Family inspiration
Donovan (seated on far right), Prue and Tom with locals outside Bahemuka House
Kanaama Interactive Community Support (KICS) was founded in 2009 by Donovan Chamberlayne, his mother Prue, and her husband Tom Wengraf. Their inspiration stemmed from Donovan’s father, Professor Matarare Bahemuka, who was tragically killed in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala in 1988.
Bahemuka met Prue in London while he was training in medical school to establish a neurology department in his homeland.
Bahemuka had a deep connection to southwest Uganda, having grown up in Bushenyi before developing a farm in the village of Kanaama. Donovan visited his father there as a teenager, just three months before his father’s untimely death.
Our foundation
Political turmoil hindered Donovan’s return to Uganda until 2007. He received a warm welcome on his arrival with Prue and Tom, but the contrast between their friendly reception and the community’s pervasive poverty and hardship was striking.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic throughout the 1980s and 1990s left many women as the sole providers for their families. With limited income, people were trapped in a cycle of poverty, unable to afford education or secure stable employment.
Driven by this experience, Donovan, Prue and Tom established Kanaama Interactive Community Support (KICS), a nonprofit organisation committed to sustainable development through microcredit, in 2009.
KICS launched a programme to improve educational opportunities for orphaned and vulnerable children in 2013. It added an adult literacy project along with agricultural and business training in 2015 as a long-term solution for financial wellbeing.
Through the development of shareable skills, KICS is striving to create communities that can thrive and inspire future generations.
Our objectives, vision and mission
The charity’s objectives are defined in its 2009 constitution:
- The advancement of education and training
- The relief of poverty, sickness and distress
- The promotion of good health
We aim to contribute to community development by providing finance and human resources, by sponsoring research, and by acting as an umbrella or resource body.
The vision
Kashare sub-county without poverty, its people in good health and with universal education.
The mission
An integrated multi-sectoral development programme focusing on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable through capacity building, education and welfare.