the EDGE project

Empowerment through Development and Gender Equality

The EDGE Project
Wisconsin EDGE Project Blog
wisconsin.edge@gmail.com

EDGE is a student organization devoted to developing sustainable community practices on an island community in Uganda. Lingira, a small 5km circumference island located within the Buvuma island chain in Lake Victoria is a community that struggles to get children to school and provide continued sustenance for family. Some lovely ladies started this project a few years ago through a contact that got them connected to the island where SHIM (Shepherd's Heart International Ministry) is located. Though we stay primarily connected through Andy and Keeky (the head's of SHIM) the EDGE project remains a religiously unbiased and unrelated organization. It just happens to be a means of connection and lodging when staying on the island.

The semesters since the creation of the EDGE project have seen a quickly changing organization to better exemplify the needs of island inhabitants in Wisconsin. Our incredible access to information at the University of Wisconsin, Madison allows us to connect with many influential people and many organizations that can help us with our projects. After many changes and shifts around the organization, the current set up includes an executive committee that handles much of the paperwork and donor information. The co-directors, Kristina Krull and Alisha David make a great duo in keeping EDGE organized and in contact with our humbling donors.

The rest of EDGE is divided into four teams: Agriculture, Empowerment, Health & Nutrition, and Environment. These four teams comprise the base of EDGE and each have team leaders who coordinate research projects throughout the semesters for implementation on the island. For example the Empowerment team, led by Georgette Condos, is in contact with a professor in eastern Africa who has developed a type of women's sanitary pad that can be created simply through papyrus trees. The process has created sustainable livelihoods for many women making these pads, as well as provides many younger girls with the means of being able to attend school every day without worrying about the menstrual conflicting with their studies.

As the team leader for the environment section of EDGE, I have had the opportunity to use the knowledge I have gained from both my geography and conservation biology majors. When concerned with environmental problems in central Africa, many people will begin with Lake Victoria and it's watershed. The home to millions of people and the market for many fishermen and farmers, Lake Victoria provides an incredible amount of sustenance to its surrounding basin. The healthiness of the lake is drastically decreasing due to agricultural runoff. It has lost an irreplaceable portion of its biodiversity due to the introduction of species, most notably the Nile Perch. Because the lake is such an important resource to people's lives, the environment team has been working on a project to reduce runoff on Lingira.

Our primary project involves establishing an educational tree nursery for the primary school to give children the opportunity to have a hands-on experience with trees to teach them the importance of trees for more than extractive and unsustainable resources. The erosion control trees provide for the soil on the island is unmistakeable. Ideally, the children will grow to appreciate trees through an environmental lens by interacting with the nursery. With the priceless dedication the environment team members have shown these past semesters, we hope this project will be educationally sustainable and ideally, sustainable to tree life and lead to possible reforestation projects around the area.