Ubuntu Village | August 2026 Newsletter

What We Plant Now.

Dear Friends, Partners, and Everyone Walking This Journey With Us,

Three months ago, we told you about the first families to receive solar home systems in Uganda. Since then, we have not stopped. Three groups. Twenty-four homes. Twenty-four families who no longer watch the sun go down wondering what the darkness will cost them.

But this month, we want to talk about something else alongside the light. We want to talk about seeds.

August has been a month of planting — not just in the ground, but in the future. New initiatives are taking root. The solar work continues. And the question driving everything we do remains the same: what does a community need to sustain itself long after we leave?

The answer, as always, begins with the soil beneath our feet.

Solar Initiative | Month 4 of 10

Twenty-Four Homes Lit. The Fourth Group Is Next.

Our partnership with BrightLife Uganda continues into its fourth month. Three groups of families have now received donated solar home systems — twenty-four homes total. In September, the fourth group of eight families will receive their kits.

The impact of these systems has not diminished with repetition. Each installation still carries the same weight — a child who can study past sundown, a caregiver who can see in the night, a family whose evenings are no longer defined by what they cannot do in the dark.

What we need you to know: maintaining this pace requires $900 per month that we do not yet have covered. The families are identified. BrightLife is ready. The only thing standing between the next group and the light is funding. If you can give monthly, even a small recurring gift keeps this initiative moving forward.

Food Sovereignty | Uganda

Seedlings in Cloth Bags: Growing What Communities Need Most

There is a particular kind of poverty that is hard to see from a distance: the inability to grow your own food. Not because the land refuses, but because the starting materials — seedlings, soil, containers — are out of reach. For communities in Uganda where we work, this is not a hypothetical problem. It is daily life.

Ubuntu Village is preparing to supply seedlings in gallon cloth bags to families who currently have no way to cultivate their own food. The crops we are starting with — amaranth (dodo), nakati, and African spider plant (enswiga) — are not chosen at random. They are indigenous to Uganda. They have been grown and eaten here for generations. And they are cut-and-come-again plants: you harvest the outer leaves, the center keeps growing, and a single planting produces food for months.

Cloth bags are portable, affordable, and allow communities to begin growing even without cleared farmland. Dodo and enswiga produce their first harvestable leaves in as little as two to three weeks. Nakati matures in about sixty days and can be picked multiple times from the same plant. All three resist local pests better than imported varieties. All three can be grown at home by anyone with a bag of soil and access to water.

Alongside the seedlings, we are providing monthly food baskets to ten families. Each basket costs roughly ten dollars per person at local Ugandan market prices and contains the staples a family actually cooks with: maize flour for posho, beans, rice, cooking oil, sugar, salt, tea leaves, dried silver fish (mukene) for protein, and a bar of soap. These are not imported items chosen from a catalog. They are what you would find in any market in the communities we serve — the foods families already know how to prepare, purchased at the prices their neighbors pay.

We need $2,000 to fund seedlings and food baskets for the communities we serve — ten families, every month. We are looking for partner funders — individuals or organizations who understand that food security is the foundation everything else is built on. If that is you, we want to hear from you.

Education

Isaac, Owen, and the Children Still Waiting

Ubuntu Village continues to send school and lunch supplies to Isaac and Owen — two young people whose education we are committed to supporting. Keeping children in school is never just about tuition. It is about the meals that keep them alert, the supplies that keep them engaged, and the consistency that tells a child: someone is paying attention to your future.

We know there are other children in the communities we serve who could benefit from the same support. If you are looking for a way to make a direct, sustained impact in a young person’s life, child sponsorship is one of the most powerful things you can do. Reach out to us to learn more.

New Initiative

Seed Bank Development: Preserving What the Land Already Knows

Later this year, Ubuntu Village will begin developing a community seed bank. A seed bank is more than storage — it is an act of memory. It preserves indigenous and locally adapted varieties that communities have cultivated for generations, ensuring that the knowledge held in those seeds is not lost to commercial monoculture or market pressures.

This initiative is in its early planning stages. We will share more as the work takes shape — timelines, community input, and the specific varieties we aim to preserve. As with everything Ubuntu Village does, we will not announce what we have not yet built. But we wanted you to know: the seeds of this work are already being planted.

New Initiative

Colon Health Screening: Preventive Care as Community Care

Ubuntu Village is planning to introduce colon health screenings for the communities we serve, with a target launch next year. Colorectal conditions are among the most preventable health challenges when caught early — and among the most devastating when they are not. In communities where preventive care is a luxury rather than a given, screening programs can mean the difference between a treatable condition and a crisis.

This initiative reflects Ubuntu Village’s broader commitment to public health as community infrastructure. We will share detailed plans, partnership opportunities, and community input as this program develops. For now, we name it because naming what is coming is part of the accountability we owe you.

Honest Reflection

The Gap Between What We Know and What We Can Fund

We will not pretend the math works when it does not. Right now, Ubuntu Village faces a funding shortfall across nearly every program we run. The solar initiative needs $900 each month to keep delivering on schedule. Seedlings and food baskets need $2,000 to reach the communities already waiting. More children could be in school if more sponsors stepped forward at $50 a month.

We know exactly what needs to happen. We know the families. We know the communities. We know the costs. What we do not yet have is the funding to close the distance between what we see and what we can deliver.

Looking Ahead

What September Holds

The fourth group of eight families in Uganda will receive their solar home systems, bringing us to thirty-two homes lit since the initiative began. BrightLife is ready. The families are identified. We need the funding to meet them.

We are also actively seeking partner funders for the seedling and food basket program. If you are an individual donor, a faith community, a civic organization, or a foundation that believes food sovereignty is worth investing in — this is an open invitation to walk with us.

Your Impact

Every Seed Needs Someone to Plant It

You are not watching this work from a distance. You are part of it. Every donation, every share, every conversation you have about Ubuntu Village extends the reach of what these communities can build for themselves. We are not here to rescue anyone. We are here to make sure the resources reach the people who already know what to do with them.

Our Foundation

The Spirit of Ubuntu

There is an old truth that holds all of this together.

A seed does not grow alone. It needs soil, water, sunlight, and the hand that places it in the earth. That is what we are doing together — not planting on behalf of communities, but making sure the conditions exist for what they already know how to grow. Solar kits, seedlings, school supplies, preventive health care — these are not gifts. They are investments in the self-sufficiency that every community deserves.

Thank you for being the soil. Thank you for being the rain. We will see you in September.

“I am because we are.” — Ubuntu

Ubuntu Village USA | August 2026