We volunteered 10 days at the lake Bunyonyi Eco-Village in Uganda. The lake Bunyonyi Eco-village is registered as a Community-based Organization since 2011. It is a remote village with no running water neither electricity. One that lives there drinks the water from the lake and enjoy the light of the sun. During our 10 days of volunteering there, we closely worked with Isaac, the founder, on different projects among which the creation of his website, classes for the orphans, construction, harvesting and planting. Of course, in 10 days we had the chance to discover the project in-depth, we really became part of their everyday life, working on their side and contributing to their development. It was a great experience especially on the human side as the friends we made on the lake are very sincere and compassionate persons. This article is to present their project, their work and our humble learning from this adventure. This is a beautiful story about environment protection, orphans protection and Eco-tourism. We hope you will enjoy the journey as much as we did. A guided tour of the Eco-village aAs we arrived in Kabale, the closest city to the lake, we took a boat for around 45 minutes to Isaac's place. The Eco-village is located directly on the lake and we enjoy an incredible view from the Eco-houses made of wood and mud. We started exploring the village, which is made of different areas with various houses. The first area we visit is Isaac's which has one house for volunteers, one for Isaac, one for Paul, one for Isaac's brother, a kitchen and a patio with a table for dinner. Higher on the village there is an area for the orphans with two houses and a kitchen which are waiting to get finished and welcome young orphans. As we passed by this area there was a team building a boat to facilitate transportation of big groups from the village to the city. At the highest point of the village there is Isaac's sister and mother's area, where they live with four orphans. Besides them there is a new house being constructed to welcome sponsors (anybody contributing to the project and willing to visit the team). Isaac's brother Joshua lives down to the lake on the opposite side of Isaac's. He built a little village inside the village, where he welcomes tourists in three cute little huts, a kitchen and different leisure facilities: a fitness area with a boxing punching ball, a yoga and meditation area, a bar with little tables, and a gate for the boats to welcome the tourists directly to Joshua's place. In-between these areas there are vegetable gardens and many fruit trees. In the gardens they grow mainly potatoes, pumpkins, lettuce and spinach. The different fruit trees are banana, avocado, guavas... There are also beautiful giant cactus trees. Most interestingly, Isaac showed us many different indigenous trees around which he explains the numerous medicinal properties. One ambition is to create a giant botanical garden around the village to reforest the island and save indigenous species of trees that can heal the communities and preserve ancestral medicinal knowledge. There are also some animals at the farm like goats and cows. Moreover, we can observe an incredible amount of beautiful birds of all colors. Lake Bunyonyi is home to more than 300 species of birds among which the crested cranes, magnificent big birds emblem of the Ugandan flag. How it all began ,Isaac is the founder of the Lake Bunyonyi Eco-Village together with his brother Joshua and a dozen of organization members, mostly family and friends of the community. Isaac and Joshua grew up at the lake Bunyonyi in a natural environment. At some point they realized that their environment was endangered by pollution and bad exploitation of resources caused by conventional mass tourism, plastic waste being abandoned in the nature, deforestation, water pollution, etc. Moreover they could observe the local communities suffering from the new state of their environment. People at the lake have close to none employment opportunities, difficult access to land due to absence of financial resources, and family instability issues and sicknesses especially the proliferation of HIV. Having studied tourism, Isaac naturally felt he should face these issues with a different way of making tourism that respects the nature and the people. Soon he started to engage in the orphans' cause, by welcoming orphans from his community to his project and built up on the project to support their education. Besides that, he is motivated to practice responsible agriculture and to re-forest his region with native trees which can help maintain the soil and have great medicinal properties. Missions and values at Bunyonyi Eco-village The team is very enthusiastic and ambitious, as they want to change the world, through environment preservation, orphans’ protection and Eco-tourism. Environment preservation The project originally developed as a small club to make friends and neighbors aware about the need for environment’s protection. Isaac and his team have been teaching people more responsible methods of planting trees, fruits and vegetables as well as how to dispose of plastic wastes. The goal was to educate everyone living at the lake about ways of living and working that respect our environment. Check here for more information. Orphans’ protection Many orphan children are suffering from the worst life conditions, being left alone, sometimes tortured. They are lacking everything and most of them cannot go to school. Children are the future, and therefore Isaac and his team strive to take care of them by welcoming them at the Eco-village and provide them with education. The community appreciates and supports our engagement because they recognize how crucial children are for the future of the communities. Check here for more information. Eco-tourism We started to encourage Eco-tourism by welcoming travelers at our eco-village. People who want to experience a natural and ecologic experience are welcome to visit for a retreat in the eco-cottages at the lake and in the tree-house in the forest, as well as for natural and traditional leisure activities. Check here for more information. There are many additional sanitary, ecologic and social issues that they want to address in order to offer their people and especially the orphans a better life:
How we contributed Our missions for the Eco-village were various and here are the milestones we achieved in 10 days:
We wish them all the best with this initiative. How to supportYou like what you read and you want to get involved? There are many ways to help the lake Bunyonyi Eco-Village: Learn more As part of our volunteering activities with the Eco-village, we built a website to help them promote their work, as well as receive donations and visitors, and attract more volunteers. You can find it by clicking on the button below:
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