The Kulika Trust was essentially a gift from my father, Arnold Brenninkmeyer, who died in 1976. He knew, of course, that I had had a fascination for Africa since I was a tiny kid. The seed was seeded by a piano teacher when I discovered that I could divert her from my lesson, which was a lost cause anyhow, by persuading her to tell me stories of children in Africa who needed aid. It was not until many years later that I came in Uganda, a fully qualified Child Care Officer with very little experience but enormous passion. I worked with the Child Welfare and Adoption Society for two years, from 1964–1966, and then again from 1968–1970. During these excellent and progressively dreadful years, I was offered an astonishingly varied view into how life was lived in every area of Uganda. Wherever there were Catholic missions caring for orphans, it was our obligation to make sure that the treatment for the children was adequate and that efforts were made to rehabilitate the youngsters with their family. I was taken out of "cloud cuckoo land" into the actual world of rural Uganda, with all of its joys and sorrows, by the situations I encountered, the many loving individuals with whom I worked, and the children who both concerned and enthralled me.
Apart from a flying visit in 1973, I didn’t travel back to Uganda until 1985. In retrospect, the intervening years enlarged my perspectives and affected the course that the Kulika Trust would take. I landed a job with the Commonwealth Students’ Children Society (CSCS) (CSCS). This group worked with students, usually from West and Southern Africa, who had brought children with them to the UK but who discovered that it was very difficult to secure lodging and child care for the family. Many resorted to fostering their children with English families, unknowing of the differing expectations of the foster family, the cultural clashes that might emerge, and the confusion this would bring to the children divided between the two families.
I learnt a great lot about the wants and aspirations of these abroad families and about the need there was in all the developing countries for skilled people, and it was evident that war-torn Uganda would be especially needed after losing so many of its intellectual treasures to the war. For this reason, student scholarships, initially for students from Commonwealth countries, would be one focus for the new trust.
After 7 years with CSCS, I decided to set up a children’s home to care for at least some of these students’ children, where parents would be allowed to stay or to take their children home with them at weekends or for holidays to keep the relationship between them. From 1978 through 1991, I ran Warren Farm as a children’s home. Three slots were always reserved for children of African students. I was a strong conservationist and was determined to use the land we had to provide at least some of the food we required.
We built a little farm with animals, mainly for the benefit of the children but also to produce eggs, milk, and meat for the kitchen and manure for our huge vegetable garden.
This venture and my expanding participation with conservation programs in the area became the basis of the sustainable agricultural focus of the Kulika Trust. We closed the Children’s Home in 1991 but couldn’t find a buyer for the property. When I visited Uganda with Brian Evans at the end of that year, we had multiple requests for farmer training from the families and groups we met. Both labor and skills had been lost in the conflict, and people were suffering in the rural. As we flew over the Sahara on the way home, I was stunned by the hugeness of the desert and the fact that it is pushing ever southward. The idea came to me that I still had the farm, which was hanging idle, and Uganda needed to conserve its soil through sustainable cultivation; perhaps Warren Farm might provide a teaching facility for African farmers. To my amazement, everyone I talked to at home, who understood considerably more about African agriculture than I did, was enthused about the notion rather than disparaging it. A small working party was created, consisting of Reverend Merfyn Temple, Mathias Guepin, Brian Evans, and me. The property was assessed and considered highly suited for the project; Dr. Anne Stone was chosen as project manager, and from then on, the whole affair took on a lot more professional tone. In 1993, the first two trainees arrived from Uganda: Elijah Kyamwendo and Josephine Kizza. Together with Dr. Stone and other helpers, they worked very hard to turn the farm into a true training tool, and they helped to make sure that the syllabus was truly suitable to the Ugandan environment for which it was meant. Between 1993 and 2000, 40 farmers were trained at Warren Farm. They were trained as tutors in 1999 and will continue the training program in Uganda beginning in 2000. What a tremendous feat for all who took part in it.
The money for the new trust became available in 1981. From the beginning, my father had planned that my philanthropic activities should fall under the cautious eye of the Charities Department of his company. The Kulika Trust was established up with their support, and the Board was made up of members and contacts of the company in the early days. David Burnstone has been our legal consultant for the complete 25-year life of the Trust. The demise of Kulika UK coincided with his departure from the company. David Barker managed the charities section and was my guide and assistance throughout the life of the trust. Although he withdrew from the company, he remained still on the Kulika Board till the end of 2006. I have had the tremendous pleasure of being able to accomplish my dreams through the hard work of completely loyal, tolerant, and versatile people who have the qualities I lack. I am tremendously grateful to them.
The two people to whom The Kulika Trust and I owe the greatest amount of appreciation are Brian Evans and Andrew Jones. They did all the work! Brian Evans was David Barker’s assistant, and he was appointed, part time, to this new trust from its establishment. He worked with me for 13 years, doing most of the administration and being an ever-cheerful companion while we studied the benefits of new schemes, interviewed students, toured projects, and eventually visited Uganda together. From the start, it was a two-pronged program: scholarships and environmental projects. In Britain, very few people knew anything about Uganda other than Idi Amin and bloodshed. The only Ugandans in the country were those who had washed up there as refugees. From these, we were able to pick a handful for scholarships. During the first 5 years, we sponsored 42 students from 11 different nations, 27 of whom were Ugandan. We found that it was impossible to follow up on students all around the world, so once we were able to visit Uganda and had met Basil Kiwanuka at the Catholic Secretariat, it became possible to sponsor kids, picked in Uganda, with confidence. We launched an annual Christmas lunch in London, when all the students sponsored by the Trust in Britain were invited to meet each other and the Board members. For a long time, this was the sole opportunity for board members to connect with the young men and women that we were funding. These celebrations were appreciated by everyone and contributed to the trust of the board, which led in 1991 to the first transfer of capital to Kulika, Uganda.
We got active in environmental efforts well before this was recognized as being vital to the future of the earth. We financed some of the projects of our local environment trust in Berkshire and the work of another trust that educates volunteers to work on conservation projects. Once the Warren Farm project came on stream, the conservation projects were steadily phased down. Andrew Jones was appointed CEO in 1993, as Brian was preparing for retirement. He was our first full-time employee. He was given his own office under David Barker’s wing and immediately had it organized in a highly effective manner. The first few years of his rule were nevertheless times of expansion and new ideas. Warren Farm Training was just getting began; student scholarships rose, and Andrew made tremendous efforts to locate partners for scholarship support. The introduction of the Open University MSc course in Uganda has been of enormous importance to the NGO sector in Uganda.
During the latter years, he managed the countdown to the "independence" of Kulika Uganda and the inevitable collapse of Kulika UK. It was a tremendous endeavor that, combined with Jonathan Hett and Catherine Sweet at our end and Sym Kiwanuka, Elijah Kyamwendo, all the board members, and all the personnel and partners in Uganda, was achieved with resounding success. What a lot we all have to be grateful to Andrew for! I wish him well.
