Piggery Grand Opening and Leaving Uganda (for now)

Since 2007, Lions Club Bergen Student have, in great collaboration with a number of other Lions Clubs in Norway and LCIF, been working towards building a piggery in Bushenyi. This is to increase the income of the Community Based Organization “Silent Voices”, an organization consisting of parents and carers of deaf children in the Bushenyi district. Silent Voices is raising awareness about deaf children and enhancing the education of deaf children. The piggery we’re building will both provide an income for the organization, but also raise each individual household of the members of Silent Voices. Because the pig farm will be run by the parents in Silent Voices, where they will learn how to look after pigs, feed them etc, etc, and when they’re done with that, they will get a piglet home, to have in their own household. Pretty sweet deal.

And last Saturday, on the 18. of July, something pretty awesome took place in Bushenyi. Silent Voices had their annual meeting on the site where the piggery will be built, and at the same time we also had The Grand Opening of The Piggery.

The different partners involved in the project and a Member of Parliament (!) all dug into the ground with a shovel as a ceremonial start of the project. The different partners also signed the Project Plan which states what each party is responsible for, what needs to be done when, etc etc. (The students from Norway situated in Bushenyi have been tirelessly working on finishing that plan over the last weeks).

The day was long and hot in the blazing sun, but it was also an exceptionally good day, with speeches, dancing, singing, a drama play and to great acclaim - four manly men from Norway dancing the traditional “halling”-dance.

In the evening on the same Saturday we attended Lions Club Busenyi’s (an important partner in the piggery project) Installation Ceremony where the new chair members got their new positions, and it looks like this Lionistic Year will be a good one!

Next morning, on Sunday we all left for Kampala where we are currently tying up loose ends and finishing up part II of evaluating this years AIM Programme. Today is in fact our last day in Uganda, we’re all leaving for Entebbe tomorrow and by Wednesday morning, we’ll all be back home. Sadly.