Partners in Uganda
Pockets of Dreams partners with individual seamstresses in Uganda through our local in-country administrator, Lamech Katamba. Mr. Katamba, who has a bachelors degree in Country Development and Micro Finance from Makerere University in Kampala, was thrilled to partner with Pockets of Dreams. Mr. Katamba stated, "I am happy to learn that you are actively helping individual women gain financial progress in their own lives. I share the same heart too".

Mr. Katamba selects partner seamstresses based on their current business success. He looks for women who have been in business at least 3 years, have a viable customer base and are in need of assistance to update equipment. Although not a requirement, seamstresses with school aged children of their own are preferred.

Mr. Katamba was introduced to Pockets of Dreams through our initial partnership with Dianna Eckhardt, a recent graduate of San Jose State University. Ms. Eckhardt's passion to provide opportunities to groups of people with a demonstrateable desire to change but who lack the resources to do so, led her to travel to Uganda for four months in 2007.

Through Dianna's partnership with The San Jose Rotary Group, Dianna worked with a local school and orphanage in the rural area of Kiryagonja, Uganda. She expanded its secondary curriculum, finished roofing the school buildings, opened a medical clinic to service both the children at the center as well as the community and increased AIDs education outreach in the region.
 

Uganda
Uganda, twice the size of Pennsylvania, is in East Africa. It is bordered on the west by Congo, on the north by the Sudan, on the east by Kenya, and on the south by Tanzania and Rwanda. The country lies across the equator with swampy lowlands, a fertile plateau with wooded hills, and a desert region. Lake Victoria forms part of the southern border.

Uganda’s Government
Uganda has a multiparty democratic republic. Under the terms of the constitution introduced in 1995, legislative power is in the hands of a unicameral parliament, with 292 members. Executive powers are held by the president, who is directly elected for a five-year term.

Since becoming independent in 1962, Uganda has experienced several coups and transfers of power. Yoweri Museveni, the current president, came to power in 1986. Museveni has transformed the ruins of prior leaders (Idi Amin and Milton Obote) into an economic miracle, preaching a philosophy of self-sufficiency and anticorruption. Western countries have flocked to assist him in the country's transformation. Nevertheless, it remains one of Africa's poorest countries.

Uganda has waged an enormously successful campaign against AIDS, dramatically reducing the rate of new infections through an intensive public health and education campaign

Uganda's 18-year-long battle against the brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), an extremist rebel group based in Sudan, showed signs of abating in Aug. 2006, when the rebels agreed to declare a truce. Between 8,000 and 10,000 children have been abducted by the LRA to form the army of “prophet” Joseph Kony, whose aim was to take over Uganda and run it according to his vision of Christianity. The boys are turned into soldiers and the girls into sex slaves. Up to 1.5 million people in northern Uganda have been displaced because of the fighting and the fear that their children will be abducted. Kony and four other LRA leaders are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Uganda’s Economy
Agriculture dominates the Ugandan economy, accounting for half of total output and employing over 80% of the workforce. Livestock rearing and a wide range of subsistence crops meet local needs; coffee is the main export commodity. Tobacco, tea, sugar cane and cocoa are also grown for export, and some processing of these is now carried out locally.

The industrial sector produces textiles, cement, fertilizers, metal goods and a variety of household items. There are large deposits of copper and cobalt, the mining of which has been disrupted by civil wars and insurgency.

The most pressing problem has been the country’s debt burden. Uganda has benefited from several cancellations of long-term debt under a program operated by the Paris Club of major donors and, more recently, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries relief program. Its total external debt now stands at just under US$4 billion. In exchange, the government has been obliged to introduce a series of economic reforms, principally the removal of price controls and trade restrictions and a reduction in government spending.