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By Barbara Wybar
Here I am in Bududa, a remote rural district in eastern Uganda, on the slopes of the largest extinct volcano in East Africa, Mt Elgon. We are in a small district with a large population of mostly subsistence farmers. It is incredibly beautiful here with verdant, lush green hillsides and the mountain and all its rolling hills stretching out around Bududa.
Jean Warrington, a new friend from Chestnut Hill, who came with me to Bududa this year has returned home just yesterday, and I miss her already. I met Jean in October, while volunteering with the Rotary at Jenks school, cleaning up a wooded area on the side of the school. She learned about the school, I started with a group of Quakers in 2003, and wanted to come and she came. It has been a treat to have her and I believe she enjoyed the experience. Maybe she would even come to talk to the Rotary about it!!
Oliver Nayama (r), a graduate of Bududa Vocational Academy, at her stall with her husband and father. (l), with Barbara Wybar, center.
Now a wee bit about our school which our dear Rotary club has supported for so many years. Bududa Vocational Academy seems to be thriving. Last year we had 240 students, studying, brick-laying, tailoring, carpentry, hairdressing, motor mechanics and computers sciences. In 2025, now, we are offering agriculture. We have been able to do this because we received a $50,000. grant from the Pincus Family Foundation which allowed us to purchase land we need to open agriculture. So far, we have eight students for agriculture, but it is early days yet. We will have more. It seems to take a while here in this remote region to get the school up to full steam.
There is a group of six women from a large church in Charlotte, NC, Myers Park Presbyterian Church, who are visiting and volunteering and here for a week. They are very enthusiastic and quite wonderful and seem to be in awe, as am I, at how very simply the people here live with so little.
Carpentry student, Raphael Makayi
We also run an orphans program, Children of Bududa for 73 orphans. Each child has to be visited in their simple homes and reports sent to their North American sponsors. We have asked the Charlotte volunteers to help with the visitations. It is a plus for both the families being visited, and the volunteers, who see how they live in mud huts.
Barbara Wybar, Chestnut Hill Rotary member, is the Founder, Board Member Ex-Officicio, International Coordinator for Bududa Learning Center. The Center teaches vocational skills to striving young adults, provides social services to orphaned and vulnerable children, and provides micro-finance grants to poor working women. All programs are all designed to break the cycle of generational poverty.
