Ridley Bell is a tall man who casts a long shadow. His legacy of giving back also stretches a long way.
In recent years, Mr Bell and his wife Meike have helped up to 200,000 at-risk people in Uganda. Their focus is the country’s north, home to six of Uganda’s 10 poorest per capita districts.
“We went to the north of Uganda and we fell in love with the place,” he said. “In Pardee, way up in the north, the average income for the area is around five Australian dollars a month - not a week or a day, a month.”
Research by the RAND Graduate School in California shows after 20 years of conflict in the region, 30 per cent of women report having experienced at least one form of conflict-related sexual violence, including forced marriage, rape and forced pregnancy.
But despite the hardships of the locals, the streets of Northern Uganda erupt in song and dance when the Bell family makes one of its regular visits.
“Every time they come, the community is usually eagerly waiting for them,” said Freddie Opoka, the associate director of programs for World Vision Uganda. “When I look at the investment that they're putting into these areas, [in six years] they are injecting around half a million US dollars [AU$750,000].”
Women in Adjumani district learn about financial literacy. Source: World Vision Uganda
“This is massive, and this is something I really admire about them.”
Uganda was making progress in eradicating poverty in recent decades, reducing the proportion of the population living on under $1.25 a day faster than any other country in sub-Saharan Africa. Then coronavirus hit.
“We had a lockdown that lasted for close to six months. And within this period, there was basically no economic activity going on,” Mr Opoka said. “The moment the lockdown was lifted, families had no way of continuing with their livelihood.
That’s where World Vision’s Northern Uganda Resilience Program (NUREP) project stepped in. Set up in 2018 to improve health, education and water supply, it has helped families to survive.
Ridley Bell in Uganda last year. Source: Supplied by Danyal Syed
“In the midst of a hard economic situation, some of these families have been able to not only survive and get through the hardest part of this period but also [their crops have] become sources of food for some of their neighbours,” Mr Opoka said.
“To go [to Uganda] and see the resilience of these people and how they get on with their lives and grow their foods, it’s very, very satisfying,” Mr Bell said.
Funding for the NUREP project comes from the Bell family’s blueberry company Mountain Blue. For more than 40 years the thriving business in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales has grown into one of the world’s largest growing, breeding and marketing ventures.
In summer, it harvested 1,300 tonnes of fruit from 50 blocks, mainly picked by hand despite a lack of seasonal workers. The company has also prospered by licencing genetics for dozens of new blueberry varieties worldwide.
The Bell family was recently named Horticulture Farmer of the Year at The Weekly Times Coles 2020 Farmer of the Year awards.
“I just love what I do. I am very fortunate in that regard," Mr Bell said. “I know what it’s like to have come off struggle street, and I have never forgotten.”
Growing up in Melbourne, Mr Bell said he didn't have the same opportunities as others.
“Growing up, we didn’t have money to buy bikes or go to Scouts, but my parents gave us really good values about looking after other people.”
Despite local challenges, Uganda’s West Nile Region also shelters around 1.4 million refugees mostly from South Sudan. According to World Vision, many need support to provide for themselves as they resettle.
Mountain Blue farms in Tabulum, NSW. Source: SBS
Thanks to the Bell family, World Vision programs in West Nile’s Adjumani District are now supporting more than 25,000 at-risk people there.
The Bell family is also funding hospitals, providing much needed medical facilities. The latest is a maternity complex in a village in the Oyam district, built at a cost of AU$150,000 and due to open in July.
“The primary reason that we've upgraded these health centres is to provide wards where young women can have their babies in safety because the attrition rate of babies to young women in Uganda is very high,” Mr Bell said.
World Vision programs backed by the Bell family in the Adjumani district are also helping refugees and host families to reskill.
A new hospital under construction in Acimi village. Source: Supplied by Danyal Syed
“We are training people in skills like carpentry, motor mechanics and sewing, so they can provide for themselves in the community,” Mr Bell said.
“They teach us how to make clothes; shirts, skirts and shorts,” said trainee tailor Sunday Ambayo. “During lockdown, I was sewing clothing at home to earn money to pay for medicine for children and other items which I need.”
In recent years the Bell family has made regular trips to Uganda, and they look forward to visiting again once international travel bans are lifted.
Sunday Ambayo is reskilling as a tailor. Source: World Vision Uganda.
“Ridley and Meike have helped change a lot of lives and will live forever in the minds of our community members in Northern Uganda,” Mr Opoka said. “We are really, really grateful for what they are doing for us.”
