WE ARE FISHERS UNION ORGANISATION -FUO
FISHERS UNION ORGANISATION (FUO) is a civil society organization was established on 21st July 2005 by small fishers along Lake Victoria. These included young fishers, fish mongers and service providers within the fishing communities in especially the Islands and Lake Shore. It was registered on 3rd August, 2007 with registration number 00NGO/1031 under Section 12 (2) of Act No. 24of 2004 in the Vice President’s Office, Dar es Salaam.
The idea of forming FUO came to advocate for equal human rights, education, and health, encourage higher female community members participation in economic activities to generate income including environmental conservation, and fair distribution of family resources, including capital, land, housing and others in marginalized and hard-to-reach community areas of Lake Victoria Basin.
The organization currently is registered to operate in the Lake Victoria Basin, including Mwanza, Geita, Kagera, Simiyu, Mara, Shinyanga and Tanzania mainland.
The organization area of coverage currently is the three Districts within Mwanza region, Sengerema, Ilemela, Nyamagana Districts the targeted beneficiaries of the organization are the communities in the mentioned above Districts. These communities include peasants, entrepreneurs, fishers, farmers among others.
Since its inception in 2005, the organization has implemented several community projects and acquired a huge donor experiences, track records and trusts due its well defined organizational policies, structure and professionals human resources and committed management team. FUO has well defined financial guidelines and procedures which have been used to insure financial and human resources management for efficiency project implementation. Based on the organization trusts and a good history in financial management,
Organisation experiences
FUO has received several funds from different partners such as; TANESA, ADRA(RFE-Fund), Mwanza Policy Initiatives (MPI), lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) under East Africa Community, Ministry of Water,, Environmental International Agency (EIA-USA), Safina Trust Fund, Family Health International (FHI 360), Global Fund under AMREF - HIV AIDS, Right Light Company (RL-UK) and Hesperian Health Guide(HHG-USA).
FUO has a qualified staff (permanent,temporary and Volunteers), from different fields of specialization e.g planning, accounts, fishing, human resources, social study, Environmental, health,Gender, education, land management, Project Management.
The organization has financial guideline and procedure which has been used in financial management to support financial internal control. The financial guideline has been prepared to accommodate international financial standards and it has been updated to accommodate updates information and procedures. Once the funds is secure, the organization is normally open a separate bank accounts (current account) and ensuing receipt to acknowledge funds receipt. The transactions is normally conducted by supporting documents such as requisition forms, payment vouchers, retirement forms, profoma invoice, bid analysis, contracts, receipts, time sheets and petty cash vouchers. Financial reports stipulating all expenditures per approved budget, is prepared by the project accountants and submitted to the management team at the end of every months for initial approval. Quarterly financial reports is also prepared and submitted to the board of directors for approval. Audited financial report bot
1.Research
2.Proposal writing and finding the funding agencies worldwide
Proposal needed to cover this problems below
LAKE VICTORIA CHALLENGES FACING FISHING COMMUNITY
• Decline of fish species due to overfishing, illegal fishing and climate change
• Spread of disease like HIV AIDS due to increase of population in fishing community and lack of education.
• Lack of fairness in industry where fishers sell their fish sometime industrial workers tend to reduce the weight of fish for example fishers know exactly the weight of his/her fishes package but after arrive in industry the weight change and become low.
• Unstable price of fish
• Fishing in the fishing reserve island like Nyamango, Gembale, Zilagula, Yozu, Chemagati, Rubaragazi A na B, Ikulu na Itto which were reserved for forest and fish.
• Lack of education to fishers and fishing community in general for example most of fishers (wajeshi) and fishing camps owners are not educated concerning health, gender and family plan environmental issues on Climate Change, Pollution and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in the Lake Victoria Region and entrepreneur
• Lack of education about Horticultural farming for improved production economy (hofipe)
• Lack of review on environmental assessment
• Increase of population in fishing community which lead to environmental degradation and overfishing.
• Lack of serious review of fishing laws which protect fishers and limit gears ownership for example you can find an industry have many gears than it is recommended.
• Fishing hygiene is not in good condition for example there is no enough toilet and bathroom to manage the number of population available in fishing camp factor lead to lack of private between men and women.
• Increase number of sex workers in fishing community
• Violence against women like girl trafficking, women buttering, sexual harassment and rape
• No chain of command in fishing sectors that why BMUs and fisheries officers are there but illegal and overfishing continue.
• No health insurance to fishers (wajeshi)
• Low paid to fishers by their bosses (fishing camp owners).
• Lack of strategic plan
• Lack of communication strategy
• Corruption in fishing industry
STRENGTH
• FUO manage to educate fishing community about HIV AIDS, gender issue, family planning, entrepreneur and environmental issues.
• Managed to conduct different researches concerning environmental problems and problem of overfishing and illegal fishing
• Managed to inform government about how fishing industry use fish filets as an umbrella to process fish mouth which is more expensive than fish filets
• Establishment of solar fishing lamp to replace Karabai which is very cheap to run with no complication and it is lighter four times comparing to Karabai. Also by using solar lamp fishers can fish more fishes.
STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME FISHING COMMUNITY PROBLEMS
• To educate fishing community on Climate Change, Pollution and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in the Lake Victoria Region
• Education must be provided to fishers and fishing community concerning tree planting and fish farming to avoid environmental change and lack of fishes in fishing community
• Establishment of laws which will stand for the rights of fishers (wajeshi)
• Improvement of education in fishing community concerning gender issues, HIV AIDS, entrepreneur, and environmental issues.
• Building of toilets and bathroom in fishing camps must be compressor
• Education to fishers on how to add value to their fishing products
• Mindset change and behavioral change to fishers (wajeshi) concerning issue of sexual intercourse cause to the sex is like food.
• Mobile clinic and dispensary should be available in island to save fishing community.
• Strengthening the financial capacities and income generation for small-holders fishers and households in fishing communities through VSLA program.
• Educate about Horticultural farming for improved production economy (hofipe)
• also Fishers Union Organisation (FUO ) and Sagar Energy Solutions is addressing challenges & creating value for Dagaa Fishers. We have developed a unique product that will eliminate all the costs and threats associated with kerosene, making it cheaper, safer, and more effective. Coupled with a solar-hub charging station, we aim to rid the fishing community of the need to use kerosene for their essential daily activities. Similarly we are looking to develop such sustainable solutions for other niche industries.
• -Enabling affordable alternative energy solutions designed through a local fishers engagement
We provide security,office,furniture,accommodation and tour guiding
Our organisation has no ability to pay for the volunteers
They have to help us to find the fund rising for our organisation
When the volunteers are found we will send them our proposal for amendments and finally to find the fund rising in their own countries.
and also to have volunteer who can connect to organisation dealing with health in order to cover our needs see below
WE NEED HEALTH SERVICES IN ISLANDS ALONG LAKE VICTORIA CONCEPT
( BOAT AMBULLENCE / HOSPITAL )
The project seeks to address the lack of medical services, including those related to HIV/AIDS, for members of isolated communities living on islands in Lake Victoria within the borders of Tanzania. It is delivering a comprehensive primary health care intervention package with a focus on HIV/AIDS and mother and child health. Services are delivered through static and mobile clinics to people living in hard-to-reach communities often missed by national-level programming and services. These communities are among the hardest hit by diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB, Typhoid, Malaria, Fistula and other high-burden, communicable, poverty-linked diseases.
On Lake Victoria there are over 150 island communities with over 500,000 people in the Tanzanian sector alone. These people have little or no access to a meaningful health service. The islands on Lake Victoria are among the most marginalized places in terms of medical care. The situation is severe at Sengerema district particularly Maisome and Kome islands where people are traumatized by bilharzias ,malaria, typhoid, amoeba and HIV&AIDS .But still there are other islands like Lukuba and Maninga which are located at the centre of the lake Victoria and it’s very difficult to access healthy service.
We need boat ambulance with the following services
• Several Consultation rooms/examination beds
• Well-equipped laboratory
• Minor and Major operation theatre
• Pharmacy
• RCH Clinic
• Dental clinic
• Labor ward
• ICU for critical ill patient
• VCT & CTC
• Trained personnel e.g. specialist, medical doctors, nurs
We are ready any time to receive any volunteers and guide you through Lake Victoria for the better of our country and your country as well and we are flexible to help volunteer to make documentation for the better of your country at large.
