Deborah Aluka, TAPA Permaculture Trainer, Uganda

A ChangeMaker Using Agape-Infused Patience, Perservence, and Persistence to Bring LIfe-Changing Permaculture Practices to Thousands of Ugandans

Meet Deborah Aluka, a 35-year old Ugandan permaculture practitioner, trainer, coordinator of the Teso Advanced Permaculture Association (TAPA) in Northern Uganda, mother of two school-aged children, and so much more!

Deborah’s story has already been told in great detail by

Steven W Jones

of Sector39 Permaculture Academy and

Chimanimani

(his Substack publication). Steve also wrote another piece chronicling the activities and outcomes of Sector39 PDCs held in the region from 2016 to 2019, the research behind which was conducted by

AMUGE STELLA ROSE

whom I featured on Day 36.

Teso Advanced Permaculture Association (TAPA)

TAPA (Teso Advanced Permaculture Association) launched in September 2020 following a Permaculture Design Certificate training that was held by Sector39 Permaculture Academy at the Kumi Happy Home Centre in Teso, Uganda.

Fast forward nearly four years: TAPA now encompasses a network of 50 villages all practicing and spreading the values and practices of permaculture. As TAPA Coordinator, Deborah is responsible for liaising between S39 and TAPA members, planning, programming, and accountability.

Since becoming a certified permaculture trainer, Deborah has trained over 1,000 people in permaculture principles, values and practices.

Read that again: 1,000 people in four years!

I am so passionate about what I do because I've seen a great change in my community and it's this passion that drives me and has motivated a profuse number of people to seize or embrace the activities that we do.

The goals of TAPA are two-fold: 1) To create sustainable livelihood and community development and 2) to envision the stakeholders with Permaculture Principles, Ethics and Design tools. Deborah outlined the outcomes of TAPA activities to date:

• Acquisition of knowledge. Many people have acquired knowledge on how to grow food using modern methods.

• Food security has been realized in families that I have trained. Many people have learned how to secure food.

• Reduced deforestation because now people use Lorena Stoves for cooking which has reduced the use of much firewood.

• Reduced conflicts among families.

• Change in the fertility of our soils. This is because of the adoption of compost manure use and planting of cover crops.

• Healthy living has been realized through the use of organic farming which has taught us not to use chemicals and rather to use organic fertilizers and pesticides.

• Reduced soil erosion because of the new farming techniques.

The Association is strong and it's so motivating. I am more optimistic of more positive results in the course of the project. I personally have been overwhelmed by changes realized in my community. The association has been formed and several demonstration sites have been established in the Teso region. For example: Okoboi Cell, Serere, Omuriana, Abatai, and Angod demonstration site.

Deborah has other roles in her community as well. She is a VHT (Village Health Team) community leader as a health entrepreneur and a board member for one of the farmer-led cooperatives in her district organized under Heifer International’s East African Youth Inclusion Program (EAYIP). EAYIP works with 25,000 youth from communities in Tanzania and Uganda as they set up youth groups, complete financial and technical training and identify income-generating opportunities within their own communities.

Permaculture Principles & Practical Knowledge

Deborah is a natural teacher. When I asked her to share something about her knowledge and skills, she sent me a several-page brief on various permaculture designs. While I cannot include all of them, I so enjoyed reading them, that I’m providing a sampling of her write-ups here along with pictures and video she provided on how kitchen gardening, raised beds, nursery beds, and Lorena Stoves are used to enhance sustainable living in rural Ugandan villages.

Kitchen Gardening

Kitchen Gardens are small gardens that are grown around a person’s home. They are the cheapest gardens to make and you can put them anywhere. These gardens are mostly used for growing green vegetables. There are so many ways and skills of making kitchen gardens but I want to share a few listed below.

Step gardening. This type of garden is made out of a mixture of "Compost Manure" plus top soil. It's called step garden because you can use bricks or stones for making it's steps (boundaries).

Sack Gardening. This type of garden is easy to make. It is called a sack garden because soil is mixed with manure (compost) and put inside the sack. The sack is put on leveled ground to prevent it from falling as the soil is put inside. A corridor of stones is put in the middle of the sack as the mixture of soil and manure is applied around the small stones. The reason for putting these stones is to aid in watering (sprinkling water) around the sack garden because the corridor of stones will allow the water to flow smoothly all around the sack from top to bottom. This skill of Kitchen Gardening is good because it can be used even in dry areas because it's easy to water a sack than a full acre of land.

These two sacks contain onions that were recently transplanted.

Mandala Gardening. Mandala is another type of Kitchen Garden where the garden is positioned in an area where rain water flows around your compound. It is designed in such a way that water can be accommodated in the hole that is dug or put in the middle as the compost and soils surround the hole with stones or bricks as it's boundaries. Other techniques for making Kitchen Gardens include: Key-Hole method and Double Dug among others. In the video below, Deborah (in the blue jumpsuit) and Simon Peter Okello teach trainees the purpose of a key-hole garden.

Raised Beds. Raised Garden Beds is one of the techniques for making larger gardens. The ground is measured before digging. A meter is measured as its width and the length depends on where you want it to end in your garden. You can now dig the soils from both ends to raise it up. This is how I train my community members to make their raised gardens, but there are many types of raised gardens, and as per Permaculture Principles, we use available resources.

Nursery Beds. This (see below picture) is a raised nursery bed. Soil is put in the elevated bed. It is only used for seeds to germinate and then they are transplanted to where they are supposed to be planted. The nursery shown below has some fire burning on it. The reason why the fire is used is to kill the germs that might be in the soils before seeds are planted. After burning the nursery bed, it is then left to cool. After cooling, seeds can now be applied.

Lorena Stoves (Smokeless Ovens)

Deborah has been responsible for helping 600 households construct Lorena Stoves which reduce the use of excessive amounts of firewood that are commonly used for cooking. Lorena stoves consume little firewood. As a result, fewer trees are felled for cooking purposes, thus staving off deforestation.

This energy saving stove can accommodate two saucepans at a time. One hole is for putting firewood and two of the other holes are for saucepans. It takes little time when cooking and there is not as much smoke compared to other cookers used locally. Sand and clay are mixed with water. Deborah shared a short video where she teaches TAPA trainees how to build a Lorena Stove. A must watch!

On the Horizon: PDCs plus a Savings & Credit Organization

Deborah is looking forward to growing TAPA by inviting women, youth and schools into the association. She also is eager to participate in or host another PDC in her area soon. Efforts are also underway to create a SACCO* and establish a seed bank.

(* A SACCO, or Savings and Credit Cooperative Organization, is a member-based financial institution that promotes the economic and social interests of its members. SACCOs are democratic, self-help organizations where members own the organization, save their money together, and decide how to use it. Members can also offer each other loans at reasonable interest rates.)

Hobbies Outside of ChangeMaking

Deborah leads a busy life as a farmer, organizer, activist and mother of two children.

When I'm not doing my community work, my other hobbies include "Reading the Bible, Singing and Counseling people" because I discovered that God hid a gift of making peace within the hearts of people who are burdened with the issues of life because a peaceful and a healthy heart is a healthy environment.

Deborah’s Advice for Aspiring ChangeMakers

I asked Deborah what advice she would give to aspiring ChangeMakers which also prompted her to reflect on what constitutes a ChangeMaker.

Becoming a ChangeMaker is not something you just wake up one day and become. One has to know what changemaking is all about.  First of all you need to ask yourself these questions; Why do I want to become a ChangeMaker?  What is that thing that I want to make changes on? If a thing needs to be changed, how did things get to such a point that now a change mechanism is requred?

Once these questions are answered, Deborah recommends coming up with proposed solutions and an action plan. Speaking from experience, Deborah encourages aspiring ChangeMakers to not get discouraged when (not if) they face obstacles.

When you attempt to implement your solution, circumstances/challenges will arise and this then calls for one to be Patient, Persistent, and Persevering. In almost all aspects of life that call for time and energy, Persevering is a key for one to succeed and in such work where one volunteers for the love of the community, Perseverance even becomes more vital. This reminds me of my former secondary school motto that says: "Perseverantia Progressioni" (which means 'Persevere for Progress').

Deborah also acknowledges that being a ChangeMaker requires having empathy and a deep love and respect for those who you are impacting.

For any change maker, there must be "Agape" (God kind of love) in them. Anything that he/she gets has to be channeled well for or to the benefit of the community not for one’s self. Therefore, here, sacrifice must be in the hearts of aspiring ChangeMakers. They must be willing to sacrifice even their time and resources. They must also volunteer.

Deborah’s Personal ChangeMaker: Steve Jones

An inspiring ChangeMaker in my life is Steve Jones. He's one of my trainers and the one who introduced to me the knowledge and skills about Permaculture in the 2020 PDC. Since then, Steve Jones has been supportive to me and our association in different ways, such as sending seeds for our demonstration sites, teaching both physically and online, and he also supported me on my PDC. There is effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) because he always sends a representative to do M&E and this has motivated people to work hard.

Where in the World is Deborah?