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Mbale Town

Mbale town is part of Mbale district which is in the eastern administrative division of Uganda. It has an area of 2,466.7 square kilometres. Its central town and commercial centre is Mbale town.

    Mbale town is a similar size to Pontypridd, with a difference that unlike Pontypridd who doesn't have any districts to administrate Mbale town is the administration town for Mbale district, with a local government which is similar to the Welsh Assembly Government. In the census of 2002 their was a population of 721,000 of which 664,000 live in the rural areas. The ethnical origins of these people are 'Bamasaba' or 'Bagisu' tribe, whose language Lugisu is the one commonly spoken throughout this district.

    The people of Mbale have a differing jobs to us in Pontypridd, their are mainly in agriculture, which mainly is used to live on and then the rest is sold. The main crops are coffee, beans, Matooke (plantains), maize, onions, Irish potatoes, carrots and sweet potatoes.

    The people of Mbale district have a very different life to us, because most them live in poverty because their don't have enough money for the basics of life, in the town people do have a higher standard of life.

    Mbale is blessed because a number of locals have decided to set up a number of organisations to help the people of Mbale district to improve their quality of life and try and escape poverty. These are FNDC, SAO & UWCH.

    These 3 NGO's are coming together into a partnership with people of Pontypridd to help themselves with a little bit of help from us. The exciting this about this is that we, are not going over their to set up any new organisations, or set up projects with a short life span. We are working with them to delivery projects which their themselves have identified as needs in the communities their serve, more information can be found on how these NGO's are serving the community in the following sections Health, Education, OVC, Churches and Engineering.

Now a bit of fun, as in most places around the world Folk tales have been pasted down the generations and these are some of them.

• The locals believe that many years ago the people of the town came down from the mountain and populated the valley.

• The fertility of the mountain which is due to it being volcanic soil, has given the people abundant fertility for themselves.

If you want to found out more about Uganda, or the town of Pontypridd which Mbale is twinned with.