A really fabulous and fulfilling day in Kampala. These are
the days that keep us coming back to work here! Let me share it with you.
The day started at Mercy Junior School in a small town on
the outskirts of Kampala called Zzana. As I have said before, Kampala is a city
of hills and valleys. The wealthy live on the hills, the poor in the valleys
and with the rains “everything” flows downwards and gets trapped. Zzana is one
of those poor areas – a slum. Houses are 6 x 6 concrete boxes with tin roofing,
often held down by rocks. Families are often large with parents looking after
the orphaned children of relatives who have died because of AIDS or other
diseases. The only hope for a kid is through education and Jesus.
Mercy Junior School has been founded by a church – Jesus Commissioned
Ministries – to educate kids with this background. Gail and I started supporting the school about
5 years ago and I have been joined by a number of good friends who have helped
make certain building projects work through the years.
 |
| Before! |
Then, the school
was a couple of plywood partitioned rooms in a church that had papyrus walls, a
crude wood structure and an old tin roof that leaked all the time. There were
40 – 50 “students” who were really being fed and babysat by the church/school.
There was no official curriculum or trained teachers and no bathroom
facilities. The parents paid nothing to send their children to school and many
days the kids just didn’t come.
 |
| After! |
Now, the school has
seven classrooms built in brick, with a proper roof on each. There is a proper
pit latrine. An area next to the church has been bought and converted into a
playground. There is a qualified head teacher who is working to train the other
full-time teachers. There are over a hundred students, each of whom pays school
fees. 50% of the parents pay the full tuition. They teach the Uganda National
Curriculum, and from anecdotal evidence our kids are outperforming the other
local school. We are now receiving transfers from other schools. The parents
are very engaged and demand quality for their children who come to school every
day. And so it goes. What hope and joy!
My goal now is to get the buildings all finished and
painted. While we have been adding one classroom or two per year, I think it is
time to finish it all. I suspect to get it all done it will cost $20,000 or a
little more. Not a lot for such progress. The finished facilities will attract
more students and allow for higher fees and therefore create a sustainable
enterprise. This could not have been conceived of just 2 years ago. God is
good.
If any of you would like to join me in finishing this thing
off, please contact me at amills@tkc.edu.
From Mercy Junior School, I headed back to the Mango Fund
offices, where I caught up with Ted and George. They were working on new deals
(as we had been yesterday too) and we had a series of very productive meetings
with three potential clients. Two were in the medical clinic space and one in
agro-distribution. These seem to be areas that we know best and I think our
ability to ask questions and know what the opportunity looks like is rapidly improving.
The bottom line is that we have decided to invest in all three. As a result of
our loans, one will build a surgical theater , one will add an X-ray machine
and the other will buy some equipment and more aggressively buy maize in the open market
to trade. It’s always interesting doing due diligence for investments here,
particularly with smaller companies. It’s like peeling an onion – you never
quite get to the center! But we’re learning how to focus on the key issues and
make good judgments to allow us to move quite quickly (one of our values).
In the evening, Mango Fund held a year-end party for all clients.
We had 20 people in a Chinese restaurant in downtown Kampala. People from all
over Uganda, with different businesses attended. It was a little quiet at
first, but soon folks warmed up and enjoyed talking with each other. The
highlight of the evening for me was when each business person was asked to talk
about their businesses and the Mango Fund. I wish we had recorded these
wonderful stories of vision, small beginnings, risk taking, hard work and perseverance.
It excited my heart to see how much the practice of business was changing lives
and communities. I hate that business is unfairly under attack as being the
problem, not the solution. If you had needed a more complete justification for
the existence of the Mango fund, I don’t know where you would find it.
Now I’m back in the hotel, with a real sense of satisfaction
and ready to get at it again tomorrow! But not before my malaria pill and a good night's sleep.
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