By Anne Mugisa

A Danish artist has started a project in Mukono where over 300 residents have been required to adopt his name in exchange for a pig or a goat.

The peculiar donation funded by Kristian von Hornsleth started in June this year when the Hornsleth Village Project Uganda 2006 was registered as a community-based organisation. The beneficiaries must be 18 years and above.

According to Kristian Hornsleth’s website, the project is an exposure of the games donors play on the poor people they claim to help. It says donors claim they give free aid, yet they actually take something in return.

Some of the beneficiaries of the project in Buteyongera village in Kasana parish, Kasawo sub-county, Nakifuma in Mukono district are all praise for it.

Some of the beneficiaries the New Vision met at their homes included Jimmy Ntalo, Zaituni Nampungu and Safina Nakafero, all of whom had adopted Hornsleth as their middle name. Ntalo got a piglet, while Nampungu and Nakafero had goats.

An old man, Israel Kavuma, had come to report that his piglet was ill.
The beneficiaries are praising the project as a way of raising school fees and catering for other domestic needs.

The project coordinator, Henry Hornsleth Kayondo, said 213 beneficiaries had each received an animal as a means of alleviating poverty.

He said Hornsleth was invited to the area by Eng. Ssenabulya Kateregga.

Kayondo said they started with 110 members but the number had grown to 727, with many more eager to join.

The beneficiaries swore affidavits through a Jinja- based law firm, Muziransa Associated Advocates, to change their identities to include the name Hornsleth.

The initial 110 beneficiaries were also to acquire passports free of charge through the project.

Kayondo said the project that has covered Kasana and Namaliri sub-counties, is also targeting Namugaya, Nagojje, Nabbale, Ntunda and Kimenyedde, all in Nakifuma county.

Kayondo, who was found in their small project office together with his secretary Godfrey Hornsleth Kavuma, said the project bought 242 pigs, 29 goats and a sheep from farmers in Luweero and distributed 213 of them. He said the rest were kept by the project for demonstration purposes.

He said beneficiaries of the piglets were required to give back half of the first piglets that each of the donated animal produced.

Those with goats are required to give back to the project one kid from the first birth, while a sheep owner gives back one lamb.

The animals given back to the project are redistributed to other beneficiaries who also return the first products of their animals for the cycle to continue.

Kayondo said the project treats sick animals and monitors farmers to ensure that they are looking after the animals properly.