Seeds For Life - Bududa Landslides

ROGER MORGAN - Founder/Chairman of Steelheart International Foundation, has been working with Uganda for over six years, to help fill the insatiable demand for affordable housing, food security, safe water and sanitation for millions of people who lack some or all of the above.  For the past three years, he has teamed with Brenda Salira, an exceptional person who has spent the last six years of her life trying to do the same for people from her region who lost everything owing to a series of landslides.  At the point of writing has recruited over 500 families into an Ag Co-Op. Each of these families have been given 2.5 acres of land to farm by the government.  But they have no resources for seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and equipment to get started; nor do they have a house for safe shelter.  By providing a helping hand up front, you can help these people achieve food security and elevated levels of income.  With income, Steelheart will have the basis to provide safe, affordable houses, such as the EcoShell shown below.  We just need your help to get it started. 


Here is Brenda’s story.

BRENDA B. SALIRA   – CEO & Founder of Ndikyo.  In 2010, following a 7 year career with Marriott International, Brenda started Travel Galore.  Soon afterwards, with the onslaught of deadly landslides that killed and displaced hundreds of her kinsmen and family in the Mt. Elgon Region, she embarked on the Ndikyo project, with a focus on Community Engagement, Agribusiness, Low Cost Housing and Voluntourism. Together with Roger Morgan and Steelheart International Foundation, (501c3), the goal is to bring hope, sustainable aid, restoration and a path to a bright future for families that have lost everything.

The Bududa district landslide of 1 March 2010 wiped out three villages, and was the most severe ever recorded in Uganda.  Only 92 bodies were recovered out of the 365 that were buried.  Only 31 people survived. The area has consecutively been affected by landslides through 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017 destroying lives and property. There is still risk of major future landslides due to the annual heavy rains the area is prone to facing.  Coupled with the increased population and cultivation of land for food causing cracks on the mountains, there is need to resettle over 100,000 people living in the risk prone districts of Bududa, Bulambuli and Sironko.

Lack of Housing

Says Brenda, “When I first saw this house in Bududa village at the Kiryandongo site where government resettled the first 608 victims of the landslides in 2010, my first thought was ‘Do people really live in that?


"And when I saw a woman crawl out of this tent with 5 children and a husband in tow, my next question was, "Really, for how long will they live in that tent? Can’t they build a house?"


"But when I saw the houses built by some of the families that were not in the lucky lot of the 279 houses built by Government and Habitat for Humanity, i finally was lost for words."

Providing a New Life
Looking at the resettled community in Kiryandongo and listening to their stories of loss of loved ones and property, being uprooted from their homes and having to start life afresh in harsh conditions, a dry land with no trees, no houses, a borehole serving families in a 50 hectare radius, 1 health center and primary school serving over 2000 families, it is no wonder that the 100,000 people still at risk of landslides on the mountain slopes are reluctant to be resettled, and even if they wanted to move, help is slow in coming over 8 years and counting.

A Hand Up For a Sustainable Future

My quest has been finding a way of helping these families, not just by giving them a hand out, but a hand up, sustainable aid that will go a long way in saving lives and ending the cycle of poverty. And so through dedication, charisma, determination, and personal sacrifice, the Ndikyo team have inspired the hopeless community to rise up out of their despair, to be the roots of their own development, to put the little resources they have to use, and we have been successful in helping them set up an agricultural cooperative of over 500 families, where each family is to set aside 1.5 acres of their hectare of land given by government, for communal commercial farming.

Ndikyo has identified a long term large scale market for Millet grain production for the Cooperative, but with no savings and collateral to access loans for inputs of seeds, fertilizers, equipment and technical support for the families, we are on the verge of missing this opportunity of a lifetime, as the planting starts the month of February with land preparation.

You can get a copy of our Seeds for Life Millet Production costs and timelines on this link from the Ndikyo Website .

Estimated Cost of Production of Millet Per Acre/Projected Income
With seed capital of only $285 per family per acre, these 500 families will be able to earn $2,000 each every year.
This money, with the help of Steelheart International Foundation, will provide low cost housing, clean water, sanitation, power, roads, schools, clinics, churches, et al.

But above all, from their profits, they will also sow a seed of $285 into another of the 100,000 families at risk and in need of resettlement, thus carrying on the cycle of life, from the roots..... up!

Donations of any size are appreciated towards the seed capital per family. Donations of $1,000 or more can be treated as a 5 year loan to Steelheart International Foundation accruing interest at 3.5% p.a.

Thank you and God bless you for helping improve the lives of these people.