About Us

Our Logo and what it stands for

The logo is symbolic of all projects in Kidera and in the Tororo region. The Tororo Rock on the right is the symbol of Tororo and, at 1,384 m high, can be seen throughout the district.

The colours represent the different priorities:

pink – based on the school uniform of Kidera Primary School, stands for education
yellow – economic empowerment of the community, especially women and young people
red - health/medical care
green - modern agriculture
blue - water and energy supply
purple - future projects and scaling-up

On the way between the projects, knowledge is gathered and leads everyone to the goal: Building a Future to Stay at Home.

About Kidera

In Kidera, a village in Eastern Uganda near the Kenyan border, approximately 5,000 people live in 1,200 households in the poorest of conditions.

More than 3,500 people are subsistence farmers. Women (60%) are largely responsible for agriculture and often bear the sole responsibility for family and children.
1,200 are young people between the ages of 18 and 30 – youth unemployment and youth crime is one of the biggest problems.

Education, training and economic empowerment are therefore the most important priorities to enable the people of Kidera to improve their own living conditions.

About Doris and Judith

Since 2021, Doris and Judith have been managing the projects in Kidera and Tororo on a voluntary basis, with great personal and financial commitment.

Every day, they spend several hours interacting with the people in Kidera, Tororo and Kampala to ensure the positive progress of all projects.

Fundraising, collecting donations and writing grant applications take up a large part of their time.

Service above self is part of their everyday life and they agree 100% with Hugo Portisch's statement: ‘If you want to save Europe, you have to save Africa.’

This is how the vision statement of the ‘Kidera Impact & Sam Owori Projects’ came about: Building a future to stay at home!

Doris Steinmüller-Nethl was born in Germany in 1963 and studied physics in Innsbruck, Tyrol. Together with her husband, a native of Tyrol, she took the risk of self-employment in 1994. The high-tech company is now active worldwide and Doris is head of the research and development department. She has three adult children and is a member of the Rotary Club Innsbruck Alpin since 2006, serving as a community service and foundation officer since 2008.

Judith Köck was born in Mödling, Austria, in 1968, but grew up in South Africa. She studied microbiology in South Africa and has been back in Austria since 1991. After retraining as an interior designer she discovered her passion for designing Penthouses and freelances for interior designers that specialize in hotels. Judith has two adult children and is a member of the Rotary Club Kitzbühel since 2019. She is responsible for international service since 2021.

Judith and Doris met in 2021 for the first time to start the Rotary Global Grant Project ‘Kidera - Adopt a Village ’ and have been working closely with the people of Kidera since then. They are in daily contact with the team in Kidera and Tororo via chat, email and regularly in online meetings - in particular with Stephen and Daniel Owori.

Doris and Judith travel to Uganda twice a year to drive the projects forward, run health camps and identify further steps and projects that are needed to enable people to secure a future in their own country. In addition to close contact with Rotarians in Uganda, the two also visit official organisations in Kampala (Austrian Development Agency, horizont3000, etc.) to strengthen international cooperation. Judith and Doris are often accompanied by two nurses from Fieberbrunn, Heidi Bachler and Johanna Astl, who actively participate in the health camps at the Panyangasi Health Centre III.

The Story of
Sam and Norah Owori

The original idea for the Kidera project arose 2017 from the two Rotarians Sam F. Owori and his wife Norah A. Owori, who have sadly already passed away.
Sam and Norah recognised the opportunities that could be used to give people in the poorest regions of the world hope and the tools to improve their own living conditions so that they can create a better place to live in their homeland and villages. It was particularly important to Norah to ‘empower’ girls and women. They chose Sam’s ancestral home of Kidera as the site for this project.

Sam and Norah were born in 1940 and 1943, respectively; in Kisoko sub-county, Tororo District in the Bukedi sub-region of Eastern Uganda. They got married on 25 April 1970 and were blessed with three sons, namely Stephen, Bonny and Daniel. They were married for 47 years but had known each other for well over 60 years. 

Sam was a banker with vast experience in corporate governance. He attained his first degree in economics and political science from Makerere University in Uganda. He went on to attain a master’s in business administration, a master’s in law and employment relations and several postgraduate diplomas and certificates from institutions in Tanzania, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, including Harvard Business School. Norah who trained as a teacher taught English to secondary school students for many years.

Sam was inducted into Rotary in 1978. He served in a number of capacities during his illustrious Rotary career, including President of the Rotary Club Kampala, District Governor, Trustee of The Rotary Foundation and Rotary International Director. At the time of his death in July 2017, Sam was the Rotary International President-Elect. Norah on the other hand was a member of the Inner Wheel Club of Kampala. Years later, she joined the Rotary Club of Gaba.

Sam was revered in Uganda and beyond as a person of high integrity. He dedicated most of his life to Service Above Self. Norah followed in her husband’s footsteps. Together, they brought hope and happiness to the underprivileged.

Sam and Norah were also passionate about empowering women and girls. They chose Sam’s ancestral home of Kidera as the site for this project. To this end, Kidera - Adopt A Village will be among many projects that will be implemented in Tororo to honour the memories of these two wonderful Rotarians.

About Stephen and Daniel Owori

Stephen Owori is the eldest son of Sam and Norah. He is also Sam’s heir and the current Chairperson of the Samuel Owori Trust.
Stephen completed his earlier education in Uganda. In 1992, he proceeded to the United States for further studies. He enrolled at Drexel University in Philadelphia where he attained a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a second bachelor’s degree in political science. Upon graduating from Drexel, he worked for Apple Vacations, one of the leading tour and travel operators in the United States, for close to a year before returning to Uganda.
Between 2002 and 2020, Stephen worked for MTN, the largest telecom company in Uganda, in different capacities. In 2021, he joined the National Bureau for NGOs, the regulator of NGOs in Uganda, where he headed the Development Unit until 2024 when the entity was mainstreamed into the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Stephen is a charter member of the Rotary Club of Tororo Sam Owori where he serves as a member of the board. He has attended several Rotary District Conferences and Rotary International Conventions.

Daniel Owori was born in Kampala. He attended tourism and hospitality Institutes in Uganda and Switzerland where he worked at hotels in Geneva. Thereafter he taught English in China also attending universities in Xi'An. He has been a member of the Rotary Club of Gaba since 2022, the club in which his mother was also active.

Since the start of the Global Grant project ‘Kidera - Adopt a Village’ in 2022, Stephen and Daniel Owori have worked closely with Doris and Judith and all project partners to set up and successfully implement the ‘Sam Owori Projects’.

The first steps are the hardest, many more will follow.

Cooperation with Rotary

When the Rotary Global Grant (GG21260190) project ‘Kidera - Adopt a Village’ was approved by The Rotary Foundation in 2022 with the host club RC Gaba and the international club RC Innsbruck Alpin, the starting signal was given for the ‘Kidera Impact & Sam Owori Projects’.

This Global Grant project was supported by District 1920, District 1810, District 9214 and many Rotary Clubs from these Districts and beyond.

RC Innsbruck Alpin (Doris) and RC Kitzbühel (Judith) managed this project as international partners successfully and have launched several new projects in close cooperation with the people of Kidera.

They were actively supported by RC Bonn-Rheinbogen, RC Tororo - Sam Owori and RC Kampala.

A great network was created that, through cooperation with many other groups and many volunteers and fundraising events like

made it possible to make Kidera a brighter place on this earth.

Partners and supporters

The projects and activities could only be carried out successfully because many people and organisations work together and support them - financially and on the ground, hands-on.

A big ‘Thank You’ to all of them!

The two project leaders, Doris Steinmüller-Nethl and Judith Köck, personally have contributed a large part of the donations and are particularly grateful for the hands-on support of the two nurses Heidi Bachler and Johanna Astl during the Health Camps in Panyangasi Health Center III.

Below, we would like to mention some of our donors and cooperation partners in alphabetical order: