The Mountain Grannies fund-raiser this year, Reuse Rendezvous. will be held at Canmore Creekside Hall on Novemner 7 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Free admission.
Find your next best treasure at this fun event. Details are on their website Home | Mountain Grannies of the Bow Valley, Canmore AB and in the poster attached.
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite, a Nigerian-British novelist has been described by some as “wickedly funny”. In the novel, a young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry, and superstition.
New members are always welcome. Just contact us via message@ujamaagrandmas.com
Nyaka- Uganda
UNAIDS data indicates that there are roughly 10.3 million children orphaned by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa who still require support. Nyaka is responding to this overwhelming need by supporting 23,000 grandmothers in the three districts where they operate. Nyaka is a community-led organization working to ensure children and families in rural Uganda have the opportunities and support they need to thrive. On average, each grandmother in the group supports about four orphaned or vulnerable children in their care.
One of these grandmothers is Tugume Grace. Now, 81 years old, Grace was invited to join Nyaka in 2007. She is a leader of one of the over 200 grandmothers’ groups that operate in the districts of Kanungu, Rukungiri and Rubanda. As a grandmother advocate, Grace champions grandmothers’ rights throughout the region. Grace says that Nyaka recognizes the special role that grandmothers play in their communities. As such, grandmother advocates like her have been educated on the rights of elderly people concerning land, health, property and decision-making, and the importance of securing a path to education for their grandchildren.
Nyaka recognizes that for a child to achieve their fullest potential they require support that addresses their practical, social and mental health needs. As such, they have worked with grandmothers to construct houses, kitchens and latrines, which has greatly improved hygiene and sanitation for the entire family. Most grandmothers are now able to access water using water-harvesting tanks that they received through SLF donor support. This means women and girls no longer must walk for miles to gather water, miss school, and risk assault. Gardening tools have helped them to improve food production, ensuring the whole family has the nutrition it needs to thrive. Through the microfinance initiative, the grandmothers have been able to access credit, which has boosted their income.
While much still needs to be done, Grace is proud of what she and her family have accomplished. “SLF has done a great job, and we salute it for the love and kindness it has shown us. I am grateful to God that I am still healthy and able to walk and do everything. I am proud to belong to this group, which has provided a platform for grandmothers to advocate for their rights. The organization embraced everyone without discrimination as to their background and how educated they were, which made us become comfortable and have a sense of belonging.”
A special celebration of the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign will take place in Ottawa on October 5-7, 2026. This gathering will bring Canadian grandmothers, grandothers, allies, donors and African partners and community leaders together for an inspiring event.
Another fall season begins with lots of activity! October began in Ottawa with a national gathering of SLF Grandmother groups. You will be hearing more soon about that event and many of you attended in person or on zoom. It was Excellent. Ujamaa hosts our big Bags, Babies and Beyond annual craft sale this weekend and lots of you will be involved with making or selling.
I want to talk about TWO important online free publications. This movement you are involved in and work for has lots going on and your work is making a difference. Find out more!
First is The Granny Bulletin available at https://grandmotherscampaign.org. This is a free online publication targeted to the members of the 100+ grandmother groups across Canada all raising funds and awareness of the SLF. I would encourage you to receive this biannual publication which highlights SLF programs specifically relating to African grandmothers and children. Just go to the website and scroll through the issue to where you are invited to add your name and email; you can unsubscribe anytime. Password is ubuntu for some Canadian granny group programs. Second is Grassroots. This small publication is put out by the Stephen Lewis Foundation semiannually and has excellent information on the work being done by the Foundation’s projects in 14 sub–Saharan African countries. Visit the Stephen Lewis Foundation home page www.stephenlewisfoundation.org to read the latest issue and scroll down to where it says join our community for email issues. You can unsubscribe anytime and there is no fee.
The SLF website also has an excellent front page with menu headings: Who we are, What we do, Areas of work and Where we Work…with an interactive map. Included as well is info on general origin and allocation of donated funds. This is where the funds go from our sales and donations. Lots of information – enjoy and learn!
This is a reminder to sign up at https://ujamaagrandmas.getcommunal.com/memberships in order to retain your annual Ujamaa Grandmas membership. If you wish to continue receiving the monthly newsletter and other communications, please sign up today to remain part of our vibrant community. For those who do not sign up in Communal, you will no longer hold an active membership or receive any further communications starting November 1.
As our new Communal database is still relatively new, we received a question about why we felt the need to implement a membership fee, and whether this meant that we felt the many hours our members contribute as volunteers were not, in themselves, enough of a contribution. The following is in answer to that question.
We introduced a small annual membership fee (from signup date to the same date the following year) for a couple of reasons:
1. To help cover the cost of our new membership-management system.
Our new database replaces an outdated and inefficient system that required a significant amount of volunteer time to manage. Communal will help us maintain accurate membership information, including members’ interests and contact information. It also provides functionality that will allow us to reduce our reliance on, and eliminate the cost of, tools such as Eventbrite for ticket sales and SignUpGenius for volunteer shift management.
2. To help cover some of the everyday administrative and fundraising costs of running Ujamaa Grandmas.
As you know, there are many behind-the-scenes expenses involved in keeping our organization going, from our membership database and insurance to supplies, refreshments at celebrations, venue and vehicle rentals, and the costs of organizing our fundraising activities.
While some of these fundraising expenses are necessarily and justifiably covered through fundraising revenue, we believe that the money raised through our sales and other fundraising efforts should, as much as possible, go toward our mission and what brought us together in the first place: to raise awareness and funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign.
This is particularly important at a time when global health funding is being reduced, and the communities and programs supported through the Grandmothers Campaign continue to face significant challenges. Every dollar we can direct toward the Campaign matters. Your membership dues are therefore more than simply a way to help cover our operating costs. They are another way of helping ensure that the funds raised through your hard work, generosity, and commitment can have the greatest possible impact.
Please know that membership dues in no way diminish the enormous value of the time, talent and energy our members contribute. You are the heart of Ujamaa Grandmas, and the countless hours you give throughout the year are what make our fundraising possible. Membership dues are simply one small piece of the collective contribution each of us makes to keeping Ujamaa Grandmas strong and supporting the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. Thank you for being a member of Ujamaa Grandmas and for helping us continue this important work.
With warm regards,
Char
Further to the email you received on July 12th announcing Ujamaa Grandmas new membership database, this is a reminder to sign up at https://ujamaagrandmas.getcommunal.com/memberships in order to retain your membership.
If the $20 fee is a barrier and you wish to remain a member, please write to membership@ujamaagrandmas.com.
For any questions or support, please write to message@ujamaagrandmas.com.
Steps to follow when signing up:
Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey is our second book by this author. This is a detective story that takes place in Ghana and provides a look at social issues while keeping the reader guessing as to ‘who dunnit’.
New members are always welcome. Just contact us via message@ujamaagrandmas.com
BOOK CLUB August 2026 Selection
The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter’s Quest, by Aminatta Forna, is a highly-recommended memoir about the author’s childhood and her search to find out the truth about her father’s execution after trumped-up treason charges in Sierra Leone when she was a child.
BOOK CLUB MAY 2026 Selection
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War by Leymah Gbowee, tells the story of how a group of women working together created an unstoppable force that brought peace to Liberia.
The author, together with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and women’s rights activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. The book tells the story of how a group of women working together created an unstoppable force that brought peace to Liberia.
BOOK CLUB April 2026 Selection
This month we will be discussing Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, translated from the French by Sam Taylor.
Diop has received numerous prizes for his work, including the Prix Goncourt in France and the International Booker Prize in the UK. Beyond the Door of No Return is the story of a French botanist in the latter half of the 18th century who travels to Senegal to study plants and finds himself overwhelmed by love for an African woman.
BOOK CLUB February 2026 Selection
Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom brilliantly re-creates the drama of the experiences that helped shape Nelson Mandela’s destiny. It is emotive, compelling, and uplifting– the exhilarating story of an epic life; a story of hardship. resilience and ultimate triumph told with the clarity and eloquence of a born leader.
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma will be our first book of the new year.
A heartbreaking story about a Nigerian poultry farmer who sacrifices everything to win the woman he loves. Here is a link to a review from The Guardian guardian.com/books/2019/jan/15/an-orchestra-of-minorities-chigozie-obioma-review
A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nanasubuga Makumbi, is a coming-of-age story set in 1970s Uganda.
Here is a link to a very positive review of the book from the New York Times.
The Missing American by Kwei Quartey is a detective novel that takes place in Ghana and features a young woman detective.
The book was shortlisted for the Edgar Allen Poe First Novel award In 2020. We previously read Wife of the Gods by the same author and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Africa Book Club meets every six weeks to discuss a book about Africa. We read both fiction and non-fiction, primarily books by modern African writers (although we have also read some classics and some books by people who spent time in Africa).
New members are always welcome. For more information, contact us at message@ujamaagrandmas.com
Americanah, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, is written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, a wonderful writer whose novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, we enjoyed a couple of years ago.
This is a modern classic about star-crossed lovers that explores questions of race and being Black in America—and the search for what it means to call a place home.
We are in the process of settling on an August date that works best for all, so please contact message@ujamaagrandmas.com Attn: Africa Book Club if you are interested in attending or would like more information on the book club.
The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning by Eve Fairbanks is a non-fiction book (we alternate fiction a non-fiction) and winner of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction.
A dozen years in the making, The Inheritors weaves together the stories of three ordinary South Africans over five tumultuous decades in a sweeping and exquisite look at what really happens when a country resolves to end white supremacy.
We chose this book because our discussion last month of the classic novel, Cry the Beloved Country made us wonder what South Africa is like almost seventy years later.
BOOK CLUB March 2025 Selection
The Color Bar by Susan Williams tells the fascinating story of Seretse Khama, born into a royal family in what was then Bechuanaland, a British protectorate. He attended university in the UK and fell in love with and married a British woman, but when the time came for them to return to Africa, the South African government pressured the British government to prevent him from returning to his home. It was only several years later that the couple were allowed to return. Khama eventually became Prime Minister and later President of what became the independent country of Botswana.
BOOK CLUB February 2025 Selection
Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas from Sudan, is a sweeping history of the breakup of Sudan and takes you to Saraaya, a fictional town rich with crude oil, located at the border of Sudan and South Sudan.
Abbas was born in Khartoum where she experienced the upheaval of the 1989 coup that forced her family to move to New York City. But, her ties to Sudan remained strong, and she drew from these experiences, particularly her time in the town of Abyei, in crafting the world of Saraaya, a place of quiet mystery and tension. into the lives of five strangers in an NGO compound on the border between Sudan and South Sudan.
This novel is a “gripping, vivid debut that announces Abbas as a powerful new voice in fiction”.
BOOK CLUB January 2025 Selection
