Just like everywhere these days, food prices have gone crazy in Uganda. While we are somewhat lucky that Uganda only gets 60% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine (vs 100% for many African countries), it also usually gets a lot of the remaining supply from India, which has cut off wheat exports due to their own problems.

Additionally, fuel has doubled in the last several months, so per gallon, it's now over $7.30. (They sell by the litre and it's always more than in the States, but this is brutal!) Obviously, this affects the price of everything.

Finally, seasonality + fuel prices + supply chain problems have created a huge food crisis in the country, and particularly among the poorest — which is who we work with.

Our food budget at the 10eighteen compound, the non-profit in Uganda that I sit on the Board of Directors for, has doubled since January — and we're even buying less food! Some things are completely off the menu, like chapati, and serving sizes have been reduced a bit to try to stretch the budget.

After a lot of discussions, Jennings, me, and the rest of the 10eighteen team have decided to create a large project on DonorSee to purchase 2-3 acres of land to start a small farm. Not only will this give us a sustainable source of food, but it will also allow any of the teen mothers we work with that want to learn to grow food the chance to get new skills (there's not a lot of farming in a slum of 30,000 people!)

The project will launch next week! We're still finalizing some financials since prices seem to go up every day, and we are working on a video to show just what this project can achieve. We hope you'll check it out once we launch, and help us continue our goals of sustainability and teaching life skills to our teen moms.

Please “follow” our page on DonorSee and watch for updates:

https://donorsee.com/10eighteen

Speak soon,

Mikkel

PS. After the tragic death of my friend Gret Glyer, the CEO of DonorSee, I am more committed than ever to philanthropic work and helping people through our charity of choice, 10eighteen