Batwa Development Program - Agricultural Initiatives

Batwa families are cultivating their own crops and growing healthy food for their households mentored by a full-time Batwa Development Program Agricultural Officer. The overarching goal is to eliminate food shortages by helping the Batwa help themselves through sustainable farming initiatives.

Executive Director Laura Corley recently shared, “Our legacy comes from within us and lives beyond us.” As we celebrate the twentieth anniversaries of Bwindi Community Hospital in 2023 and the Kellermann Foundation in 2024, we are amazed at the vast legacy which has grown in the people served by Dr. Scott and Carol Kellermann, the foundation’s staff, board, and partners, and volunteers around the globe.

It isn’t often that you get to see someone’s vision become a reality. We count ourselves blessed to be able to do so twice while visiting Uganda with the Kellermann Foundation. We first traveled to Uganda in 2002 with “Mama Diane” (Stanton) and team. On that trip, we participated in a medical clinic under a ficus tree led by Dr. Scott and Carol Kellermann. What an amazing adventure…

The Kellermann Foundation’s long-term endeavor is to help the Batwa people and their neighboring communities in Uganda with solutions which come from within the local community including discipleship, home-to-home pastoral visits, adult literacy and other locally-led initiatives.

When I think of the people who define Bwindi Community Hospital, I immediately think of Aunt Peace. If you have been to Bwindi, she is someone who you would most certainly remember. As a woman in a position of leadership, she has pointed people to Jesus and has done it in a consistent yet humble way. She may not be a doctor, but I am certain she has saved many live here in Bwindi.

The first Batwa homes were banana-leaf huts, followed by mud-stick, and then mud-brick homes which require tree cutting and burning. In 2019, the latest advancement arrived—interlocking bricks made on site by the Batwa with a man-powered machine, soil, and a prescribed amount of cement.

Education is not free for Ugandan students. School fees are far beyond the means of most families, most of whom live on less than $1 a day.

The Batwa Development Program is a comprehensive program to help Batwa families through educational initiatives.

In January, staff, donors, clergy, and Dr. Scott Kellermann were on hand to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Bwindi Community Hospital’s Dental Vision Clinic. Construction is now underway to build a 17,000-square-foot facility in partnership with the Kellermann Foundation.

In 2023, Bwindi Community Hospital celebrated the twentieth anniversary since its founding in 2003. View recordings of the celebration featuring founder Dr. Scott Kellermann and Executive Director Laura Corley.

Longstanding partnerships are integral to non-profit organizations. Over the last five years, the Kellermann Foundation has partnered with students at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) who are seeking hands-on, real-world experience through the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program. These students are part of UTD’s Johnson School of Engineering and Computer Science and have been working on semester-length projects where they can contribute their expertise while learning to assist with Kellermann’s projects in Uganda’s Bwindi region.

It’s early in the month of September and that means planting season is well underway. As you walk through the well dispersed homes of the rural villages here, a buzz of activity is happening everywhere with neatly arranged rows being created for seeds and cuttings. As you duck under the huge leaves of banana plants, you see families hard at work wielding hoes and other implements to prepare the soil for planting their small plots with millet, cassava, short beans, maize, and ground nuts.

Penelope Turyamureeba has worked for the Batwa Development Program for five years overseeing their Craft Banda, Batwa Women’s Centre, and related staff. Penelope has witnessed community transformation.

“I have seen redemption. I see the difference, how people now want to read and share the Bible, see the Jesus Film, and know Jesus…

“Someone asked if we saw any miracles. I don’t know if it was a miracle, but I saw two people who simply tried to obey God’s call in our own imperfect ways. I pray that others saw God in our actions, heard him in our words, and felt his presence through us and most importantly, felt loved.” -Ken Tomchuk

Ken shares about his and Karen’s time spent in Uganda for a three-month mission in Uganda.

The Hope Alliance Team completed their annual Vision Clinic in and around the Bwindi area this month and helped correct the vision of hundreds of people. Their work points to an even greater partnership which will offer ongoing vision care services through the construction of a permanent clinic.

In 2019, Kellermann Foundation volunteers Mara and Lauren helped bridge a partnership between the Batwa Development Program (BDP) and Days for Girls International. Days for Girls’ mission is to increase access to menstrual care and education by developing global partnerships, cultivating social enterprises, mobilizing volunteers and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigma and limitations for women and girls.

In this short video, Bwindi Community Hospital’s communication team leader, Barnabas Oyesiga, shares the story of how Dr. Scott Kellermann’s work transformed healthcare for the region.

In 2006, I traveled to Uganda as a teaching artist working with a dental foundation. It was here that I met the Batwa tribe of southwest Uganda whose lives had been turned upside down in 1991 when they were evicted from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

On my next trip in 2009, Dr. Scott Kellermann and I stopped to talk to a woman on the side of the road who sat on a dirty blanket with a pile of dried beans and a baby by her side. That was all she had. No shelter, no food, no way to care for herself and for her baby. Dr. Scott helped her as he did many Batwa.

When I returned to Seattle, surrounded by my belongings, I remembered the woman on the side of the road. She had nothing, and yet I had so much. I witnessed her joy in the midst of poverty and a difficult life.

I decided that I wanted to do something to help through art and asked a group of eight local artists to travel with me to Uganda to teach the Batwa crafts so they could become self-sufficient.

Education is an imperative in developing countries such as Uganda. The Batwa Development Program (BDP) works in the southwestern region of the country helping to fulfill its mission to “empower the Batwa community through education, land, food security, and sustainable income generation so they become valued members of society.” When it comes to the next generation of Ugandans, they have one key initiative in mind—education.