WASTE MANAGEMENT PROJECT

OUT-REACH PROGRAMMME - 1999

In an exclusive interview held with Mrs. Damas Florence, a member of Kigalamizi village women's' group, I learnt that the women in the village, who are the immediate neighbours of Mt. St. Mary's College Namagunga, are involved in some activities such as drama and environmental projects. The Women's group is composed of thirty people. The women are aged between 18 and 60. About 70% of the women are married and therefore have other roles such as being house wives and business entrepreneurs besides the aforementioned activities.

Drama:

The women engage in drama once in a while. The drama shows feature themes such as environment, gender and other social concerns. However the shows are only staged during certain special occasions such as Christmas day or public holidays. Mrs. Damas has been in the Women's' drama group for two years. She mentioned that the money collected from the drama shows is often too little and the accumulated proceeds from consecutive shows are shared out among the members. The money accrued from the shows is therefore, not invested in business.

Waste Management:

Incidentally, no organised rubbish sites exit in Kigalamizi Village. There is a lot of plastic and polyethene waste littered around the place. However, the villagers to some extent, have been using the vegetative wastes, especially refuse from banana peels, for enriching the fertility of the soil in their gardens. The only draw back is that they do not skillfully produce this manure so as to produce one of high Nitrogen - N, Phosphorous -P n and Potassium- K (NPK) Some of the residents of Kigalamizi village have also used the banana peels as food for their livestock. Waste paper is a rare in the area. This is because there are hardly any offices in the place to produce paper waste. The villagers use paper as a source of fuel or at times they use it for lighting a fire. There is pronounced use of wood fuel in the village . This is because the villagers can not afford the cost of charcoal. Some of the villagers collect free fire wood from tea estates in Kasaku, a village south of Kigalamizi Village. There are no forests in Kigalamizi Village save for a few trees in the homesteads. There are two sources of spring water in Kigalamizi Village although some of the villagers do not boil the water and hence suffer from water borne diseases. In Kigalamizi Village, there is no Health Centre. The nearest Health Centre is Lugazi Hospital which is about 5 Km a way along the Kampala-Jinja road.

Occupation/Income:

The composition of the residents of Kigalamizi Village is mainly dominated by the unskilled who work in the tea estates for a paltry income. There is also no brisk business taking place in the village. The majority of the women in the village work in the gardens all say and some are employed as compound workers in the schools and institutions in the neighbouring area. According to Mrs. Damas, a resident of Kigalamizi Village may spend up to Shs.2000/= (US$ 1.40) daily to supplement the food obtained from the gardens. This is true for those classified as the "haves". The "have nots" often do with out meals for the basic reason of lack of cash.

Education:

Due to the fact that the Kigalamizi Village residents are cash strapped, they can not afford quality Education. Kigalamizi village is surrounded by the best Primary school and best Secondary school in Mukono District, and in fact, in Uganda as a whole from a birds' eye view, but they hardly have their daughters in the schools. Looking at the Kigalamizi Village women's group, Mrs. Damas said that only about five women reached the level of Senior Two.

Looking forward:

As Mrs. Damas mentioned, she is not about to leave Kigalamizi Village. I believe many of her colleagues think the same way. The school communities neighbouring Kigalamizi Village too are not about to quit the place. Thus there is need to look into the problems existing in Kigalamizi village and their solutions, and further to that, implement the solutions through our social, action project - Waste Management Project.

The key areas to be addressed are:

-The state of Waste and its Management in Kigalamizi Village;

-The financial situation - Case of the Women's group and the youth; and

-Technological advancement in Kigalamizi Village.

The arrangement of the key areas is the order of preference and execution of our programmes in Kigalamizi Village.

Benefits of the Project:

There are many beneficiaries of this project. Following is the list of the benefits that the various stake holders in this project are expected to derive:

Students:

The students participating in the project will:

-Be exposed to a practical experience in the handling of wastes;

-Gain scientific knowledge in the handling, disposal and recycling of wastes;

-Develop creative thinking in problem solving especially as regards Social Action Projects;

-Get exposure to multi-national approach to the conservation of mother earth by sharing ideas with people in other countries through the International Annual Summits;

-Promote international friendship;

-Get alternative entertainment by travelling and meeting people; and

-Promote the empowerment of the youth in the use of Information Technology by the use of computers (ICT).

Teachers:

The teachers engaged in this project will:

-Make a contribution towards the conservation, protection and or, sustainable use of environmental resources in Uganda;

-Put into practice knowledge through their students, knowledge and experience on Waste Management;

-Promote teaching and learning beyond the classroom;

-Integrate sustainably, certain aspects of the environment in their curriculum, for example information on rates of decay of weeds used in compost can be used in teaching differential equations in Advanced Level Mathematics;

-Together with their students help to create a body of knowledge through research and the collection of valuable information that can be disseminated to other teachers and students in the school and thus cause a multiplier effect;

-Through their knowledge of comparative education in this project which is also tele-collaborative in nature help through positive transfer of knowledge, promote a reform of the instructional methodology in this country;

-Promote the use of ICT in Uganda;

Residents of Kigalamizi Village:

The residents of Kigalamizi Village will:

-Gain knowledge on the effective management of Wastes from both the students and teachers of Mt.St.Mary's College Namagunga; q Learn how modern technology works e.g. computers;

-Start small business projects some of which might be based on environmental projects such as the selling of manure to improve on their meagre incomes;

-Develop a systematic way of handing small business projects;

-Conserve and protect their immediate environment;

-Act as a starting point/centre for research and the promotion of waste management in the district;

Uganda:

From this project, there will be:

-Capacity building through the training of the girl child / empowerment of women in the conservation protection and sustainable use of environmental resources hence promoting nation building; -Improvement of the bi-lateral relations between the Ugandan government and the countries tele-collaborating with us such as Brazil, USA, Japan, Australia and Israel by sending Ugandan participants to the Annual International Environmental Summits Such as the one taking place in Perth, Western Australia in September, 1999.

-Help in the conservation, protection and promotion of sustainable use of environmental resources; -Form a basis on which other institutions can build a model for the management of environmental resources;

-Development of ICT in Uganda through teaching and out-reach programmes;

-A Supplementary effort in the promotion of the initiation, supervision and promotion of small business projects based on environment by starting up a loan scheme to improve the income levels of Kigalamizi village women and youth;

-Help government effort in fighting environmental pollution;

-Provision of health services to the people around the area as a long term goal.

Africa and the Diaspora:

Through tele-collaboration there will be:

-Creation of a satellite/regional centre in Africa since at the moment in the 21st Century Schoolhouse, Mt.St.Mary's College Namagunga and Namilyango College are the only schools from Africa;

-Globalization can be attained through sharing of vital information through electronic mail and web publishing;

-Promotion of international friendship and understanding through participation in the International Annual Summits mentioned earlier on.

-Creation of a satellite/regional centre in Africa;

Contacts:

Project Coordinators:

Labongo Badru labongo@msmn.ac.ug

Byaruhanga Stella sbyaru@msmn.ac.ug

Mutiibwa Francis mutiibwa@msmn.ac.ug

Cephas Cormack (Sr.) cephas_c@hotmail.com

Mt. St. Mary's College Namagunga, P.O.Box 18, Lugazi, Uganda.

E-mail: msmn@swiftuganda.com

URL: https://www.angelfire.com/mn/namagunga/index.html