“If one person can change the world, why don’t more people do it?” proclaimed a poster announcing the visit to Boone last fall of Greg Mortenson, who helps Afghan and Pakistani villagers build dozens of girls’ schools.

We High Country folks have our very own world visionaries, Marian Peters and Tina Groover. They’ve made the village of Bulumagi, Uganda, in East Africa, their special place on earth. Tina, who teaches English at ASU, and Marian, founder-director of the Boone Community Care Clinic, spent a month in Uganda in 2006 with Global Volunteer Network. Marian, a physician’s assistant, treated patients in a rural health clinic. Tina presented talks on nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, and maternal-child health.

They convinced Valence Lutaisire, community organizer-founder of a grassroots nongovernmental organization, Youth Focus Africa Foundation (YOFAFO), to help with projects in Bulumagi. Valence enabled a team of village women to work on community development issues.

Tina and Marian found family and friends to sponsor forty children in school at $50 yearly for primary school and $120 for secondary. Fees cover uniforms, books, and paper.

Four sticks in the ground with a banana-leaf roof became “The Bank of Bulumagi,” home to a micro-finance project providing $50 loans to women to create businesses: a piggery, chicken hatchery, charcoal, tomato, banana, or used clothing shops. Sixty-five loans are out in the village. Women go to the “bank” weekly to pay back loans and deposit in savings accounts.

Forty-five percent of Ugandan children suffer from malaria. On 2009’s Mosquito Net Day, villagers, helped by Tina and Marian, could purchase subsidized mosquito nets to protect their families.

Armloads of children’s books brought to Uganda by Tina and Marian on their 2009 trip became the beginnings of a children’s library operated out of the home of Alice, one of the mothers.

Bulumagi’s children had never been five miles from their village to see the mouth of the Nile. The women organized a trip there in 2007 for the forty sponsored children and some mothers. The 2009 trip was to the Uganda Wildlife Centre in Entebbe, the airport, a playground, and a restaurant.

“Bricks and Books for Bulumagi” is the exciting new project that arose out of 2009’s work. By the summer of 2010, the women hope to raise $15,000 to construct a multipurpose community center housing a clinic, library, microfinance operation, vocational training for women, and community education. Villagers will construct the bricks.

“When we first went to Uganda,” Tina declares, “our goal was to see a bit of Africa and provide some health care. We never dreamed we’d be returning year after year and engaging in long-term projects.”  Both women affirm that Valence and YOFAFO have enabled the creation of community-centered, community-governed projects designed to foster a healthier, more-prosperous village with opportunities for all.

Your help will be greatly appreciated to assist Marian and Tina in raising $15,000 for the Bulumagi Community Center by the summer of 2010. Send tax-deductible checks to Partnership Uganda, c/o Tina Groover/ Marian Peters, 413 Hillandale, Boone, NC 28607. One hundred percent goes to the building fund. Each contributor will receive regular updates.