fulfill her dream about food security and household income. Other projects are also running and with sufficient funding they will progress effectively.

The Progamme is aimed at setting up self sustaining households in terms of Food Security, Improved Income generating activitivies, improved household health care in hygiene and sanitation as well as protection of the environment.
The objectives of the programme are:

To mobilize all the homesteads to have adequate food security all year round.
To train the homesteads in income generating activities that would improve on their income levels.
To provide material inputs to the households to establish and manage income generating activities.
To mobilize the households to improve on their Health Care activities in their homes.
To ensure that the participants are environmentally sensitive to all activities they carry out and do protect the Environment

The programme is centered on the Extension staff in the Sub County for the day to day coordination, training and provision of services to the beneficiary Communities. The household group leadership are equally central players on voluntary basis in ensuring that the programme activities are well implemented.

The progamme is being implemented by the Projects Management Committee. This Committee at the Sub County level is the one responsible for the day to day management of the activities. This Management Committee includes the following;

The Sub County Excecutive Committee.
The LC 11 Executive Committee of Kifamba Parish.
The Executive Committee of Kifamba, Nyanga and Kasitamu.
The programme Executive Secritary.
The programme agricultural officer.
The programme officer research and planning.

The Sub County Chief of Kifamba Sub County together with the Parish Chief where the programme activities are located are the Accounting Officers and that ensure that daily activities are carried out. The Sub County technical teams i.e. the Agricultural Extension Officer, Veterinary Assistant, the Community Assistant, Forest assistants provide the necessary technical support to the participating communities. The beneficiary households are carring out the direct implementation of the programme. To ensure that there is smooth implementation, the households have formed small groups of 15 - 20 households among themselves. They have elected household group leadership that are carring out the day to day supervision of their identified activities. Back to Top

Work Plan

The programme activities started in the villages of Kijumba, Kasitamu and Nyanga Kentale as the pilot phase during the first year. It will then be expanded to each of the other villages in Kifamba Sub County and eventually all villages in Rakai District. Based on the lessons learnt in the first one year. this project will take on the national character as a strategy to fight poverty nationally.

The Management Committee of the Sub County is carrying out very close daily monitoring of the programmes. The District Political and technical staffs do Monitoring of the programmes every month. Monitoring reports are submitted by the various stakeholders in the programme. The beneficiary households opened up monitoring Record books in each of their homesteads to asses progress of the programme through home visits. Every six months, joint monitoring teams at village, parish and Sub County carry out programme assessment to ensure compliance and fulfilling of set targets.

The budgetary estimates for the smooth implementation of the programme is a joint effort of the Beneficiary Communities, the Sub County Revenue Contribution, the District support Programmes and Donors Contributions. The entire budgetary requirements for the programme requires 2,251,670,000/=

The programme is being piloted in three villages of Kijumba, Lwemisege, Kawenda, Kasitamu and Nyanga Kentale in Kifumba Sub County in Rakai District. Out of the 6,666 homesteads in Kifamba, 200 are being experimented on in the first phase of the project. That’s in the first year and eventually rolls out to the other parts of the sub county. All the 200 homesteads are beneficiaries but particular emphasis has been put on the poor households including; the widows the orphans, with poor guardians the non-productive elderly as well as the households child hood.

Unemployment and redundancy among youth in the community have mainly been caused by illiteracy. Kifamba Zukuka Programme (KZP) intends to start a resource centre to curb the consequences of illiteracy. To the community and an onlooker it is a myth but hard work and commitment will win the illiteracy problem. The Organisation has secured shelter at the cooperative building in Kifamba trading centre. It houses both the organisation’s field office and materials for the resource centre like; literature about the history of Kifamba subcounty, photographs, magazines, brochures, sample equipment and posters to portray programme activities. All of this is available for public consumption particularly the surrounding community. So far it houses Information, Education and Communication (I.E.C) materials that have been gathered from various NGOs countrywide like; brochures, stickers and posters. A television set, a video deck and a generator have been availed to provide entertainment to the youth and children. We have a hope of availing the centre with Internet connected computers on solar panels but the organisation is still incapacitated by lack of funds.

Zukuka programme is a brain child of Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh which he conceived out of bush war memories of Luwero Triangle. Lt. Gen. Saleh recalled the place called Bukalabi where he was shot in the hands. After the war he felt that there was need to alleviate poverty in this area as a way of appreciating the contribution of the people of Luwero in the liberation war.

Lt. Gen. Saleh thought that by giving out money to the people of Bukalabi would automatically transform the community especially in sustainable income generating activities. This approach to poverty alleviation was not appropriate for these people as evidence came out after a few years when the project failed to yield the expected results. The problem was that people had not used the money for income generating activities but rather spent it on alcohol, building houses and marrying more wives.

After realizing that the project had not moved on well in Luwero, Lt. Gen. Saleh called Col. Elly Kayanja and Mr.Muganzi Joe for a day long discussion of how to rejuvenate the project. Saleh still thought that giving out money would still work; an idea which Col. Kayanja strongly opposed, sighting misuse of free money given to peasants for developmental projects. Kayanja managed to convince them to use a different approach of giving people physical items or agriculture inputs. He also managed to convince them to start a pilot project from Kifamba sub-county Rakai district where he hails from (charity begins at home). Kayanja also argued that if he was going to spear head this programme, he needed to work with a community he was much more familiar with hence the birth of Zukuka in Kifamba.