Plant nursery enterprise, Bidi Bidi

Bidi Bidi is the largest refugee settlement in the world today, where over 1 million displaced South Sudanese people have been offered the opportunity to settle in Northern Uganda.

As part of a joint initiative between Ugandan and international partners Sector39 have been invited to work with the Bidi Bidi community to trial permaculture training and to establish a network of training and demonstration sites there. More importantly we are also working to create a first generation of locally based permaculture teachers and practitioners who can facilitate the transition for all from refugees to settlers, living in resilient strong communities.

This GoFundMe project is specifically towards developing a nursery for plants that help regenerate degraded landscapes and this needs tending, watering and expanding to meet local needs.

Hi I'm Steve Jones, director of Sector39, a permaculture training organization based in Wales. We are working with Ugandan partners via a Norwegian agency to train new settlers to Uganda with permaculture design skills. 

The nursery we are seeking to raise funds for will really help the whole project develop, by generating plants that can restore degraded landscapes and creating enterprise opportunities for the refugees.

The aim is support new arrivals to Uganda to develop small service enterprises that will enable other refugees to settle in successfully and work the landscape in an ecologically creative way. Permaculture aims to build community, meet local needs and restore and enhance the natural world.

Pioneer trees, nitrogen fixers, timber and firewood trees for biomass, shade trees for gardens, fodder trees for livestock, fruit trees and more..

It costs about £2.00 a day currently for watering the the start up nursery and also work is being done voluntarily. Money raised by this fundraiser will enable our first nursery site at Nyumanzi VST center to develop and be able to offer plants and other resources to start-up enterprises from the refugee and host country communities in the area.

All of our Ugandan partners have gained their permaculture qualifications via Sector39 training , much of which has been supported by GoFundMe donors. We are really grateful for this support and this initiative is a direct product of that

We are training trainers, to train new trainers in permaculture and we want to be able to make sure the tools and plants needed are available to accelerate this process.