Our Impact
Before sending funds, Dominic and Lizzie discuss the priorities at KAASO and how your donations will deliver the greatest impact.
Our Impact
Before sending funds, Dominic and Lizzie discuss the priorities at KAASO and how your donations can deliver the greatest impact.
Our Governance
Unity is Strength has four trustees, Lizzie, Tom and Jane Hulton-Harrop, and Rob Havard (Lizzie’s financé). Before sending any funds, Lizzie requests budgets from Dominic Mukwaya, the Founder and Director of St Paul KAASO, to see where funds are needed. The trustees discuss these needs and, with Dominic, decide how the funds should be spent.
When the funds have been spent, Dominic sends the trustees a report and set of accounts detailing the expenditure. We have regular calls to discuss how things are going and how the projects are impacting the school and the wider community.
If you have any questions about Unity is Strength and/or would like to find out more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at info@unityisstrength.org.uk.
Photos from left clockwise: Rose Mukwaya, Jane Hulton-Harrop, Dominic Mukwaya, Tom Hulton-Harrop, Rob Havard, Dominic and Rose Mukwaya, Lizzie Hulton-Harrop.
Income-generating projects – The background
For as long as we have known KAASO, there have always been projects running alongside the school to subsidise its operating costs and help support the ever-growing number of students. While teachers have always used the projects as part of their lessons to bring learning to life, they were mainly run by Dominic and Rose with support from farm workers.
When COVID hit in 2020 and KAASO closed, Dominic had the brilliant idea to expand these projects and give the staff members the opportunity to get involved and earn some money while their teaching salaries stopped. This initiative started with a focus on generating income for those out of work, but it brought many additional benefits. The staff enjoyed working together, they were grateful to learn new skills in agriculture and financial management, and it gave them a sense of purpose and motivation at an incredibly difficult time.
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, Unity is Strength was able to provide funds to set up these projects.
Visiting in March 2023, seeing these projects in-person, and hearing about how they helped KAASO to open again after COVID was fantastic. What’s more is they are now a core part of working at KAASO. The impact has been immense.
The KAASO Staff Development Association
Following the success of the income-generating projects set up in 2020-21, the teachers and staff members at KAASO started a new project called the KAASO Staff Development Association (or KAASO-Dep for short), which issues microloans to individuals and groups working at KAASO to run small businesses to supplement their salaries.
Their vision is, “To create a society where workers have equal and sufficient economic and social opportunities to improve their standards of living and where they can contribute productively towards the overall development of the country.”
Individuals or groups are required to submit an application to the KAASO-Dep committee outlining what their project is, why they want to run it, and a breakdown of the costs. The committee, chaired by the wonderful Nurse Shiba, reviews the applications and decides which projects are granted loans. Each loan has a specified pay-back window with a small interest rate to ensure the initiative is sustainable, and loanees must have three guarantors in case they are unable to pay. As the loan is repaid, this money can then be allocated to another project, and so on.
We were delighted to see this initiative take shape. We, as an organisation, are reluctant to fund the maintenance costs of the projects and/or the school unless absolutely necessary as we never want to create a dependency on our fundraising. We are always working with the idea that if Unity is Strength stopped operating tomorrow, KAASO would not be negatively affected in any way.
So far, Unity is Strength has added £5,000 to the loan pot.
Lizzie and Nurse Shiba discussing the loan applications received so far (March 2023)
KAASO-Dep project examples: Brick-Making
The brick-making project offers an alternative activity for teachers to diversify their skills, support local infrastructure development, and generate an income.
Bricks have been sold on the local market in Kyotera and have made enough money for KAASO to buy, rather than rent, the land for it. This new land is on clay, which is perfect for brick-making. Furthermore, owning the land reduces the project’s fixed costs and gives greater security for its longevity. As well as selling the bricks locally, KAASO uses the bricks for its own construction projects, such as new school buildings.
Here’s a clip of Dominic at the brick-making site:
Dominic talks about the brick-making project (March 2023)
KAASO-Dep project examples: Chair Hire
For a long time, Dominic wanted to run a chair hire business as an extra income stream for the school. In early 2023, we sent a donation to enable KAASO to buy 1,000 chairs.
In Uganda’s dry seasons (June-August and December-February), there are community events happening nearly every weekend and there’s always a need for chairs, so they have a good market. The chairs have all been labelled and numbered, and a Hire Agreement is used for each customer.
The Chair Hire project is performing so well, funds raised from that are being added back into the ‘Loan pot’ rather than requesting additional funds from Unity is Strength. This shows the long-term sustainability of this initiative, something we are always working hard with Dominic and Rose to achieve.
The school truck carrying chairs to a local council function from KAASO
In the wet seasons, the chairs come in handy at KAASO in their new main hall. During our visit to KAASO in March 2023, it was ‘Prefect Campaigns’ week. There were 30 posts the students could run for including Head Boy, Head Girl, Timekeeper, Health and Sanitation, Water Prefect, and many more! Posters were put up around the school with campaign slogans and striking photos, and those in the running had the opportunity to explain to their peers why they should vote for them. Here’s a short clip of one student’s speech:
Prefect elections at KAASO
The benefits of KAASO-Dep
- The wellbeing of both staff and students has significantly improved, as they now
benefit from fresh produce from the gardens and farm. - Staff members have increased their earning potential, enhancing their overall
stability. - Fewer staff members are leaving KAASO in search of better-paying opportunities,
strengthening the community. - KAASO’s farm production has expanded, allowing them to produce more eggs,
livestock, bananas, coffee, and maize for both consumption and sale. - The brick-making project has gained popularity, with their high-quality clay bricks
proving to be stronger than others on the market. - Staff members have developed better saving habits, leading to visible personal
and professional growth. - Time is now used more productively—rather than frequenting local towns in the
evenings, many staff members focus on their personal projects after school. - The initiative has created employment opportunities for young people across the
area, further supporting the local community.
There are now 56 members of the KAASO Staff Development Association, 34 teaching staff and 22 non-teaching. 20 projects have been supported so far at a total cost of 21,850,000 UGX (approximately £4,600), including purchasing oxen, starting a piggery, developing a poultry project, growing crops, and brick-making. Nearly £3,000 has been paid back already.
For more information on each of the KAASO-Dep projects, please read this blog post. We are delighted to see the continued success of this initiative, particularly without needing further funds to be added to the loan pot by Unity is Strength.
Happy, healthy, consistent teachers and staff members are essential for delivering a top-class education for the students at St Paul KAASO.
Dominic’s caption: ‘Fatherly words of farewell to our beloved candidates of 2023.’
Impact of KAASO-Dep
Having the autonomy to design a project, apply for a loan, and earn additional income has been hugely positive for the teachers and staff members at KAASO. As well as increased economic independence, running these projects enables the teachers and staff members to advance their knowledge in a new discipline and collaborate with their colleagues in a different way.
Dominic reported that members were happier and more motivated in their school work. KAASO-Dep is run entirely by the committee at KAASO. Other than our due diligence, Unity is Strength is not involved in the group’s decision-making.
Land purchase
In autumn 2023, KAASO started to investigate buying a piece of land that Unity is Strength could help to purchase. On land owned by KAASO, they can establish projects such as coffee gardens, which Dominic Mukwaya the Founder and Director of KAASO, always describes as a ‘cashcrop’ in Uganda. Where they rent land, this is not possible as the owner only allows annual crops to be grown and there is always the worry that they may lose this land if the owner decides to end the lease. In this video Dominic explains the importance of owning land for their future security.
Towards the end of 2023, Teacher Enoch (who has worked at KAASO for many years) was appointed to identify a piece of land that may be suitable for KAASO to purchase. After a couple of false starts, a nine-acre piece of land was found at Luti village near Kyotera town (about 20 minutes’ drive from KAASO). It is near a water source and is accessible by car, and most importantly, it has a Land Title, which must be transferred to prove ownership.
Dominic produced a work-plan and budget for the land purchase, cultivation, and coffee planting, which totalled £19,899. Over the course of the 2024/25 year, Unity is Strength was able to cover this with support from individual donors and a grant from the Grail Society. The nine-acre piece of land was purchased in September 2024.
KAASO staff members surveying the land, December 2024
Purchasing the nine-acre piece of land is a huge step for KAASO – Dominic described it as the biggest project they have done. It will allow them to stop renting some land, which will be a big cost saving for them.
As well as coffee, they will grow lots of food on this piece of land. Coffee can be intercropped with bananas, cassava, beans etc. And when the coffee has just been sown, maize (corn) can be planted. This will help to provide some income in the first few years while the coffee plants are growing.
One of KAASO’s long-term aims is to increase the amount of food produced from their gardens to minimize the school’s expenditure on food. As some students at KAASO are orphans, Dominic and Rose are always trying to find ways to best support these children without incurring significant additional expenses. The income-generating projects like poultry, piggery, cattle, bee-keeping, fish farming, and gardens all help with this.
Teachers and staff members will also be able to plant seasonal crops on this land. The land will be managed by a group of staff members who are responsible for the school gardens led by Teacher Enock and Teacher Sarah.
Left: Lizzie Hulton-Harrop and Teacher Enock; Right: Teacher Sarah, March 2023
In December 2024, Dominic and the team at KAASO started preparing the land to plant the crops, the first being matoke bananas. This involved clearing shrubs off the land, digging holes for planting the banana suckers, adding manure to the land for fertilizer, weeding, digging trenches for water and manure retention on the land, and purchasing and planting the bananas.
Following this when the weather was right in early 2025, the first coffee seedlings were planted.
Thank you from Dominic and Rose
Without our supporters, none of the above would be possible. Thank you for your generosity and continued support. Webale nnyo nnyo nnyo! (Thank you very very very much in Luganda).
Here’s a message of thanks from Dominic and Rose.
Support St Paul KAASO
DONATE TODAYThese projects will become self-sustainable, but it is early days and there are still costs associated with each project. If you are able to make a donation to support these projects, we would be very grateful. Thank you.
Support St Paul KAASO
Donate today
These projects will become self-sustainable, but it is early days and there are still costs associated with each project. If you are able to make a donation to support these projects, we would be very grateful. Thank you.
