Brandon Live!

Less than three weeks remain until I depart for Uganda!  I finally got our team’s official blog set up a couple nights ago, and you should see posts from the whole team popping up very soon.  I’ll be making more posts there (and here) about the trip as it gets closer, and while we’re there you’ll be able to track our progress and experiences via the official blog (hopefully I’ll make it into the town with internet access every few days). 

Where I’ll be:  Our team will be based in the village of Mafubira, a few miles from the town of Jinja, in Southeastern Uganda, on the shores of Lake Victoria and the Nile River.

What I’ll be doing:  Of the three teams we’re splitting into, mine will be focused on researching sustainable income projects for STAO and the village.  I will also be undertaking an effort to provide technology assistance for STAO and the school (which will be especially interesting since my understanding is that there isn’t yet a real “school” in the traditional sense, ie. with a building or even a classroom to speak of).

How can you help?  

1. Donate money.  Donating to our project budget will greatly help most all of our efforts, including HIV testing for the kids, immunizations, construction of additional orphanage housing, school supplies, and more.  Please donate through this link so that your contribution is allocated appropriately to the trip budget.  All donations go to Tusubira (a registered 501(c)3) and are tax deductible.  Some employers, like Microsoft, will even match your donation!
2. Donate supplies.  We are limited by the airline in what we can carry with us, but believe me that we are going to squeeze as much into our bags/boxes as we can!  Specifically, my efforts could really make use of any working laptop computers (they don’t have to be particularly modern to be useful) that we can use for the lab I’m going to set up.  I also will need some local networking equipment (switches, cabling, etc), USB flash memory devices, and laptop locks for securing them to tables/desks/etc.
3. Subscribe to our blog
4. Tell others about our cause.
5. Keep our team in your thoughts and prayers during our journey.