Now Africa Initiative and Karama Education Center

Now Africa Initiative (NAI) is a grassroots farmer organization located in Nyamigoye parish in Kanyantorogo sub-county, Kanungu District, Southwestern Uganda. Founder Denis Twinamatsiko was born in Nyamigoye parish and attended primary school locally, before leaving home to further his education at the secondary school and university level. He later went on to work for non-governmental organizations, focusing on value chain projects in Uganda and other countries in Africa. In 2014, Denis returned to his home community with the goal of building a social enterprise to support the farmers he grew up with, and to ensure education for their children. Officially founded in 2017, NAI’s mission is to play a catalytic role in contributing to the socio-economic transformation of rural Uganda through sustainable agricultural development and educational improvements. At present, NAI provides market access, technical assistance, and livelihood programming to over 1000 farmers. To date, they have established (thanks to early partnerships with TCC and now through fiscal sponsorship):

• A storage center to purchase, house, and resell coffee from NAI farmers, supporting income increase for farmers, as well as quality improvements due to proper storage.
• A dry mill and processing facility, allowing NAI to fully process, bulk, and bring to market the coffee of their member farmers, and use a portion of proceeds to reinvest into community education and livelihood developments.
• An in-house technical assistance program whereby lead farmers are regularly trained in good agricultural practices in order to support other farmers in the community. Lead farmers also developed community savings and loans groups to enable community members to borrow from each other and finance on-farm changes—putting into practice lessons learned from agricultural training.
• A homestead gardening project leading to the creation of nursery beds and the transfer of fruit and vegetable seedlings to home plots, ensuring more local food production and reduction on food expenditures among NAI farmers.
• An alternative income project based on intercropping coffee fields with soybeans. Soybeans enhance soil fertility through nitrogen fixation, offer an alternative income source, and boost food security. Through this project, farmers are trained to extract soy milk for their households and to prepare soy-corn blends for consumption and sale.

The Building Tomorrow Primary School of Karama, or KEC, is located just outside the town of Kihiihi in Nyamigoye Parish, Southwestern Uganda. It started with 8 classroom blocks and accepted students from Nursery all the way up to Primary 4. Each year, one new grade was added, as each existing grade moved forward and a new nursery class moved in. Given this model, since its founding in 2016 (doors opened in 2017), the school has experienced extensive growth and enrollment has blossomed to well over 600 students, approximately six times the original student body. To keep pace with increasing educational demand, KEC leadership has developed new programming. Programs and resources established to date include (thanks to early partnerships with TCC and now through fiscal sponsorship):

• A school library, complete with leisure books, academic texts, and educational games, including for students with differing abilities.
• Rainwater harvesting, handwashing stations, and water taps, alongside a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) training program for students and teachers, with a focus on how teachers could integrate WASH into their curricula.
• A Living Waters for the World water filtration system, which was housed in newly-built infrastructure; accompanying training was provided to ensure the community could maintain system upkeep.
• An organic school garden and accompanying educational program, whereby the school could both access food from the garden for school lunches, and leverage the garden as a living classroom to train students in agriculture.
• A rabbit house and accompanying educational program to train students in animal husbandry.
• New latrine infrastructure to support the growing student body.
• Homeschool during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Housing infrastructure for teachers who do not live in the area.
• The installation of solar energy, bringing electricity to the school for the first time.
• A Digital Learning Center with computers and internet access, as well as additional projection, internet, and computer capabilities in every classroom block. The Digital Learning Center provides the school with a small revenue stream, as KEC maintains a cell-phone charging area and an “internet cafe” for paid users.
• A satellite TV, screen, and speakers, which allows KEC to screen movies and sports games as an additional small revenue stream.
• The lease of farmland to enhance a school feeding program, which began with the organic school garden, rabbit houses, and donations of corn and soybean flour from the NAI soybean project. With new land, KEC now plants its own corn and soybeans and has built more coops for rabbits as well chickens, for both meat and eggs. The new land is similarly used as a living classroom to teach students about farming and animal husbandry.
• A music, dance, and drama initiative, whereby the school is equipped with both traditional and contemporary instruments.