A Rare Pearl of Great Worth

We can sometimes focus too narrowly on our home on our nation on West Africa. While doing some research on rural development we stumbled across the most amazing model for success. It is from our brothers and sisters to the east. Once upon a time Uganda was referred to as the Pearl of the African continent. Certainly some of the luster was spoiled through events of the recent past. But the people can not be kept down. We found a rare Pearl of great worth in the field of transformative rural development training. So marvelous we had to share.

From the grass roots up The Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme (URDT) is an indigenous civil society organization located in the Kibaale District in Uganda.

Please note the geography. This program is far from Uganda's capitol. URDT is located in the small town of Kagadi in the Kibaale District, about 180 miles northwest of Kampala. From the beginning in 1987, the founders were not looking for the easy thing, but rather as they say, "the toughest challenges" They settled on he Kibaale District would be ideal because it offered a combination of the toughest development challenges:

High infant mortality, high maternal morbidity, low literacy levels and rampant poverty. The three counties in the Kibaale District were so-called "lost counties" that had suffered a century of neglect because of disputes over land titles and governance. The district was multi-ethnic, with more than ten tribes making up the population of 416,000. The district was very rural, with poor roads, no electricity or phones. There were no NGOs, except for churches.
For twenty years they have experimented in "visionary" rural development methodology, building its rural development program in a demand-driven way, working collaboratively with communities to determine their needs and priorities.

URDT's mission is to facilitate self-generated development in rural communities. URDT delivers on this mission by combining development projects with education and training so that skills and knowledge remain resident with people as they organically change the quality of their lives.

Follow this link for more on the URDT: http://www.urdt.net/default.html

We could use this in Liberia. EarlyBird endorses the URDT model for rural training and development.

EarlyBird