Happy Holidays!                                                                              December, 2019     

You may have received a hard copy of this letter. We've added photos to enjoy.

Dear Friends of Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme (URDT),

Thank you for your partnership! In this season of renewal, we are happy to celebrate and advance with you the achievements and potential of our ground-breaking work.

In 1987, the founders of URDT sought to establish a Rural University that would foster African culture and thinking.  The vision was to create a “hub of teaching and learning” in a still remote area of the country to attract national and international attention to the African rural populations – their challenges and aspirations – and to provide these marginalized people with higher education relevant to them.  

However, in 1987, Kagadi – and neighboring sub-counties that partnered with URDT to affect their own development – showed abject poverty, ill health, lack of sanitation, minimal levels of education, lack of markets, roads, and other infrastructures like schools and hospitals. Certainly, for URDT to establish a Rural University in such an environment would have been absurd. Therefore, URDT worked with the rural population to be actors in their own development and to create a fitting environment for their Rural University. 

This year in November, URDT’s African Rural University (ARU) for women celebrated its fifth graduation and now has launched 85 young women prepared to be leaders in African transformation. ARU leaders continue to grow in professionalism and influence. They are uniquely positioned for service in their relationships with local people, businesses, schools, non-profits, and government actors.  

YOU make AFPF’s support of URDT and ARU possible.  We hope you will make your gift to us this year, as before. Please consider increasing your donation if you can. We are ever grateful for your ongoing support.  AFPF’s funding plays a vital role in supplementing grants from larger foundations and also the local income URDT produces.  Your dollars have amazing impact RIGHT NOW and FOR THE FUTURE. Thank you for donating before the year ends.

With gratitude and love, we send best wishes for the holidays and the New Year!

Martha Dolben, Robert Fritz, Patty Seybold   AFPF Board   

Janice Heil   AFPF Operations

Silvana Veltkamp, Mwalimu Musheshe, Ephrem Rutaboba   URDT Founders

The URDT and ARU Model
  Three Decades of Application and Evolution 

For thirty-two years, URDT has been trail-blazing to evolve and document a development discipline based on the Visionary Approach, Systems Thinking, & Partnership.

Over the years URDT has:

• Taught the discipline of the creative orientation “under the trees,” empowering the rural poor to improve their access to clean water and nutritious food, and their skills in sanitation, maternal and child care, road and school construction, income generation and more.

• Established their Campus on an 80-acre farm land in Kagadi.

• 1992 - Founded their Institute in entrepreneurship and sustainable agriculture.

• 2000 - Installed the first East African Community Radio serving millions of listeners.

• 2000 - Founded, in partnership with Alida Bakema Boon, their award-winning Girls’ School, Primary to A Level, now attended by over 250 girls. Here, they:

• Innovated the 2-generation approach to education and developed a curriculum to enable students to be change makers in their homes and communities.

• Established computer labs, audio-visual production facilities, farm, maize mill, solar center, and artisans' workshops - all used daily by community members.                                                                
• Adopted and improved 2 Community Schools, teaching 2-generation learning.                                                                                             
• Created 22 Pupil-led School Farms in local elementary schools. Students and their parents learn farming as a business. They improve their health, the health of the soils, and family income

• Founded African Rural University, the first all-women's university in East Africa

• Established ARU research units in a host of subjects to support URDT’s Epicentre strategy and sustainable agriculture, including, eg., hydroponics and aquaculture.

• Established 27 Epicentres of rural development – community centers led by African Rural University graduates in partnership with local governments and people.

Thanks to these and other intertwined efforts, URDT and ARU have now become an example that proves out the efficacy of their development methodology based on the Visionary Approach, Systems Thinking, and Partnership. These approaches are philosophically neutral and are suitable for people of all cultures and circumstances.  Thank you for helping us to advance and share these disciplines of development.