Partnership Overview

A group of young people in Rukungiri, West Uganda, have a vision to start a church planting movement in their area. For a number of years they have been working hard at this and have established one centre church and now want to branch out. They require some help to fund the growth, to support themselves and the many poor people they come across.

History of Partnership

A number of years ago, BHW sponsored three young men from Uganda to go to GLO Zambia to train. These men greatly benefitted from the training and went back to Uganda full of energy and enthusiasm to be effective for God’s kingdom. They have developed a vision to grow God’s kingdom and in the process have discovered the great difficulties of doing that. The major one is the requirement for resources. 

They need to support themselves and as they minister to people they have realised the great poverty that exists in their communities. 

Over the last few years BHW has developed a strong relationship with the two key men who are still based in Rukungiri. We have worked through a proposal that did not appear to be sustainable but now there is the opportunity to do something very workable. 

This area is known in Uganda as a cattle and dairy farming area. It is fertile and there are many very large farms and ranches. We think there is a proposal on the table that has good potential to support the key people financially and to assist the poor in the area to become self sustaining. It also has the potential to become a source of employment. 

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries will firstly be the key people there as a pilot, it will then be families who have the capacity to raise cows and look after them, who sign up to the programme and who agree to attend the training. 

What We Like About The Partnership

The greatest thing about this is that it is consistent with the local conditions. There is a lot of local knowledge and experience in looking after cattle. Other projects have been rejected because they were not local in origin. Also, it does not require a large amount of supervision from a small group of people. If this were a chicken project one or two of the local key people would be totally tied up in running the chickens.

It does not require a large amount of capital expenditure, buildings etc. And finally, the local guys have come to us with this idea and have some experience with cows. They are a strong group of leaders and understand the need for this. 

Key People

Leadership Profile

There are two main leaders in the group. They are:

Justus Matsiko
Justus was born to Mr and Mrs Ndahuka George and Ndahuka Josselyn in 1983. He  was born into a family of 5 siblilngs, 4 brothers and 1 sister. At the age of 5 he lost both parents. He was then raised by his grandmother for a short time then later taken to another family.

In 1992 he started  primary education up to 1999. In 2000 he went to secondary education where he used to take care of cattle. Before secondary education he was in Emmaus Sunday school where he was taught most of the scriptures and was led to Christ in that way. From 2000 -2003 he finished secondary education. He did not continue with advanced level due to financial challenges. In 2006-2007 he went back to school to finish advanced level. 

In 2008 he was sent to Zambia by the elders of Rukungiri chapel for discipleship training which lasted for 10 months.

Currently he is engaged to Grace and they intend to marry in December 2011. He is involved in church activities like preaching and teaching the Bible using the expertise he gained from his training at GLO Zambia. In the ministry he has been able to lead some gospel outreaches especially coordinating university students from Makerere University to other schools. The burden is to shepherd young believers to maturity so that they can serve the lord.

His challenge is to have a sustainable project which will generate some income while serving the Lord at Rukingiri Bible chapel

Reuben Tumuheirwe
Reuben was born to Mr and Mrs Ndahuka George and Joselyne Ndahuka Butanda in Kabale district in 1971. He is the older brother of Justus Matsiko. 

At the age of 9 he began his primary education from 1979-85. In 1986-88 he joined high school at Kihiihi High School. Due to the loss of both parents he did not continue with education and began to do manual work for survival.

In 2000 he got married to Kemigisha Monica and they now have two children, Victor who is currently in P.5 and Ruth in P1.

In the same year he met Brother Johnson who shared the gospel and he became a believer. From then he continued to grow spiritually. He has been ministering the gospel since 2000 with Rukungiri Bible Chapel. It has not been a simple task and in 2004 he was imprisoned. He has been able to plant at least 5 local churches in the Rukungiri District.

It has really been difficult to minister without any job and income generating project. He has been able by God’s grace to raise and support other brothers and sisters who joined the task of preaching the word. These include Allan, Justus, Nicholas, Innocent, James, Evas, Moreen and Jerome.

Vision And Annual Strategy

The vision is to assist low income families in the Rukungiri area become economically self-sustaining. 

The strategy is to start a programme that sees selected families given a pregnant cow. This will start with Christian families in the first instance being given a cow and over time for this to spread out into the community to benefit many people. 

Initially the people will use some of the milk for their own family use and sell some for income. Each beneficiary will be required to plant some Napier grass with which to feed the cow.

As the number of cows increase, the plan is to start a business based around the milk production. This will require some further investment, milking cans, a pasteuriser, packaging, a building and vehicle for distribution.

Local expectation 

To form and effectively operate a group co-operative that each farmer who receives a cow is obligated to join. A monthly fee of UGX10,000 should be paid into a fund by each farmer. Monthly meetings of the co-operative should be held to discuss the issues they are facing and to plan for the future. 

A person should be elected as chair person. All roles should be voluntary, unpaid positions. 

The fund should have 3 components to it with separate records:
1) An operational account – from compulsory monthly membership amounts as indicated – UGX10,000 per month or an appropriate amount. Administration should come from this account.
2) A savings account – from a voluntary amount each farmer should begin to save for the future. The savings should be recorded and available for the discretionary use of person saving and belong to the saver. These savings should be used in the future for growing their business like milking cans, animal health, purchase of more animals and other. 
3) A capital account – from the sale of animals and donors. This will be used for future purchase of animals and other equipment.  

Each person joining the programme should sign an agreement to abide by the group expectations. 

Each person should agree to the following as part of the agreement:
1) To grow an appropriate amount of Napier grass with which to feed the cows.
2) Agree to maintain the cow and keep it healthy. 
3) To get the cow pregnant at their own cost and within appropriate timeframes.
4) To attend any training organised by agreement with the group. 
5) That the first born calf belongs to the co-operative.
6) To rear the first live calf to 9 months and sell it. The calf or the money from the sale should be brought back to the project and put into the capital account.
7) If the first calf dies, the next calf should belong to the co-operative.
8) That every following calf belongs to the owner of the cow and they are free to do with it what they want. 9) That milking cans should be purchased by and owned by the cow owners.
10) That once the project reaches 10 cows, or an agreed number, the cow owners should agree to sell the milk to the co-operative to assist with the development of further businesses and the purchase of bulk milk handling equipment. 

Future Vision

1) To have 15 cows by the end of the second year
2) To have at least have 100 beneficiaries and 100 cows in five years 
3) To purchase a cooler and start selling milk as soon as commercial volumes of milk are being produced
4) To improve the economic standards of the beneficiaries to help them become self-sustaining in their families and ministry
5) To purchase further equipment to develop viable milk handling, sales and distribution. This might include cheese making, milk packaging and sales etc.
6) To spread this out to other communities and replicate it.