A Warm Welcome to Kira Farm

We arrived at Kira Farm in the early hours of Tuesday morning and after a few hours sleep were roused by the drums and enthusiastic singing from the students and jumped quickly out of bed for 8am devotions! What a great group of fifty young people, mostly from communities in northern Uganda. They are here for a year of training in conservation farming, business and vocation skills and holistic life skills. The aim is that they return to their village as “community transformers” working closely with the churches that we are connected with there.

Some Ugandan coffee and sweet pineapple later, we had a guided tour of Kira. It was wonderful to see all that is happening … the training in the tailoring and carpentry workshops, the conservation agriculture in practice, urban farming, an amazing rabbit project and the goats.

One of the chefs cooking lunch on the fuel-efficient stove

Students out early working in their fields

In the afternoon while Tim had time with some of the trainers, I had an great time doing a beeswax workshop with 30 students and two wonderful women who give hairdressing and tailoring training and are full of great ideas! They are keen to keep to develop the vocational training program at Kira, and as we start new beekeeping projects, it will be fantastic to develop business and generate more income through honey and beeswax. The afternoon was a brief taster of some of the possibilities we can explore!

Students cutting beeswraps

With the trainers, Lydia and Mwajuma

Before dinner, we were treated to a cultural performance where students presented songs and dances from their tribes! Such a warm and enthusiastic welcome ... I will share the videos when I can! And the cultural learning continued after dinner, late into the evening with fireside talks and dramas about their local area customs and traditions. 

We have had two more incredible days since then but no electricity or internet! We were up at the at the crack of dawn the second morning to travel up to Masindi and have since had some really wonderful community visits. So many encouraging stories and exciting plans … we have just returned from a village on the edge of Murchison Falls National Park troubled by elephants destroying their crops. If you know me, you will know how very excited I am about this amazing group of people setting up a “bee fence”! But more on that next time…