IDEAS For Us Uganda: Enhancing Environmental Sustainability through Integrated Climate Justice

Community Context

IDEAS For Us - Uganda operates across 11 communities in two distinct regions: the mountainous Rwenzori sub-region in Kasese District (western Uganda) and the Busoga sub-region in Kamuli District (eastern Uganda). Together these communities are home to a total population of 67,829 people, with the project directly serving 15,000 and reaching an additional 35,829 indirectly.

The Kasese communities sit in a dramatic landscape of steep hillsides, deep river valleys, and high population density on the slopes of Mount Rwenzori, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Kiburara trading centre lies along the trans-African highway to the DRC. The Busoga communities in Kamuli face some of the highest poverty rates in Uganda - the region is identified as among the poorest in the country.

Both regions face overlapping environmental and social vulnerabilities: deforestation, soil degradation, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and flooding. Poverty in Kasese District exceeds 50% on multidimensional measures - far above the national average - driven by subsistence agriculture, climate disruption, and the long shadow of industrial mining. Youth unemployment in Busoga reaches as high as 37%.

The Kilembe Mines Legacy - A Landscape in Need of Healing

The project's environmental context is profoundly shaped by the legacy of the Kilembe Mines - once Uganda's largest employer, operating from 1956 until its collapse in 1982. The withdrawal of the operating companies left behind one of the region's most severe environmental disasters, worsening over decades of neglect:

• Over 15 million tons of mine tailings and acid mine drainage contaminating River Nyamwamba, which flows from Mount Rwenzori through Kilembe and Kasese to Lake George
• Tailings dams that collapse and leak toxic waste during heavy rains, destroying infrastructure, bridges, and health facilities
• Cobalt and copper accumulation poisoning aquatic systems and local livestock
• Dangerous open mine shafts and dilapidated structures left as a legacy of neglect

The concept note describes ongoing artisanal sand mining along the Nyamugasani River at Kiburara and in Kirembe, with associated riverbank erosion, habitat damage and loss of agricultural land. Community-led stewardship and restoration are central to the project's response.

This project does not merely plant trees - it works to heal a landscape scarred by decades of extractive industry, and to build a generation of young people equipped to steward it. That is the heart of its climate justice mission.

Regional Economic Context

The regional economy is driven by agriculture (employing an estimated 85% of Kasese residents), mining, livestock, tourism, and local trade. Natural resources include rivers and watersheds, fertile but rapidly degrading agricultural land, wildlife habitats, and significant mineral deposits - copper, cobalt, salt, sand, and undeveloped oil reserves in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Against this backdrop of extractive pressure and poverty, the project offers communities a regenerative economic alternative: nursery production, agroforestry, women-led enterprise, regenerative agriculture, and eco-tourism around the botanical garden - building prosperity by restoring the land rather than depleting it.

Core Project Systems

The project develops an integrated set of systems anchored by a youth-led movement of Climate Justice Ambassadors and their families across schools and communities in Kasese and Kamuli.

Four Regional Nursery Beds

Four regional nursery beds - in Bugoye, Kirembe, Kiburara (Kasese District), and Kamuli Municipality - anchor the project's reforestation work. Each nursery produces approximately 5,000 seedlings per rain season, totalling 40,000 seedlings per year across all sites. The nurseries support native forest restoration, agroforestry, silvopasture, and sustainable timber silviculture - championed by school

Climate Justice Ambassadors, their parents, and teachers. Over ten years, the multiplier effect targets the planting of over one million trees.

Botanical Garden & Seed Bank

A 10-acre botanical garden and seed bank in Kiburara serves as the project's ecological and educational heart. It preserves a remarkable diversity of native tree, food, and medicinal species - including African Cherry (Prunus africana), East African Rosewood (Hagenia abyssinica), Warburgia ugandensis, and dozens more - many now nearly extinct in Uganda's communities.

The garden operates on regenerative principles - no ploughing, no inorganic fertilizers, no pesticides or herbicides - and is supplied with solar-powered irrigation. It serves as the district's primary training hub for ecological and environmental sustainability, drawing hundreds of adults and youth for learning. It is, in the project's own words, the natural lungs for the Kiburara community.

Natural Pharmacy

Integrated within the botanical garden, a natural pharmacy managed by a qualified herbalist makes use of the indigenous medicinal species preserved in the seed bank. This connects the deep traditional knowledge of native herbal medicine - much of it tied to species now disappearing from the landscape - with accessible community health care, aligned with CFC's integrated health model.

Women-Led Banana Fiber Sanitary Pad Manufacturing

A reusable, smart, and affordable sanitary pad production enterprise serves vulnerable girls in and out of school and women across Kasese and Kamuli. With capacity to produce over 3,000 pads monthly from local biodegradable banana fiber, the enterprise:

• Keeps vulnerable girls in school by removing the cost barrier of menstrual products
• Offers a reusable alternative intended to reduce product costs and disposable waste
• Generates income for over 1,000 Climate Justice Ambassadors who act as sales agents through school environment clubs
• Sells at an affordable UGX 2,000 per packet versus UGX 5,000 for market alternatives

Revenue is split 25% to school clubs (sustaining their activities and supporting members' school needs) and 75% back into the production enterprise for sustainability. The model indirectly boosts banana cultivation across the region - a rising high-value crop - creating an additional income stream for farmers supplying raw fiber.

School & Home Kitchen Gardens

Kitchen gardens at 60 primary schools and 250 homes across Kasese and Kamuli provide food security for vulnerable schoolchildren - helping them stay in and complete school. Gardens feature traditional Ugandan foods: green bananas, root and leafy vegetables, beans, and groundnuts, alongside nearly extinct native species like indigenous sweet potatoes, millet, and cassava, all preserved in the seed bank. Every garden recipient commits to regenerative farming practices.

Climate Justice Ambassadors & Community Movement

At the heart of the project is a youth-led environmental movement. Climate Justice Ambassadors - students in school environment clubs - drive reforestation, pad sales, and community education, supervised by women teachers and club patrons. The movement extends to parents (especially mothers), worshippers, and community groups, building toward cooperative societies and a lasting environmental social movement led by the next generation.

Additional community systems include:

• Annual Climate Justice Ambassadors Camps (200+ youth per district) for indigenous knowledge sharing, storytelling, and innovation
• Monthly HIVE meetings with three mining communities to discuss sustainable living alongside natural resources
• Five commercial chicken farming projects (1,000 birds each) creating 100+ jobs and providing compost for gardens and nurseries
• Future-Fit business assessments encouraging corporate social responsibility from local companies

Three Pillars of Sustainability

Environmental

Social

The project restores the spirit of Ubuntu - humanity and community - eroded by climate-induced hardship. It delivers climate change education in schools and at community HIVES, keeps vulnerable girls in school through affordable sanitary pads, and actively engages women, especially the mothers of Climate Justice Ambassadors, who bear a disproportionate burden of climate impacts. Parents, mothers, and church communities are organised into social groups for mutual support and environmental action - building toward a lasting social movement of women, youth, and men coming together for green development.

Economic

The project strengthens local economic resilience through multiple interlocking streams: sanitary pad production benefiting over 1,000 ambassadors; kitchen gardens increasing household food security and savings; nursery beds employing youth and women along the value chain; eco-tourism and local enterprise around the botanical garden; fruit, timber, and silvopasture income for farmers; carbon credit potential from mass tree planting; chicken projects creating 100+ jobs (with women increasingly influential in cross-border chicken trade to the DRC); and corporate social responsibility support secured through Future-Fit business assessments.

Role Within the Country Platform

The project is designed to contribute to reforestation, regenerative agriculture and improved livelihoods in Kasese and Kamuli. Its focus on environmental quality, food systems and community education also supports healthier living conditions.

The concept note describes the botanical garden as an environmental sustainability training hub in Kasese District. The seed bank preserves indigenous species and associated knowledge. The project links nurseries, agriculture, pad production, poultry and learning activities across 11 communities.

Potential Synergies With Other Projects

The project partners with government, church, NGO, and cultural institutions across both regions:

• Government: the Parish Development Model (PDM) and Emyooga program for agricultural commercialisation and community skilling
• Cultural institutions: Obusinga Bwa Rwenzururu and Busoga Kingdoms - including the integration of indigenous totemic practices that protect specific species, an ancient and highly effective model for biodiversity conservation
• Church initiatives: the Anglican Church's Green Burial Initiative (planting trees instead of laying wreaths), Catholic Diocese of Kasese martyrs' memorial forests, and faith-based food security programs
• Riverbank and catchment restoration with the Rwenzururu Kingdom on rivers including Nyamugasani and Rwembio
• Vocational skilling hubs and district environment offices in both Kasese and Kamuli

Collaboration Needs

Key resources and partnerships for the project's success:

• Solar-powered water source at the botanical garden for reliable irrigation in an area of unreliable rainfall
• Partnership with Uganda Wildlife Authority for native seed collection access to Queen Elizabeth and Mount Rwenzori National Parks
• Coordination with Kasese and Kamuli district environment, forest, and agriculture offices
• Training in banana fiber value-addition for sanitary pad production
• Financial resources - approximately USD 10,000 annually over five years

Community Leadership & Governance

Project Lead

Isaac Sinamakosa - IDEAS For Us Uganda

Local Partners

Kasese Tourism Investors' Forum · Nature Uganda · Rwenzururu Kingdom · Busoga Kingdom · Uganda Wildlife Research and Training Institute

Community Groups

F10 Fraternity (Parents' group) · Mothers Union groups · Seventh Day Adventist Church · Kasese United Journalists Association (KUJA)

Traditional Authorities

Obusinga Bwa Rwenzururu (Kasese) · Busoga Kingdom (Kamuli)

Training Completed

Earth Awareness · Nursery Management · Environmental Economics · Youth Leadership · Sustainability and Ethics · Children Safeguarding · Future-Fit Accreditation

LCPA Coordination

LCPA Federation - governance and financing framework integration