Aid Africa

Recently we also produced a total of 34 portable commercial stoves. We installed two fixed stoves with a chimney designed and made a prototype for a chimney stove. The chimney stove is performing very well and we are sampling a few selected households in the community to see how much difference can be felt of the particulate matter (PM) arising from wood fuel usage in a rocket stove with a chimney. Due to the high cost associated with inviting a testing Laboratory (CREEC) to Gulu we are designing a portable rocket stove with chimney to be to taken to Kampala for testing.

To learn more about our stove program visit aidafrica.net

This summer we added 10 more breadfruit trees to the existing 13 trees, totaling 23 breadfruits trees at the tree nursery! We are excited to continue watching them grow!

Read the flyer to learn more about our breadfruit tree program.

Recently we have drilled two wells serving 332 homes with a total population of 1,992 people! We also repaired 8 boreholes serving a total population of 9,570 people!

To learn how to get involved with our water projects, visit aidafrica.net 💦🌍🇺🇬

A stove update:

Last month we repaired 22 stoves at St. Mary’s hospital, maintained 10 stoves at Awach, repaired firing kilns and the drying rack, laid 1036 bricks for commercial stoves, and delivered 8 trips of saw dust to the brick site. More updates to come on our new stove prototype with a chimney!

Recently I returned from a vacation in northern Minnesota. It was a challenging four days and three nights of canoeing in the Boundary Waters wilderness. There were MANY mosquitoes and difficult portaging trails. After the adventure was over, I woke up in a very comfortable bed at a hotel, thankful for an indoor bathroom, clean running water, and a cooked breakfast awaiting me produced without a smokey fire. I felt so relieved to be back in civilization, but began to cry realizing the villagers in Uganda endure “camping” every night: sleeping on the hard floor of a mud hut; having to go outside to use the latrine; enduring smokey cooking fires; having to create clean drinking water; fearing g physical accidents as there’s no doctor for miles; and constantly battling mosquitoes - only the kind that can kill from malaria infections. Me and my friends felt we had it rough for three nights and we had modern outfitting equipment to ease our strife. Rural Ugandans get a wilderness camping experience every day and night without REI equipment.

My summer vacation allowed me to get away from my regular duties to clear my head. In the process I was given lessons I hope will increase my resolve to promote Aid Africa’s vital projects to ease suffering. I hope your summer vacation blessed you with insights, too. - Nancy Bacon, Executive Director

A big THANK YOU to everyone who came to our fundraiser in Bakersfield to support Aid Africa!! The evening was filled with great community and fun as we raised money to provide clean water, build stoves, plant trees, and provide live saving healthcare to those in Northern Uganda!

It is not too late to sign up for our newsletters & become a monthly donor!

Last day to bid on our auction or purchase raffle tickets. Winners will be chosen tomorrow evening. Use your phone to capture the QR code on the invitation with this post. Good luck for a good cause!

Have you ever wanted to spend the week in either Scotland or Kauai on vacation? Or perhaps you like riding horse at a dude ranch in California. Any of these great adventures could be yours at our upcoming fundraiser on Thursday, May 30th. Aid Africa has been given some wonderful prizes to auction off. You need not be present to win!! Use your phone to frame the QR code on this posted invitation and it will take you to the website Give Butter to bid on a week in Scotland or Kauai, or two nights at Rankin Ranch. Motor City has also gifted us with a Lexus for a weekend, plus we have two nights at a lovely hotel, or a gondola package for six at Newport Beach. You can purchase raffle tickets for these additional items. Your donations go to help fund vital projects that Aid Africa does in Uganda, like drilling wells, replacing harmful cookstoves, planting trees, and providing healthcare to some of the poorest people on the planet. Thank you for considering a donating to Aid Africa and good luck if you make a bid or buy some raffle tickets!!

We miss being with the staff at Aid Africa, but since leaving, we have enjoyed seeing the amazing animals of Uganda. It’s been a great humanitarian trip! Come and join us next time!!

Our work with aid Africa is done for the week. We celebrated with our third annual staff & visitors football match and picnic. The staff has some great players and it was a joy! Come along and join us as a guest sometime!

Aid Africa uses medical personnel from government health clinics to bring care to rural villages that are too far away from the clinics to walk. We serve hundreds of people each time.

I can’t describe how wonderful today was. We hosted a health clinic in a village and villagers kept coming and coming. We had several different stations for vaccinations, malaria and HIV testing, blood pressure, medications, and menstrual health. We’ve been learning about reusable menstrual pads, but Deborah Quigley
joined us and introduced us to reusable cups that can last ten years! Women were excited to learn about them and to receive their own.

Today was tree distribution day at a village near Gulu. We distributed 1,650 trees, with each family getting 2 soursop, 2 jackfruit, 2 lemon, 2 mango, 4 non-fruit bearing trees, and I can’t remember if we had oranges this time or not. Lindsay Million was a tree distribution rock star! Aid Africa sets a goal of distributing 40,000 trees per year and demonstrates how to plant and care for them. Happy Beyond Earth Day!

Today we visited a well sponsored by Bob and Carol Wall’s Whidbey Island Sunrise Rotary Club.
Like many villages, they had never had a well before. For years and years, they had to walk to a very dirty creek, bend down, scoop away the moss and and carry the water back to their village. Try carrying 10 or 20 liters sometime…on your head. It’s heavy! The well has changed their lives.

Perhaps the most touching thing today was seeing a thirsty little 14 month old boy, Isaiah, come to drink at a well sponsored by some of my friends back home. Previously, the boy would have gotten water from the dirty water source pictured, and risked illnesses. He is perfectly healthy getting his thirst quenched at this Aid Africa well. Such a blessing to him and his village!

Today we visited the breadfruit tree that Susan Wood planted a couple years ago in Gulu. It has baby breadfruits on it! Our guests also learned about grafting mango trees and tried their hands at it. A “jump” test demonstrates if the grafting was successful, as you can hold the tree from its top and the bottom won’t jump off. Way to go Lindsay and Debz!

Today we saw a prototype of a new stove model we hope to build with chimneys! It worked great, and will be healthier for families. Our guests visited our brick site to learn about our energy efficient stoves, bricks, and different models. Ours have received stellar ratings on energy efficiency.

The average woman menstruates 3000 days in her lifetime. Impoverished women around the world cannot afford disposable feminine hygiene products. Girls often stop attending school due to embarrassment and limited options. Aid Africa is getting involved with the organization Days for Girls to increase the distribution of reusable sanitary products. Our laisson, Susan Wood, has become a certified seamstress and educator. We visited the headquarters in Kampala.

Under a bright full moon, Susan Wood and I arrived in Doha, Qatar for the evening, en route to Entebbe, Uganda tomorrow. The photo of the ground is one of many outdoor vents for air conditioning an outdoor mall and gathering place. It’s lovely here in April, but would be melting in the summer. Looking forward to seeing Lindsay Million tomorrow in Uganda!

Our annual Aid Africa fundraiser is at Imbibe (Bakersfield, CA) on May 30th!

If you cannot attend, you are not to worry! We have raffle tickets for sale for two really cool prizes! One is a two night stay at a Sonder Hotel in Southern California, with a Lexus courtesy of Motor City! You can separate the car and hotel, or use the same weekend. The other is a gondola ride in Long Beach for up to 6 people! You may as well consider it Venice, Italy!
Just click on the link to purchase your raffle tickets today! OR, check out our auction- a week in a Scotland Airbnb!

Join us at Imbibe Wine and Spirits on May 30, 2024 Help us raise funds for men, women, and children in Uganda!

An amazing testimony from a stove recipient:

My name is Akello Nighty and I am 22 years old, I live in Parabongo Village where I got married just 2 years ago. lused to cook at my mother's place with a stove from Aid Africa. When I got married Aid Africa's stoves were not available in the area of Parabongo. I found difficulties cooking with the traditional open fire stove and could no longer enjoy it. It was hard to breathe with all the smoke indoors. It made me feel sick, and it required a lot of firewood for the cooking
Getting firewood is so hard; one has to walk about 5-7 km to Guru-Guru Hill to get wood and it can be dangerous with snakes and other animals. Cutting wood is also hard work and it was a daily job, taking
time away from my farming, my livelihood. Fortunately, Aid Africa recently visited our village and we received materials and training to build their stoves. Together, they worked with us and we all have new stoves. I was so happy because I knew its benefits. You can see how happy I am cooking with ease now. I have left the tradition open fire stove, see now no smoke, less firewood and now I have more time for my farm work. I am so grateful to Aid
Africa. Thank you.

If you visit villages surrounding Gulu, Uganda, you will see many beautiful fruit trees that were once seedlings in Aid Africa's tree nursery. This particular papaya was given to Amono Agnes who lives in the village of Oding in Gulu District. Agnes describes how this tree and soursop from Aid Africa have improved her family's lives. Agnes says, "I have a daily customer who buys fruit from me and I managed to sell fruits in two seasons. This allowed me to pay school fees for the little ones and to put nearly 10,000 Ushs into savings each week during harvest. With income from fruit, I managed to start a small business of selling cooking oil, salt, and beans. I want to thank Aid Africa for this great support. I pledge that my life will never be the same again. I am inspired and motivated to plant more trees in the next coming season.” (10,000 Ushs ~ $2.60)

Happy 2024! Aid Africa is excited for the New Year and new opportunities to serve the communities of Gulu, Uganda.

If in your reflection of 2023 you find something missing in your life, please consider helping Aid Africa provide the women and children in the remote villages of Uganda with clean burning stoves, clean drinking water and get medical attention they need.

Thank you for your support!

In 2023, one of our board members was able to help repair a broken water well that supports an entire village. How cool was that!

We celebrate our amazing Aid Africa Team for the incredible work they did this year to produce and distribute Clean Air Stoves to the people of Uganda. This year they supported the women entrepreneurs of “African Women Rising” by training 15 separate groups of women (108 women total) in Gulu, Omoro, and Lamwo Uganda. Their good works produced and distributed 102 clean air stoves for the people of Uganda.

Visit us at www.aidafrica.net and see how you too can support clean air stoves for the women and children of Uganda.

2023 has been an exciting and productive "Clean Water" year for Aid Africa. Our Ugandan Aid Africa Team is finishing the year by drilling three shallow wells and building one sheltered spring. The wells and sheltered spring will provide clean drinking water for over 320 village households with a total estimated population of children, women and men of 1,950.

Aid Africa leads the country in bringing clean drinking water to Uganda. For only $2,000, Aid Africa can provide a new clean drinking water source to villagers who need it most. Please visit our website at www.aidafrica.net and see how you can support clean drinking water for the communities in Gulu, Uganda.

Thank you Nellis Air Force Base for hosting us today! “Give Happy” on Giving Tuesday at aidafrica.net

It’s Giving Tuesday! Whitney and I are at Nellis Air Force Base participating in the Combined Federal Campaign for charities. The theme this year is “Give Happy.” Federal employees or retirees can donate a portion of their pay to GiveCFC.org and click donate. We encourage giving to Aid Africa. Non-Federal employees can donate directly at aidafrica.net. Thank you!

We briefly visited a home that was using a stove that was not one of ours by Aid Africa. The smoke and the smell lingered with us long after we left. It was awful. We all wanted to shower to get rid of the odor. I can’t image living and sleeping in that smoke. Our stoves are a huge improvement in living conditions. We also repaired a well that was not be of ours. Aid Africa maintains their own first, but prioritizes other well repairs based on need. Women carry heavy water daily. If you look at their feet, their arches have fallen. Many get neck and back injuries. Aid Africa seeks to bring clean water closer to those in need.