Child sponsorship project: This provides education support to the children from families vulnerable to poverty that can’t afford to pay their children school fees. These such families are peasant farmers that depend on the status of the farm harvest every season. With the increased population, decreased land available for farming and changes in climate, agriculture production is no longer enough to support families and they save enough for other basic needs such as education. The child sponsorship project receives money from well-wishers to pay school fees for the children. Other supplements to the money received from the sponsors are the little saving from the tourism project that are used to sponsor more children.
Excessive poverty directly causes over population and environment degradation when the poor people extract natural resources for their survival. Poor people have no other source of happiness other than bearing children. Education ensures that the new generations can get office jobs for their livelihoods, can participate in other innovative livelihood schemes other than extraction of natural resources. An educated population is easier to mobilize and sensitize for conservation and development. When people are involved in tourism and other offshoot projects, their livelihood priorities change as they start seeking higher standards of living and put less emphasis on child bearing hence decreasing the fertility rate.
At the moment, the literacy level of Ruboni community is one of the lowest in the entire country. We are still seeking more support to increase the coverage and beneficiaries of the child sponsorship project. This will help the project sponsor more children into colleges that will prepare them for competitive jobs, buy scholastic materials and possibly support the local schools to increase their capacity of educating the entire population. Part of the support would be used on the community pot project that is focused on supporting other relevant projects in the community that would benefit the entire community in like of education and development. https://vimeo.com/191180365
Household Livestock revolving project: Keeping livestock is a traditional income generating scheme for the locals in the rural Uganda. Animals are a form of wealth and a source of household pride. This project is aimed to support household economic empowerment of the community members. The animals also provide food, income and as capital for investment on the household level. If homes can have animals, they will not go hunting for wild meat in the park, and they can be able to acquire surplus income to buy their basic needs or other household investment.
So far, about 50 households have been given animals, one each. It is a revolving project where each family with the animal passes on the offspring to one other family. The animals being given to the community members are goats and pigs. The benefits from the remaining animal and her offspring’s are then used by the family to earn income and other benefits. The project is progressing well and RCCDP is planning to keep supporting it by increasing animal numbers and improving the household skills and quality of implementing the project
Future support to this project will work to increase the animals stock to give out, introduce other animal species like improved goats and cows for dairy production, rabbits etc. and for building the famers capacity to sustainably manage and expand the project.
Forest conservation project: Traditionally, like many indigenous tribes in the world, the Bakonzo people are gatherers from the forest. As the population has increased and the climate trends have changed, the forest has decreased, the community faces a crisis of low crop yields, famine and poverty. Before the Rwenzori Mountains were gazeted as a forest reserve, the park land belonged to the clans and households. When it was gazeted into a national park, the community was stopped from farming in the forest hence decreasing the land available to them for gathering and farming. The forest is not only a source of food to this indigenous tribe, but also a source of wood and other building materials, fuel wood, medicine and crafts materials for the homes.
RCCDP mobilizes the community to conserve the indigenous forest in the community valleys bordering the national park. These forests act as a buffer zone, water catchment areas and natural resource providers to the community. This is to ensure that the community can continue to get the natural resource benefits even with a legal restriction of harvesting from the park. The project has bought and compensated the owners of these forest lands. This has stopped the extractive activities of the owners who use the forest trees for burning charcoal, commercial collection of fire wood and lumbering or using traditional methods of agriculture that clear the forest up to the fringes of the park. After we have compensated the farmers, the compensated forest is left for tourism by creating tourist trails, tourist camp and other leisure activities that don’t declare the forest cut. As it is being used for tourism, it is also used as a source of seeds for planting Martials to expend the forest and cover the already bare hills. At the moment, up to 100 acres of forest reserve has been created in the buffer zone. Since wildlife knows no park boundary, this community reserve also helps to minimize the stress on the park, from human activities, hence this making it very potential for tourism especially since wildlife from the park is also found I this forest. This forest is having two tourist walks, the forest walk and hill climb walk with an overnight hill camping that are paid for by the tourists.
Support to this project is put towards the acquisition of more forest land, planting of trees in the open parts to expand the forest, tourism investment in the forest and sensitizing the community about conservation of the forest to ensure that it can sustainably generate revenue for conservation and community development for generations. https://vimeo.com/190671314
Tree planting project: with the population increase, most hills and lands in the community have been cleared of trees and other vegetation. The Park is protected by law so the local people can only harvest from community and household lands outside the park. Community needs to plant trees on their household lands to be able to get own wood supplies without encroaching on the park ad community reserved forests.
The tree planting project rises seedlings from selected indigenous tree seeds and supplies the seedlings to the farmers to plant on their household lands for their wood resources and conservation of the environment. Some other seedlings are planted to replace the trees on the open hills in the community forest neighboring the park, in the tree planting partnerships and interventions we have so far planted an estimate of 150000 trees in four sub counties bordering the park.
The support to this project is put towards seed collection, preparation and management of the tree nursery, planting and maintaining trees in the gardens both in the community forest and on household lands. More support is required for the field extension services as the project coverage gets bigger, motivation of the farmers who plant the trees and further conservation trainings and awareness rising.
Community tourism project: community tourism is the pivot for generating revenue from nature and culture while preserving it, with minimum human impact, as opposed to other livelihood activities such as firewood and charcoal collection, traditional farming methods and lumbering. The Ruboni community tourism project covers accommodation and restaurant, village guided walks, traditional dace and handicrafts. All the activities rotate on the cultural and natural heritage of the Rwenzori Mountains.
The community tourism project, is the only income generating project of RCCDP and it rises most of the revenue that is reinvested to support all the other projects. The project is run by the local people, especially youth, from the project area. This is an employment benefit to the locals. The project provides other alternative income opportunities to the locals who make handicrafts, provide traditional dances, and produce local fresh foods sold to the camp and other service providers in the households of the village walks stopovers. The main challenge in this project are marketing and low investment to remain competitive in the market. Every season, a small percentage is reinvested in the business.
Support to this project is put towards improving the capacity and quality of service, marketing and tourism facility investment. More support is still required for standard infrastructural development, marketing and product development support.