Mbazzi is situated In Mpigi district south of the road to Mityana. It is a rural village with small farms and a little market place in the central of the village. ”Mbazzi” means ”axe” and the name came from the activity of the first settlers. They made axes on the hilltop. The first settlements can be traced far back as 1830. The area was mainly covered with rainforest. The sparse homes was found at the edge of the grazing lands on the hilltops. The valleys was left as a forest resource base. In recent years the whole rainforest have been cut down.
Agriculture on the hills of Mbazzi.
Mosaic landscape in Mbazzi.
Cattle grazing on the hillslopes of Mbazzi.
Deforestation at Mbazzi. This area was a dense rainforest.
In the centre of the village there is a small ”marketplace”
Children at the market place.
Local shop.
Another shop in the village.
Children of Mbazzi.
Primary school at Mbazzi
The one and only tractor in the village.
Corn – one of the crops of Mbazzi.
One of the farmers in Mbazzi farmer association. Since a couple of month VI-forest has begun a project in the village. Every tuesday they meet and do work together to start agroforestry in the village. The first thing to do is to start a nursery bed for tree plants. They will later work with the whole VI-forest koncept and start cooperations and try to build a sustainable local society in Mbazzi.
New tree plants – new hope!
Work with nursery beds.
Nursery beds. Every tuesday the farmers in the project meets and work with this.
Paul Kiguba explains for the farmers why we are here. And he explains for us what they do.
Mbazzi farmer association, Vi forest project team and visitors. At the left: Mats Hannerz, forester and editor for many forest magazine in Sweden. At the right: Tibazalika Alice Eunice, capacity development officer at ”Association of Uganda Professional Woman in Agriculture and Environment.
At Mbazzi Paul Kiguba will start a resourcecenter for sustainable village development via Wikipedia Luganda. He will form a group of authors that will write articles about how grow crops, develop the local economy etc. The leaders of VI forest in Masaka where interested about the idea and I hope we can develop a good and meaningful cooperation with them.
This house is meant to be the resource center. It is situated along the village road and easy to access. Paul hope he will get help with the financing of the center. I am helping him to find interested partners in the project and sources for funding.
This room will be the heart of the resource centre. Paul shows where the computers shall stand.
One of the Ugandan martyrs is the patron of Mbazzi and the new resource centre.
Dan Frendin 