Mapping Of The Agriculitural Fields

FCIT students were informed after the first visit that they were to go back to Nakasongola in a few days time to map the agricultural fields, trading centers, water bodies, proposed production sites, grinding mills, factories, roads and other market places. This could not happen right away because we never had enough skills in mapping.
Save The Children and it's partners organized for the training to take place and it was approved that Geographical Information Systems training had to start on 06-July-2009. The training was scheduled to be conducted with in two weeks, 3 hours per day. We started the training at 2 pm from the GIS lab at FCIT. ARCGIS is the application software that we were trained about and for real all our sessions were good because Mr. Wycliffe our instructor allowed us to practice out using Wakiso district map layers he had got from UBOS. Before the training had gotten to its end, SCiUg requested that we first get to the ground to collect some sample information. This required us to have good knowledge of using Global Positioning Systems(GPS) for taking satellite coordinates of a specific point(Longitudes and Latitudes).FCIT did not have many GPS' although we were taught how use the available few. On Thursday 9th we left for Nakasongola and mapped only two sub-counties with in two days. The group leader of each group had move with us through the plantations of the different farmers in each group because we feared that some could think that we were trying to steel the products and land. All in all, this is about the first mapping sessions.

THE SECOND VISIT

The food science group left for nakasongola on Wednesday 22^nd July 2009 at 8.00 am and reached nakasongola town at 11.00am where we had some refreshments and later lunch. At 2.00pm, different student groups left for there respective farmer groups.

First visit; to zibula atudde farmers group

We visited zibula atudde group in kyankonwa on Wednesday 22^nd July 2009 at 2.30pm.we arrived at Mr,Matovus home the groups marketing officer but the members had not arrived yet but were later called and the meeting kicked off with a prayer from one of the farmers.

We displayed the different products we had developed which included cassava crisps, sweet potatoes cookies, hard corn, and bagiya and packed roasted g.nuts which they tasted and appreciated. The members discussed about the different products and the availability of raw materials at the time and finally the majority chose to start with the sweet potato enterprise. They chose Mr. Matovus home as the center for production because it is easily accessible to most of the farmers. We later told the farmers that we will be coming back soon to start the oven construction and production. The meeting was closed by the chairperson at 4.30 pm and we went back to nakasongola town.

Second visit; to kyamasanda farmers group in kakooge

On our second day Thursday 23^rd July 2009 at 8.00am we left to meet our second group in kokooge, we reached at 9.00am and also like the first group we found only one person at Mr.Sulas home the meeting place. The meeting was opened by a prayer from one of the farmers, we first displayed the dried pineapples which was the only product we had for that group since they refused to deal in other foods except pineapples yet we could not produce for them juice and jam because they have a water problem. But later we displayed the other products we had developed for the other group and they did taste them.

They chose Mr.Kayizzi’s home as the place of production because it was big, had direct sunshine, was near a water source and had grass. We also accepted because it met our production and drying specifications. The meeting was closed; we went and visited Mr.Kayizzi’s home and later went back to nakasongola town, had lunch and later left for Kampala at 3.30pm.

Other Nakasogola experiences

On our arrival in Nakasongola, we were asked to move arround the town and get some knowledge about the living standards of the people which we did. The town is so quiet and traffic jam free although the streets are a bit busy. The streets are all mostly occupied by young people between the age of 2 to 10 and actually the ratio of the young to the old is like 3:1 which puts Save the children is the right place.