“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” - Henry Ford
Thursday May 10th was the Raising the Village Foundation Donor’s event. The evening’s theme was “It
takes a village…to raise a village”, and was held at the Gladstone Hotel. Walking into the venue, it
was plain to see that the event was sold out, with enthusiastic guests chatting and checking out the
interactive displays.
- Clean Water – Biosand filter
- We’re on the map
- Women of Murole
- Bricks from our lean, mean, green brick making machine Ssekbi.
- wow this brick is heavy
- Bike aid
I latched myself onto Noah Mugenyi, as I knew he would be a better social force than I would ever
be, and began to meet other supporters of RTV. Noah is originally from Uganda, so of course his
life experience provided great conversation. I followed him around to various conversations with
people who were familiar with RTV because of long-time friendships with Shawn, to volunteers who
passionately support the work of RTV. I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of individuals at the
event.
At one point, our conversation focused on how we can be working alongside those in the villages of
Uganda, and about how ownership is so important. How can we over here in Canada support those in
Uganda without giving into the desire to simply take over and do it ourselves? These types of questions
seemed more than appropriate at this event. At one point Noah pointed out that RTV allows people
to “drive their own future”.
When Shawn finally approached the microphone, he presented us with some very powerful images. He
spoke of how RTV began with a simple plea of “somebody show me HOW”, and he told us about the 360
other villages that still need their help. He focused on the village of Murole, which “looks like it is at the
end of the world”. Shawn provided a snapshot of all that RTV has accomplished so far, and a picture of
what is to come. 2012 looks to be an exciting – and challenging – year for RTV.
- Shawn Cheung engaging the crowd
I think I can speak for everyone though, when I say that the story he told about the bricks was the most
impactful. Shawn told us about the exploratory expedition that they made out to Murole, in order to
assess the situation in the village and to see how RTV could assist the people there. He and Richard
spoke with the women of the village, and mentioned how they felt that getting bricks into the village
for building a school might be impossible. An elderly woman stood up and simply stated “If we have to,
we’re going to carry every brick”.
This idea of carrying each individual brick re-iterated exactly what Raising the Village serves to do, and
what the evening was all about. RTV is made up of each one of us who support the work and the cause.
We provide the foundations in various ways, with our time, our money, or our resources. And it takes all
of us together to put each of those bricks into place. Often, when speaking with Shawn, I am reminded
about the idea of all of us having an impact on each other, whether we are on the other side of the
world or not.
—Laura Graham
- Thank you for your continued support.
photo | Kai Wong
20by14: It takes a village
photo | Cecilia Mok
Tonight was Raising The Village’s ’20by14 – It Takes a Village’ event at the Gladstone Hotel.
Thank you to all who attended our sold out event and bringing us one step closer to our vision of
reaching 20 villages by 2014.
We hope you will continue to journey with us in changing the lives of the people of Uganda.
It’s easy to change the lives of an entire village, but it starts with you.
Upon parting for the night, you chose between 2 envelopes:
“Would you like to dance?” or ”Can we sing you a song?”
Here’s the dance that accompanies the image in the envelope you chose by the students of Kanga. Enjoy!
From all of us at RTV, thank you again for sharing your evening with us.
- Shawn
Tonight was Raising The Village’s ’20by14 – It Takes a Village’ event at the Gladstone Hotel.
Thank you to all who attended our sold out event and bringing us one step closer to our vision of
reaching 20 villages by 2014.
We hope you will continue to journey with us in changing the lives of the people of Uganda.
It’s easy change the lives of an entire village, but it starts with you.
Upon parting for the night, you chose between 2 envelopes:
“Would you like to dance?” or ”Can we sing you a song?”
Here’s the song that accompanies the image in the envelope you chose sung by the students of SSanga.
Enjoy – careful, the song is incredibly catchy!
From all of us at RTV, thank you again for sharing your evening with us.
- Shawn
"The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people." — Woodrow Wilson
Clement is the newest member of our Uganda operations team and he joins us as the Operations Manager for the southwestern region of Uganda. For 6 years now, Clement has been committed to working with the local government to bring development to his people (his home village is in this region) and one can easily tell how appreciative the locals are of his work from the way they greet and interact with him while he’s strolling through the villages.
For the few years that I have known him, I’ve realized how hard it is for one not to be able to engage in conversation with him. He opens up fast and he’s always willing to engage and share his thoughts on the matter being discussed. He tells me that he gets this from his work as a community development officer which taught him how to stay connected to all villagers at all levels. He is friends with everyone and even though this is a great thing, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes it can get frustrating for the person that he is travelling with since you’d have to stop every two minutes as he engages in greetings and conversations with the locals. They love him for that though.
He is a family man (a husband and father) and grew up in a big peasant family. He says that it is for this reason that he very committed to bringing development programs to people in hard to reach areas since he is able to relate to what they are going through and also since he understands how important it is for us to do all that we can for the future generations. He says that his biggest achievement will be to grow old and know that he played a part in changing his community and region for the better. He is excited to work well with the rest of the RTV team and he is confident that RTV is destined to accomplish so many more great things basing on what has been done so far.
-Richard
"I dont understand global warming but I know the seasons are changing." - Gideon, elder at Ssanga.
Imagine if someone you cared about fell sick. What would you do? Probably take them to see the doctor.  Kanyahemene learning to bike Raising The Village has been partnering with Kanyamahene community members to start a Bicycle Ambulance program. This basic intervention will not only help increase the community’s access to health care but will also decrease the number of people and time spent travelling per trip, freeing time for income generation. On April 4, 2012 RTV staff were able to deliver a working bicycle ambulance which will be managed and maintained by the community’s newly formed Health Committee. We are all looking forward to the significant impact that such a small gesture can have. |
Last November, our team brought something different back to Uganda for the kids at Grace Daycare and Orphanage – toys!
A workshop with our students and CONNEXIONS™ Toys was conducted -
“ A 3-dimensional abstract puzzle with tactile and semantic clues, CONNEXIONS™ is an award winning toy originally designed with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to bridge the communication gap between visually impaired elementary school students and their sighted classmates. It is now used as a tool for empathic learning and creative educationfor people of varying ages and abilities, in classrooms and boardrooms around the world.
CONNEXIONS™ breaks down communication barriers and gives insight into how we work collaboratively. “
We had hoped that the students would enjoy playing with the toys and hoped to gain an understanding of how much work and effort goes into communicating… to get a sense for collaborative learning and how learning is best facilitated in environments when everyone is participating equally.
The results were definitely not what we expected, to find out what happens, hop over to Twenty One Toys‘ blog.
