Schools and churches here in the UK will be celebrating the harvest festival this month with donations of food essentials, many of which will find their way to local foodbanks. In Uganda and Rwanda there are no foodbanks and home grown food items are given regularly at church services as Sunday offerings.
‘Grow your own’ is a necessary way of life in Africa and most churches and schools that we visit in Rwanda and Uganda have large areas where they grow crops for resale, often coffee, alongside crops to be used for school lunches such as maize and beans. If the seasons are good they can get 3 harvests a year but the weather seems to have other ideas, and long droughts followed by heavy rains cause havoc with seed success.
Another problem encountered with 3 harvests is that the land soon becomes drained of nutrients so fertilizer is very necessary. The provision of goats can only do so much and CHI were pleased to be able to offer extra fertilizer for the coffee bean ‘plantation’ at the Kitengeesa church/school. This is interplanted with maize, cassava and beans which are used for school lunches. The children help cultivate the land during school time.
Hunger is always a huge problem, it affects the children’s ability to focus in lessons and many leave school during the day in search of something to eat.
Christian Hope knows that the provision of school lunches is always a high priority. At Kabwami, not far from Kitengeesa CHI supplied maize and sugar for school lunches and bibles for encouragement, the testimonies from teachers and pupils were very encouraging and showed the necessity of such support.
In close-by Kijjabwemi sacks of maize flour were supplied to help with school lunches.
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Thank you to everyone who came along to the CHI Quiz night. It started in chaos as the venue had only provided 40 chairs and we needed at least 60 but thankfully they opened the church and chairs were borrowed! A good night followed with the winning team receiving brain boosting Smarties, and the losers receiving lemons to sharpen theirs!
We have the questions available if anyone would like to run a quiz to raise funds for us. Do let us know!
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Our Annual Review Meeting is on Saturday 12 October 2-4pm at St Peters Church, Gubbins Lane, Harold Wood, RM3 0QA. We would love to see you there. We will serve refreshments beforehand and the CHI Christmas cards and calendars will also be available.
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