Uganda Farm Kit ($70)

Conflict forced traditional Acholi farmers in northern Uganda from their homes and away from their centuries-old farming lifestyle. For a generation, they were relegated to crowded camps where thousands exist on just a few acres — with no room to grow their own crops. But today that's changing.

Why Help Is Needed

A brutal war lasting 20 years drove nearly two million Ugandans from their homes and farms. Most of these families belong to the Acholi tribe, an ethnic group that has traditionally lived and worked as farmers, completely self-sufficient in their way of life. The war forced these families into cramped, squalid displacement camps. Now, with the conflict quieted, they are moving to larger camps and back home — and need support reestablishing their traditional way of life.

Mercy Corps In Action

Mercy Corps is helping Acholi families rebuild their agricultural way of life, restore their croplands and revivify their centuries-old culture. Our innovative program teaches communities to pitch in together to plant crops and conserve seeds for lean times. With just a little assistance, these hardworking war-affected families can create a future in which there will always be enough food to go around.

Cecilia's Story

Twenty years ago, Cecilia Lamunu was a 28-year-old mother of six children — four boys and two girls — living with her husband near the village of Apuu Kampala. Like others from northern Uganda's Acholi ethnic group, Lamunu's family lived close to the land. They drew their sustenance and livelihood from their small family farm, just like generations before them. It wasn't an easy life, she recalls, raising a family while tending crops like cassava and groundnuts. But it was an honest, hardworking life that she knew — and loved.

Cecilia's life was shattered by years of brutal conflict between government forces and a marauding rebel force called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Over the last decade, she's been driven from her home, had two of her sons abducted by the LRA and, worst of all, lost her husband to injuries he sustained during an LRA raid on their village.

Even after all of this unimaginable hardship, she longs to return to the land to farm. Mercy Corps is helping her and thousands of other Acholi people by collaborating to re-establish agricultural systems through the establishment of community seed banks, which are managed by committees formed by local villagers like Lamunu.

It's a sustainable, simple program with a far-reaching goal: to return a generation of displaced Acholis to farming. "I needed the land," Lamunu says earnestly. "I needed the land to heal me."

Uganda Farm Kit ($70)
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Purchase of a Mercy Kit is a symbolic gift that supports Mercy Corps' worldwide programs to help children and families in need. The Breastfeeding Kit, Climate Change Kit, Fuel-Efficient Stove Kit, Cricket Farm Kit, Send an Orphan to School Kit, Plant a Tree Kit, Play to Heal Kit and Uganda Farm Kit supports those specific project funds. Proceeds from the sale of other Mercy Kits will be used where most needed.