Our Goal: Building a Future at Home
Our core goal is to build a sustainable future at home with and for the communities in Eastern Uganda. The "Sam Owori Projects" initiative is dedicated to transforming Kidera into a resilient "Smart Village."
Our primary purpose is to combat poverty and create vital employment opportunities, ensuring young people and the entire community can build a secure and prosperous life in their homeland.
This vision is more crucial than ever. By 2050, an estimated 200 million climate refugees are projected globally, with a significant portion expected to originate from Africa, often migrating towards Europe.
Projects like ours, focusing on self-help and sustainable local development, are essential to address the root causes of forced migration. The widespread emergence of similar initiatives globally underscores the critical importance of this approach for the entire world population.
Our Milestones & Achievements
Empowering communities to build their own future. We provide the infrastructure,
tools and training for sustainable growth in:
Education and access to clean water
Empowerment of women and youth
Improving Health Care
Modern agriculture and implementation of the School Farm and Demonstrationfarm: Green Farm Future
Implement Solar Power Grid
Future activities
It all began with a vision
Uganda is one of the poorest countries in Africa with almost half of its population under the age of 15. Despite compulsory schooling, 53 per cent of the 15 million school-age children do not complete primary school. Girls are particularly affected.
The country is characterised by agriculture, and most of the work is done by women under precarious conditions. The climate crisis is exacerbating poverty, and flight is increasingly seen as a solution.
The vision of Sam and Norah Owori
The Kidera Project is based on the original idea of Sam and Norah Owori to empower women and girls in their home village of Kidera in eastern Uganda.
The founders and the team
After the tragic loss of Sam and Norah Owori, the two Rotarians from Austria, Doris Steinmüller-Nethl (Rotary Club Innsbruck Alpin) and Judith Köck (Rotary Club Kitzbühel), took up this idea, developed the overall concept from scratch and founded the Sam Owori Projects – powered by Rotary. From the outset, the two sons, Stephen and Daniel Owori, were involved as key confidants.
Doris and Judith manage and oversee the projects in Kidera, working closely with Sam and Norah's two sons, the people of Kidera and Tororo, several Rotary Clubs and organisations to improve living conditions through education, training, healthcare, the creation of opportunities and the provision of infrastructure: building a future to stay at home.
In recognition of the legacy of Sam and Norah Owori, all projects and activities have been grouped under the name ‘The Sam Owori Projects’.
The aim is to develop and adopt the village Kidera together with the 5,000 residents, as a pilot project, and then to transfer the holistic concept to other villages. This will give young people in Uganda opportunities, training and knowledge to have a secure and prosperous future in their own country.
Sam Owori Projects & The Kidera Impact
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Education & Water
Access to education helps laying the groundwork needed to feel confident and courageous to master one's own life. However, poverty often means the end of schooling.
Girls in particular are denied access due to household chores, menstruation, a lack of sexual and reproductive education, and forced marriages.
In this part of the project, the foundations were laid for a prosperous, safe, and sustainable future of the boys, girls, teachers and parents. -
Empowerment of Women & Youth
Women are the driving force in Kidera – they take care of their families and work in agriculture. The economic potential of women is huge: promoting women as entrepreneurs and strengthening their position in agriculture can improve both the food and financial situation of their families.
Youth unemployment is very high and vocational training of young people is an additional focus of the project. -
Improving Health Care
The community in Kidera village accesses health services from Panyangasi Health Centre III which is located approximately 5 kilometres from Kidera village. The Health Centre, in particular the maternity ward, does not have adequate facilities/ equipment and needed structures.
In this part of the project, improving health care and access to clean water will be an important focus. -
Sustainable Agriculture - School Farm - Bicycles - Training
The fact that agriculture is the main source of income for the people of Uganda makes them very vulnerable to food shortages. Climatic uncertainties and the resulting problems are the challenges.
This project aims to provide knowledge, training on how to deal with these climatic challenges, and access to the necessary inputs and seeds in order to sustainably reduce the adverse effects on agricultural production and ensure food security. -
Power & Energy
In Kidera, only a few households have access to electricity which is expensive and unstable.
The planned project to set up a grid-independent solar technology will provide the people in the community, school, health centre and small businesses with a reliable energy supply and thus an opportunity for high-quality health care, education, enhancing safety and security. The topic of ‘clean cooking’ and reducing deforestation will also be a focus. -
Future Plans
All activities of the Sam Owori projects will make Kidera a pilot project of a “smart village” with the aim of fighting poverty and providing new employment avenues.
The entire community will benefit from the improved and more secure Smart Village.
With the help of The Rotary Foundation, a large-scale project is planned for 2026/27, so that the concept of the model village of Kidera can be transferred to other villages in eastern Uganda.