National Lake Rescue Institute

So, one day later than I expected, I have finally started my sabbatical with the National Lake Rescue Institute. They're based about 15 minutes boda-boda ride from my house, in a suburb of Kampala called Kawutu.

When I got here, I was given a tour of the premises by my old friend, Daniel. I met several of the full-time staff here, including one lady who was sewing lifejackets for use on Lake Victoria and Lake Albert. One of the main thrusts of the NLRIs activities is the production of lifejackets for the water-dwelling communities; these are produced by the NRLI, or by Ugandans trained by the organisation, from low-cost materials (their buoyancy coming from plastic fishing floats sewn into the jacket) and are sold to fishermen, their families and other individuals that eke out a living from the lakes.

Today was spent putting my considerable IT skills to work. I helped set up a small network and started preparation of some basic IT training materials for some of the main MS Office applications (Word, Excel). Hardly putting my life on the line to help people, but it's something very useful as IT training and skills are not highly developed in this part of the world.