November, 2012

fontes foundation :: Newsletter

Unleash Your Potential at Potentiam!

Students of the Potentiam Youth Development Centre in Muyenga, Kampala involved in activities during a corporate social responsibility (CSR)event organized by Standard Chartered bank in October (see page 7 for article).

Kisenyi, Southwestern Uganda

2 Research with Fontes

3 Art Exchange Project

4-5 Map of Kisenyi

6-7 Youth Centre

One of the most pressing problems in Uganda, where fertility rates are amongst the highest in theworld, is the large number of unemployed youth, which is growing year by year. Fontes Founda-tion started an ambitious programme that offers an effective solution to this problem, addressingthe main gaps found in the current education system. In addition to equipping youth with keyskills, such as business and entrepreneurship skills, computer and English skills, the project focuseson taking the students on a personal journey, where they become more self-confident, critical,analytical and self-driven, and leave the course with clear goals in mind. The objective is that thestudents become productive members of society after the completed 6-month course, either bybecoming valued employees or by starting their own business.

Hippos lurching in the water in Kashaka,Uganda

fontes :: Newsletter - November 20122

When I am asked what brought meto Uganda, I only have one responseto offer: it’s complicated. I traveledto Kampala from Pittsburgh by my-self, funded by grants from my uni-versity. Last summer, as a researchscholar at Lafayette College in Penn-sylvania, I was troubled by the lackof available data on the life-cyclecosts of charity-funded water sys-tems. Fontes Foundation Uganda isan exception to this rule, as this or-ganization has been documentingand maintaining several water sys-tems in rural villages in Uganda foralmost a decade. I have dedicatedmy summer to analyzing their fi-nancial records, which detail the al-location of funds necessary tomaintain a water scheme over time.Divided into WASHcost (seewashcost.info) categories, these ex-penditures can be used to predict amodel of life-cycle costs.

Through extensive cooperation withFontes, and financial support through the Grand ChallengesScholars Program and the Havens Award from my university,I spent eight weeks in Kampala researching the past expendi-tures made by Fontes in the implementation, support andmaintenance of five rural water systems in Queen Elizabeth

National Park. During my residency, I organized financialaccounting records and developed indicators which Fontesshould use for their annual reporting. Ultimately, I want todevelop a comprehensive picture of cost-tracking, using thevillages as case studies to apply a broader model to the sectorknowledge.

I was able to join Fontes employees Patrick, William andRuyooka to Queen Elizabeth National Park, and participate ina water committee seminar held in conjunction with Triple-S,an initiative to address the growing problem of sustainabilityof rural water supplies. Here, I conducted interviews with localgovernmental authorities, water committee members and wa-ter users, in order to contribute to the broader picture of myunderstanding of the relationship between service deliveryand community involvement.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate withFontes on this project, and I look forward to future cooperationas I continue the development of my project. With my finalresults and conclusions, I wrote a short report for my grant inSeptember and a comprehensive interdisciplinary honors the-sis is due in May 2013. I am also working with Lucrezia Biteeteto co-author an article to be published in a special edition ofWater Alternatives in October 2013, which focuses on risingtrends in the rural water sector.

Scholarly Research with Fontes - a Unique Access to EmpiricalRecords on Rural Water Management SystemsBy Kelsey Lantz

Kelsey Lantz going through the accounting books of the five Fontes Foundation water projects duringa water committee training seminar held in June.

In several villages discussions were held with community members inorder to get a comprehensive picture of the water projects.

fontes :: Newsletter - November 2012 3

Since 2005, Fontes Foundation has been facilitating an ex-change between Oslo Montessori School and Katunguru-Rubi-rizi Primary School, a village school situated close to Fontes’very first water installation in Queen Elizabeth National Parkin south-western Uganda. The students at Oslo MontessoriSchool in Norway, have regularly raised funds in order toprovide their sister school in Uganda with safe water andschool uniforms. The donated pens, books and footballs havebeen highly appreciated and, through the years, the olderstudents of both schools have been writing letters to each otherin English. In addition, the Katunguru Primary School has beenassisted to plant and maintain its own forest in order to pro-duce firewood.

This autumn, the Montessori art teacher Lisa Pacini came upwith the idea of exchanging art work between the two schools.The art work by a group of children at Oslo Montessori Schoolwas brought to Katunguru-Rubirizi, as well as the materials toproduce similar pieces of art. During a recent field visit, Ipresented the Norwegian art work to a group of children atKatunguru Primary School, as well as the sent material. Ishowed the Katunguru pupils how to handle paint and brush,something which was completely new for them. Then, I spenttwo hours painting with them, making the wonderful experi-ence of seeing the children getting totally absorbed by their artwork, mixing colours and creating shapes on their canvasses.These children have hardly come across a piece of art before,except from the colourful materials of their mothers’ dresses.Indeed, one girl painted a pattern similar to the one on her owndress. Another source of inspiration was the Ugandan flag withits colourful horizontal stripes.

I was very touched and impressed by the result, and I wasproud to carry 25 wonderful pictures back to Norway. Bothschools will now decorate their walls with the art work fromtheir sister school. In addition, the children in Katunguru madethe new experience of being artists, and their teachers havebeen encouraged to do more art work using the donated mate-rial.

This project demonstrates how African children are easily ableto unfold their skills and creativity, once given the opportunityto do art work. In fact, teachers were surprised that childrenwere able to produce art without a guideline, just from theirown creativity. Fontes Foundation hopes that this experiencewill tie the two schools together in a new way, and that therewill be more art lessons in future. Finally, nobody ever imag-ined that the water provided by Fontes would be used to paintcolourful pictures!

Art Exchange Between Oslo Montessori School and KatunguruPrimary SchoolBy Barbara Koestler

This group of children at Oslo Montessori School in Norway was proudto send their art work and art materials to their sister school in Afri-ca.

The results of the children's first painting attempt were astonishing! Itshows a large variety of colours and shapes as well as a genuine senseto filling a space.

After a short lesson about using brush and paint, the children in Ka-tunguru were eager to try painting on paper.

Lake Edward

River Nyamweru

N200 m

Fishing being the main source of income, the landing site isthe commercial centre of the village. Canoes are used to setthe nets in the evening, some few lucky owners can afforda small outboard engine to get further out. Every morningthe night's catch is cleaned and transported upcountry bysmall pickup trucks, afterwards the boats and nets areprepared for the next day. Wildlife is never far away andthere are always some hippos lurking just off the shore, butas long as they are left alone, they aren't a big problem.

There are two public tapsin the village where peoplecan buy water at 100 Ushfor one jerry can (approx.23 litres). A challenge is,however, that even thoughthe water at the tap is safe,the jerry cans might still bedirty, and it has to besensitised that they arecleaned properly betweenevery use.

For the new extension aroundbe dug for the new pipes fromthe new water tower up tocarried out by the communityof the heat), as their contribwater supply and was finished

An array of solar panelswasinstalled in 2009 to providepower to the pumps, savingcosts on fuel. The panelsare working well, and theyonly need to use thegenerator once or twiceevery month when theweather is too cloudy. Therocks around the fence areto protect the fence frombeing destroyed by hippos.

The water is being withdrawn from the nearby NyamweruRiver by a electrical submersible pump. First it enters asettlement tank where aluminium sulphate is added inorder to help the suspended solids to settle down. Afterwaiting for the water to settle, the now clear water ispumped through a high pressure sand filter in order toremove any remaining particles, and afterwards through anactive carbon filter to improve taste. Before being pumpedup to the storage tanks located in the middle of the village,chlorine is added to ensure that the water is safe. Eventhough this is a quite labour intensive process, it makes useof the best water source available; the lake is even moreturbid, and the ground water is too salty for drinking.

Constructing a water supply system inside a national parkgives additional challenges, especially because of wildlife.Over the years lots of damage has been caused by animals,but at the same time you learn how to prevent these issuesin the future. Among others, fences have been damagedbecause of hippos scratching their backs and baboonsmistake electrical cables for snakes (according to locals) andtear them apart.

Kiseny

Main R

oad

The Kisenyi Safe Water Project was installed in2008 with funds from the Norwegian Eiksmarka Rotary Club.The village has around 1000 inhabitants and is situatedinside Queen Elizabeth National park in southwesternUganda.

Fontes Foundation has been active in the area since 2004and has currently installed water supply systems in fivevillages in Queen Elizabeth National Park. In the villagewhere the first water supply was installed, KatunguruRubirizi, the local primary school has also receivedconsiderable support. After continuous requests from thevillages, Fontes Foundation started a secondary educationscholarship programme in 2005 which at the momentsupports 10 students. Fontes Foundation believes that longterm presence is essential for aid to be successful andtherefore in addition to periodical follow up visits, organizesa seminar where all the waterprojects meet to share theirexperiences and get furthertraining, especially onaccountability, at least once ayear.

Inside the local healthcentre a faucet and asmall basin has beeninstalled. This waschosen instead of a tapoutside, like the oneconstructed at theprimary school, becauseit is easier to control,and the water is closerto where it is needed. Atthe school a tap similarto the public ones, albeita bit smaller, wasconstructed to cater forthe peak demand.

Even though most people nowuse safe water from the watersupply system, there is still anurgent need to improve thehygiene and sanitationstandard in the village. There islittle awareness over simpleissues such as the importanceof hand washing, and thelatrines (pictured) are in verypoor condition, if they are usedat all.

As a part of the extension of the water to the school andthe health centre, a smallwater towerwas constructed justbehind the health centre in order to provide the additionalpressure required. The tank on the ground next to the toweris an old rain water harvesting tank which gives the healthcentre some additional water for free.

d 200 metres of trench had tom the existing storage tanks via

the school. The labour was(in the early morning because

bution towards the extendedd within a couple of days.

Considerable efforts are put into training the watercommittee on how to run the water system, but intoeducation of the water consumers. The two new privateconnections will lead to new income for the watercommittee, but there are also several new aspects, whichcan be challenging. The committee has to provide a constantsupply of good safe water to the private customers, but atthe same time make sure the customers pay their monthlybill. Therefore service contracts have been made betweenthe two parties. In order to determine the water usage,water meters have been installed at both the health centreand the school. It is important to train both the watercommittee, as well as the customers on how to read thewater meter in order to avoid mistrust. The committee willbe followed up closely in order to make sure that theextension is managed correctly.

September 2012

yi village

fontes :: Newsletter - November 20126

Jesca, 26, had to convince her husband to let her enrol in thecomputer course offered at the Potentiam Youth DevelopmentCentre. The Youth Centre is located in Muyenga, a fast-grow-ing, peri-urban area of Uganda’s capital Kampala, and wasinaugurated in May 2012. Potentiam is the most recent educa-tion project of Fontes Foundation.

Who would take care of the two-year-old Mulungi Gloria,during the time her mother would be at school? Eventually,Jesca could persuade her husband – and is now regularlyattending classes of the Core Course in Business and Entrepre-neurship, a full-time six-month training including units inApplied Business Skills, Business English, Applied Informa-tion and Communication Technology (ICT) Skills, and Person-al Development. Actually, it was even Jesca’s husband whoencouraged her, after her successful graduation from the com-puter Short Course, to apply for the Core Course. And sincerecently, the business class has a new student – Mulungi Gloriais frequently joining her mother, although she seems moreinterested in exploring the centre compound than in studyingbalance sheets, business plans and holding presentations.

In August 2012, the Potentiam Youth Development Centre,funded by Balder Stiftelsen in Norway, started its activities. Inaddition to the eight-week Short Course in ICT, the one whichJesca attended, a Short Course in Basic English and Literacykicked-off, as well as lessons in Music, Dance and Dramataking place two times a week. In addition, the Potentiamfootball team is having regular training sessions and has so farparticipated in several tournaments. Various other activitieshave occurred at the Youth Centre, for example CorporateSocial Responsibility (CSR) -events organised by banks such asBarclays and Standard Chartered (see article on the next page),or graduation ceremonies. On these occasions, local entrepre-neurs, politicians and celebrities have been holding speeches tothe Potentiam students, and other interested youths of thecommunity.

Potentiam strives to empower disadvantaged youths to helpthem realize their full potential, in order to become productivemembers of society as entrepreneurs or as valued employees.After completing Secondary School, Jesca did not find a job –and could not realise her dream to become a secretary. In theCore Course, she is learning how to use a computer for finan-cial accounting, and other crucial business skills such as mar-keting. Moreover, an integral part of the course is PersonalDevelopment, which discusses issues like work ethics andgood communication. Finally, there is a Mentorship pro-gramme, meant to guide the students through the difficultperiod of entering the labour market.

Jesca, who lives a ten-minute walk away from the centre,believes that Potentiam will change her community. “Poten-tiam is giving the youth the confidence to believe in them-selves”. For herself, Jesca says that she cannot appreciate theoffer given by Potentiam enough, since she is helped to devel-op the capacity to think in an independent way, and criticallyreflect on cultural norms. “Only a big heart can give something likePotentiam to a community.”

What is Jesca’s advice to other youths, in particular motherswho want to pursue professional ambitions, but lack the time,finances and support to complete their education? Jesca, one ofthree mothers in the Core Course, urges them to follow herexample, that is, find solutions for their children, such as bring-ing them to class. Jesca says that it’s worth it: “At Potentiam, weare treated like adults, while in Secondary School they treat us likechildren.”

Eventually, Jesca asserts that Potentiam has given her the bold-ness to stand on her own feet, and to belief in the future – andin her daughter, who according to Jesca, one day shall achievemore than her mother.

How Potential is Unfolded Among UnemployedYouth in KampalaBy Roberto Lang

Core course student Jesca giving a testimonial at an event taking placeat Potentiam Youth Development Centre. Jesca is 26 and has a three-year-old daughter who she is regularly bringing to class.

fontes :: Newsletter - November 2012 7

Standard Chartered Bank Organises CorporateSocial Responsibility EventBy Lucrezia Biteete

Through the efforts of Rowena Musinguzi, Chairman of theBoard of Fontes Foundation Uganda, Standard Chartered Bankorganised a Corporate Social Responsibility-event at the Poten-tiam Youth Development Centre. On the morning of the 3rd ofNovember 2012, about 20 staff members from the bank came toMuyenga, and were joined by approximately 50 youths. Theevent, one of the biggest at Potentiam since its inaugurationceremony in May 2012, inspired everybody – bank managers,entrepreneurs, local politicians, and not least the youths,among which there were many students from the coursesoffered at Potentiam.

During the event, the Music, Dance and Drama group per-formed local dances, its rhythms motivating various staffmembers from the bank to join in. After an initial session aboutliving with HIV/Aids, which was facilitated by the bank, theaudience listened to the life experiences of two local speakers.The first one, a local politician, told the participants how he lefthis home village and came to Kampala with close to nothing.Yet through hard work, patience, truthfulness, and with a fairdose of luck, he has become a very prominent businessman,with stakes in many businesses and real estate. The secondspeaker, the sales and marketing manager of Muyenga-locatedHotel International, explained which qualities he looks forwhen he hires employees.

The event was honoured by the presence of two Ugandancelebrities, a local TV-personality, as well as a player of theUganda Crances, the national football team. Cleopatra Koheir-

we told the youths about the challenges she faced when shetold her guardians that she wanted to become a professionaldancer. After this, applauded Uganda Crane Tony Mawejjehanded over football equipment donated by Standard Char-tered bank to the football team of Potentiam.

Everyone at Potentiam, but also the members of the StandardChartered staff, enjoyed the event, which showed how localengagement can in support the youth and guide young peopleinto the right direction.

Call for fundingFontes Foundation is looking for donors to fund the continuous provision of services to the youth at the PotentiamYouth Development Centre. Help us to continue developing this unique concept, which will empower the youth tobe part of Uganda’s future development!

Uganda Crane Tony Mawejje handing over the football equipmentdonated by the Standard Chartered staff to the Potentiam footballteam.

Funding of one student for the 6-months Core Course in Business and Entrepreneurship NOK 3'700 USD 690Funding of one student for a 8-weeks Short Course in Basic English and Literacy and

Introduction to Information and Communication TechnologyNOK 1'400 USD 230

Equipment of library with study books NOK 10'000 USD 1'700Construction of a child care-centre for student mothers NOK 50'000 USD 8'400Additional computer equipment NOK 10'000 USD 1'700Van for transport for study trips and football tournaments NOK 90'000 USD 15'000Establishment of Business Development Services (BDS) programme to follow up busi-

nesses of graduates, and running costs for 1 yearNOK 55'000 USD 9'200

Establishment of Alumni programme for graduates and activities for 1 year NOK 20'000 USD 3'300Establishment of Micro-finance programme and running costs for 1 year, minus the loans NOK 55'000 USD 9'200Construction of canteen on Youth Centre compound for students to buy lunch NOK 30'000 USD 5'000

fontes :: Newsletter - November 20128

Donor Visits Sponsored by UWAIn connection with a wedding at Mweya Safari Lodge inQueen Elizabeth National Park, two donor visits to thewater projects in Kisenyi, Katunguru-Rubirizi and Katun-guru-Kasese were organised, with about 15 participantseach. The visits took place on the first weekend of Octo-ber 2012, and were rendered possible by a generouscontribution in the form of discounted entry passes toQueen Elizabeth National Park by our long-time partner,the Uganda Wildlife Authority. During the visits, estab-lished donors were able to see the projects they hadbeen funding first hand, and could interact with thebeneficiaries of the running projects. In addition, newdonors were found.

Fontes Foundation puts an emphasis on accountability,and thus organising donor visits is a great way to presentresults and encourage donors to make further donations.

Fontes FoundationBernhard Herres vei 30376 OsloNorway+47 907 52 856

www.fontes.nowww.facebook.com/fontesfounda oncontact@fontes.no

Fontes Foundation UgandaP.O. Box 37684, KampalaPlot 1 Kololo Hill Drive, KololoKampala, Uganda+256 70 40 21 680+256 77 27 78 893

Fontes Foundation is working towards community development through water, sanitation and education projects in Uganda and Mozambique.

Patrick joined Fontes Foundation as a consultant in May2012, and was hired as a full-time Office Manager inAugust 2012. He is now fully in charge of accounts andlogistics, but has also participated during field work,capacity-building of both partners and staff on account-ability and other administrative tasks. His efficiency andstructured work is a true inspiration for the other staff.

Patrick Jangeyanga Joins Fontes

Norway / International SwitzerlandBank Cultura Sparebank

P.O. Box 6800St. Olavs Plass0130 Oslo

Bank SwissPost

1254.05 Account-No.Holder: Fontes Foundation Holder Koestler

CULTNOK1XXXIBAN NO45 1254 0533 553

Follow Fontes Foundationon facebook!

Patrick Jangeyanga, on the left, instructing Water Committeemembers in Kisenyi, southwestern Uganda in September2012.

The telecom provider Orange Uganda has donated equipment toconnect the Internet café in Katunguru-Rubirizi, currently underconstruction, to their mobile internet. In addition, they havesponsored three months of free Internet access, as well as asignpost at the main road to attract customers to the site of thecafé, located in a beautiful forest next to the primary school. TheInternet café will give people in the village access to the internet,as well as improve the communication between the Fontes officein Kampala and the Fontes field staff in Katunguru-Rubirizi. Inaddition, it will give students at the school and the students ofthe Fontes Scholarship Programme subsidized access, and itsrevenues will help maintain the tree-planting project in whichthe café is located. Funding is still needed.

A donor interacting with pupils from Katunguru-RubiriziPrimary School.

Orange Uganda DonatesInternet Connection