A little over a month ago I returned from my observational project with The Great Generation (TGG) in Uganda.  A trip that allowed me to give freely of my skills and talents because of your financial support.  This blog is my update and an open letter of gratitude to those who contributed financially and emotionally to my journey to Uganda.

24% of the population in Uganda lives on less than $2 per day. They lack skills, business know-how and the market knowledge to build and sustain success and achieve significant results. What they do have is motivation and a desire for change in their lives. I was exposed to people living in basic conditions with limited access to clean water and sanitation, I got to meet ordinary people with passion and determination who have created services and infrastructure to support their communities.  Personally I had the privilege of participating in a number of entrepreneurship sessions in Kampala, supporting the creation and delivery of a five day residential teaching forum in a rural district in Uganda as well as experiencing this stunning country.TGG creates experiential learning programmes to bring expensive and hard to access business expertise to communities with limited resources, to  challenge and transcend norms and assumptions and to stimulate fresh thinking for future creativity.  Your donation was key to ensuring that I was able go to Uganda to experience the work of TGG. The outcome is that I am now the first entrepreneurial associate eligible to support transformational leadership projects intended to enhance entrepreneurial capacity building in Uganda and in turn foster creative thinking and innovation for established multi-nationals and corporate executives.

What I observed is a huge enthusiasm for the concept of entrepreneurship in the face of a charity based legacy.   This is true not just for the partners and their beneficiaries but also TGG volunteers and the corporate organisations we spoke to.  TGG has over 8 years of experience in Uganda and many fantastic relationships.  One of the most exciting things I witnessed was the impact of putting the Ugandan head of a Teacher’s Training College in touch with Dr Hilda Mary Tadria, tge formidable Ugandan founder of a MEMPROW, a female empowerment programme.  In the space of 45 minutes these two woman, through a TGG faciliated introduction, agreed to incorporate a coaching programme for girls into the teacher’s education curriculum.

The 1st Buikwe Teachers’ Forum was created in 5 days. We worked directly with the Department of Education and were featured on National TV and in the Ugandan newspapers.  I was able to use coaching and training skills to focus on the synergy of our team and to keep us on track to set of powerful end results.  My love of structure came in handy to design a survey to collect data on the opportunities for entrepreneurship in schools so they can become self supporting and therefore inspire students to be self supporting.  We had overwhelming support for the survey and receive alot of data still to be analysed. A common goal across all the schools is to provide a meal a day for the children, there was good evidence of agricultural experimentation but no overarching support or understanding of the cycle of business.  The data we collected was handed over to the ASDHI, the Ugandan partner who initiated the education forum, to decide where they to focus attention moving forwards.   The forum was a huge success for everyone involved but there is a line to be walked between hand out and hand up.  There are plans to run a yearly forum and the intention of TGG will be to move towards an event that is sustainable locally and is an integration of Ugandan and external expertise empowering teachers and schools to realise their potential.
I was challenged by the working environment and the ambitious goals for the three week trip but I was transformed by the passion and heart of TGG volunteers, touched by the generosity and spirit of the Ugandan people and brought to tears by the acapella farewell on our last day. One of my loves is photographic reportage and I attach a link to an album I created of the trip https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152690212714104&type=1&l=4f6f7da627

With love and gratitude.

I am travelling to Uganda at the end of this month to work with The Great Generation to support small businesses in Kampala.  I am fund raising to support this trip and am offering coaching sessions for every £100 donation to what I am calling The Uganda Project.  Due to the generosity of my donors I am have been able to create a bursary and am able to offer a number of discounted coaching sessions.  If you are struggling with something at the moment; a creation or perhaps a conflict or if you want an intuitive taster or tune up just drop me a note.

I have been invited to Uganda at the end of July to participate in a project with local enterprises and to experience the work of The Great Generation with a view to joining them to expand their training programmes. Part of the experience is to understand the work on the ground and also the fund raising process.  So here I am asking for your help and support.  Every £1 will help but I am personally offering a coaching session for every £100 donated. You can take this session yourself, gift it or add it to my bursary fund.  I will be capturing my experience in Uganda as I go and sharing words, images and end results so that you can see how your contribution helps.

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Day 82: A Better Class Of Day

Regents Park Liriodendron Tulipifera

A blank canvas of sleep held me steady and restful, while the flotsam and jetsam of yesterday floated away.  A beautiful sunny day and Jimney Cricket is back at my shoulder.  With the help of an early morning bizz on the buzzer from the postman I hit the day at 7.30am.  The pleasure of time to land back in life lifted and carried me in plenty of time to the RIBA – that’s the R-I-B-A rather than riba which has the tinge of a passing reference to a multinational transport company or a Spanish call to arms.  The Florence Hall, on the first floor is a stunning piece of art deco architecture, peaceful and magnificnet, was my suggestion for my meeting with Suzanne Gowler of The Great Generation.

Suzanne was delighted with the choice of location which was the ball that got us rolling on the possibilities as well as logistics of my contribution to the future of the organisation.  Moving from a charity to a social enterprise the vision is to integrate experiential learning programmes that bring best of corporate brains to experience and serve in the creation of sustainable projects in developing economies.  There are an abundance of demand on the ground in countries like Africa, India and Sri Lanka among others and the next challenge is establishing the corporate partnerships and customising the programmes.  It ticks alot of my boxes.  The next step is to get to Uganda to become orientated around the projects on the ground at the end of July.

With plenty of food for thought I moved on to lunch with Liam Cullinane, over from Galway to visit his NUCCA chiropractor.  NUCCA  is a unique chiropractic technique that involves aligning the top bone in the neck, the atlas, or C1, to allow the rest of the spine and nervous system to function at its optimal potential – literally ‘puts the head back on straight’.   21 years ago Liam was seriously disabled by meningitis.  He is insistent on pushing his capabilities and sets the bar high for himself.  He has just returned from a trip to the North Pole as an observer at the world’s coolest marathon and is getting ready to return to Atlanta to visit the Carrick Brain Centre an advanced centre for brain repair and rehabilitiation.  Liam couldn’t speak highly enough of the work that is done there and the impact it has had on him.  What I love about Liam is he believes, he has vision.

I was so glad that I had allowed an open afternoon for a casual open ended catch up with my friend Barbara.  Barbara lives in Fitzrovia, just off Oxford Street.  It seems so posh and upper crust but Barbara is wonderful, normal and down to earth.  My neighbourhood park is Little Wormwood Scrubs her’s is a royal park The Regent’s Park – covering 410 hectares, with a rose garden of over 30,000 roses of 400 varieties, the largest grass sport’s area in London, an open air  the London Zoo and carefully cultivated gardens, an open air theatre and a great range of exotic (to me) trees and shrubs.  I got particularly excited about the tulip tree not just because of the wonderous flower but because I love the obviousness of it’s common name.  A tree with tulips growing in it.  All in all a better class of day.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.