Ngombor: Hope in the Heart of Uganda

Ngombor is a difficult word to translate because there is nothing so concise in English, but it is not a hard concept to get across – “ngombor” means the sense of hopefulness that comes from persistent effort.

That hopefulness and the commitment to work to achieve it are at the heart of the Ngombor Community Development Alliance. Founded just this year, Ngombor is a new organization but its roots in West Nile region of Uganda go back more than 20 years, to a friendship between Vincent Ulargiw, a local Alur community leader and Dennis Argall, the father of Ngombor co-founder, Liz Argall.

Ngombor CDA is based in Nebbi district, near the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border. While there are many highly capable people and impressive community leaders, there are substantial challenges around accessing opportunities and resources.

“The inhabitants of Nebbi District are mostly Alur-speaking people, but due to migration, there are other tribes, people coming from all over the country. So, it is a mixed ethnic district,” Vince explains. The majority of the Alur people are smallholder subsistence farmers, growing crops such as cassava, potatoes, sorghum, beans, maize and green vegetables, among their crops, as well as keeping domestic animals like goats, sheep, chickens, and ducks.

According to a 2024 study by the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics, the Greater North region has the highest percentage of people experiencing poverty, in a part of the world where the average household income is about $60 per month.

For decades beginning in the 1980s, the region was plagued by an insurgency conducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerrilla group founded by self-styled prophet Joseph Kony, which was operating in the Murchison Falls National Park, which people need to cross to go from Nebbi to the capital, Kampala.

“We lost very many people during that time,” Vince recalls, with rebels ambushing people trying to drive through the park. “Some of the people were being abducted and taken into the bush. Others even died by the [hand of] the rebels.” The LRA was also known for abducting children and forcing them to become child soldiers. Since 2006, The LRA has been driven from Uganda and crossing the national park is now completely safe. The guerrillas are still active in DR Congo and some other neighboring countries.

Vince was developing a trade school for women escaping difficult situations and abandonment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the other side of Lake Albert from Nebbi. Dennis was volunteering for Nabuur, a global organization that was connecting volunteers with projects. They became friends after Dennis paid for their first sewing machines. Vince was across the border in Uganda, so acted as a coordinator, connector and person with a bank account who, unlike people across the border in Congo, was able to safely receive money.  That school has been training both women and men for the last 20 years.

Since then, Vince has started internet cafes to bring the world to is corner of northwest Uganda, and a community-run and community-supported savings and loan, providing low-cost loans to smallholder farmers and traders as an alternative to the often-usurious interest rates and hardball collection tactics of commercial lenders.

This year, aided by Ngombor, Vince is pursuing another dream – turning a patch of poor, rocky ground into a demonstration permaculture farm. Permaculture is an approach to gardening and farming that seeks to create lasting, productive gardens and farms by mimicking natural systems and processes.

This approach is very different from the way that these small farmers have traditionally worked, and Vince was met with some initial skepticism.

"Can this stony soil give any yield really,” Vince says one neighbor asked him, adding, “Should there be good output from this stony soil, then I will plant many types of food and produce enough for my family,” another local farmer told him.

In May, two members went to a training session with Permaculture Uganda. on their return, they began designing and creating the farm. Built on a model common to most all permaculture farms, this one is divided into five zones. Zone Zero is made up of residential buildings and their surroundings. Even before that, they were building swales and digging water catchment ponds, since the region relies on a rainy season to provide all the water they have.

Before the seasonal rains came in August, they were able to put up a brick and concrete building that can serve as a meeting room, for storage, and living quarters for an on-site caretaker.  Now that the rains have finally arrived, these bund-like structures can capture water that would otherwise run off onto the road.

"I hope you won't regret planting on this dry land," one of his skeptical neighbors told Vince. "Anyway, I will wait to see the outcome. If anything positive comes out, then I must also start digging swales on my land"

For the rest of this year, the focus will be in building out Zones Zero, One and Two. One is the area of most intense care crop that needs frequent visits, such as the kitchen garden and raised beds. Zone Two is the "food forest" area. with an overstory of fruit trees including guavas, oranges, cocoa, bananas, mangoes, jackfruit and macadamia. They are also planting ground cover, so-called "chop and drop crops" which are cut and turned under to nourish the soil.

While some people have reserved judgment on Vince’s commitment to permaculture practices, Ngombor has offered their members a piece of land on which to plant produce to sell crops in area markets and raise money for the group. At the same time, they also plant seedlings in their own in our various home gardens raised on the group nursery beds.

As small-holder farmers they had never been organized as a work group in this way. Their commitment can be seen in the way all members turn up on Wednesdays for meetings and work on the garden, and even more by their showing up to water the seedlings in the nursery three times a day to ensure that the seedlings didn’t whither when the seasonal rains failed to come.

Beyond agriculture, Ngombor is also making connections, literally and figuratively, learning to use computers to keep records and track prices to get the best deals at the markets, and to write computer code and learn IT. In April, a contingent of four people from NGOCDA, Vince, Ofoyrwoth Cosma, Laurine Afoyorwoth and Lekuru Winny Hope, traveled over the weekend to Kampala for a meeting with PyLadies Uganda. The group aims to provide a friendly support network for women and a bridge to the larger Python world.

PyLadies encourage anyone with an interest in Python to participate, and Ngombor's collaboration with the Ugandan branch aims to merge modern technology with rural agriculture.

Over the weekend, they attended lectures and participated in discussions led by a data science expert where they were introduced to different types of data, the importance of data analysis of data and Python, a simple programming language. The meetup was an introduction to data science and it was a remarkable experience. Although some participants had no prior knowledge of IT, the environment was very welcoming and supportive, and it was a good opportunity to familiarize community leaders with IT.

At this meetup, Ngombor's Chairperson, Laurine Afoyorwoth, touched a computer for the first time. Laurine, a smallholder farmer and Village Health Team Coordinator for Jupuwiny Village, was excited about doing her own data collection/science and encouraging family and community to learn IT.

 In the months since, Ofoyrwoth Cosma, the Youth Development Coordinator, has been holding weekly sessions on Saturdays, where local people can learn more about IT, though the group is hampered by the lack of a good laptop with a webcam so they can conduct remote meeting and to practice what they are learning.

Here, on the other side of the world, the other end of the Ngombor alliance is a small cadre concentrated on the Northwest corner of the Pacific coast, coordinating with the Nebbi branch via Whatsapp to provide support, from learning more about applying permaculture principles to the unique environment of northwestern Uganda, to providing direct material support through a GoFundMe site.