Background

Kimmi Island is a small island in the Ugandan part of Lake Victoria, less than half a square kilometre in size and home to around 5,500 people. It lies a 2-to-3-hour boat ride from the mainland, without a power grid, piped water or reliable public services, and most families depend on fishing for their income.

In October 2017, a fire broke out during the night and destroyed almost everything on the island, including homes, livelihoods and the island's only health clinic. Without insurance and with little support from the government, the community was left to rebuild largely on its own.

Since then, together with local partners, the Green Ambassadors club has been working on community-led restoration of the island and it's livelihoods. The approach has been practical, focusing on a small number of concrete needs at a time to rebuild the island step-by-step.

Read more about the fire here.

What progress has been made since the previous fundraiser?

The fundraiser we held in 2023, raised 385 euros (UGX 1.651.265) and contributed towards making the island's health clinic functional again. Before then it was not operating at all; now it receives supplies every two weeks, so that islanders have access to basic health care needs. The dead trees across the island were also replaced with new ones. It was a modest amount of money, but it made a visible difference. Thank you sincerily towards everyone who contributed.

What will you contribute towards?

With the clinic running and the island greener, the part of the restoration that still remains is education. Kimmi's only primary school continues to operate from a fragile structure, and the children learn without many of the basics that most schools take for granted.

This year's fundraiser is deliberately focused towards this. The funds will go towards two things: learning materials for island's children, such as books, pens and exercise books, and the construction of clean sanitation for the island's inhabitants. Better sanitation reduces the spread of disease and therefore imrpoves the island's general health.

Rebuilding the school entirely is a longer-term goal that the Green Ambassadors Club is pursuing through larger partnerships, and it is beyond what a fundraiser like this can achieve on its own. What a donation does is more immediate: it puts learning materials directly into children's hands and clean toilets on the ground this year.

Any amount helps, and sharing the page with people who might care helps just as much.