Challenger Profile at a Glance
Meet the Trinity Forestry Services team from Uganda, challengers in the 2020 International Climate Action Challenge! Find out how they are making a difference by getting people involved in urban farming within the slum communities of Kamwokya, near Kampala.
Team
#74 – Trinity Forestry Services Ltd
90-Day Challenge Goal: Train people in the slum area on vertical gardening
Location: Kamwokya, Kampala, Uganda
Registered Challengers: Christopher Marvin Tumusiime, Brenda Namubiru
90-Day Challenge Period: September 1 – November 30, 2020
Impact
Here are some impact highlights from the Trinity Forestry Services team during the 90-day challenge period:
Worked with 67 beneficiaries in the slums area of Kamwokya, focusing on youth and women
Started 20 new gardens: 1 hub, 7 large gardens, 12 small gardens
Started 3 successful teams: PotMorre Team in Kifumbira Zone, Columbia Base team in Chamuka Zone, Eden Team in Muluuta zone
Introduced job opportunities including vegetable vendors, plastic bottle collectors, local organic fertilizer making and soil preparation
Launched a GoFundMe campaign by partnering with Green Team Academy
Challenge Experience
During the challenge period, the Trinity team faced many obstacles. With dwindling resources, the team lost many of its members and participants to a larger well-funded organization.
However, the Trinity founders remained strong, believing in their mission. With funding from an individual donor, they were able to purchase seeds and tools. And through the generosity of contributors to the GoFundMe campaign, the team was able to purchase a refurbished PC and they redoubled their efforts.
“The 2020 International Climate Action Challenge has been so helpful to us as Trinity Forestry Services, in our journey,” said Christopher Marvin Tumusiime, Trinity’s founder and CEO. “We have always been mentored, given us a platform for showcasing our project, through project profiling, GoFundMe fundraising campaign, and also the summit.”
Next Steps
Moving forward, Trinity plans to create a demonstration farm and nursery that will create over 300 jobs. Christopher explains the project:
“We have been advantaged that we were able to be given land in Luwero District about 40 km from Kampala of 2.5 acres where we plan to establish a start of the art nursery so as to have a continuous supply of quality seedlings to our beneficiaries, also raise our own seedlings for revenue generation to sustain the initiative operations. We also plan to establish a demonstration facility for urban farming and a training center for urban farming technologies so that we are able to carry out on-farm trainings, have a venue and administrative center.
“We plan to spread out to other communities with urban settings, train more members so as to train others, and we are confident that our model of building teams will enable us grow a bigger number of direct beneficiaries within one year.
“We call for support on our plan of setting up the nursery and demonstration farm, we need assets like structures that is to say, training structures, working shades, worker shelters, Nursery requirements and gardening equipment.”
Advice
We asked Christopher, what is your advice for someone who wants to make an impact? Here’s what he said:
“Stay focused, determined, and never give up. For initiatives like this, you need to be strong that challenges don’t put you down and just know everything is possible as long as you remain positive.”
GoFundMe
Green Team Academy is partnering with Trinity Forestry Services with an initial goal to help raise $1,000 by March 31, 2021. Can you help us? Every little bit counts!
Visit the Trinity Forestry Services GoFundMe Page
Connect
Want to get involved? Contact the team to participate as a member or partner to help make the nursery and demonstration far a reality, to provide opportunities for the residents of Kamwokya and beyond.
Facebook: @trinityforestryservices
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