An expat Coventry City fan is helping to support another Sky Blues supporter based overseas by raising funds to support his work.
Ronald Kamoga is head of the CEFOVID charity in Uganda – CEFOVID standing for Community Empowerment For Village Development. It aims to provide the most vulnerable members in the community with health care, life skills training and basic education for underprivileged children.
The Coventry Music Museum and 2-Tone Village got involved with CEFOVID six years ago, after a visit to Uganda by a friend of the museum. Since then they have helped fundraise and Kev Monks, an avid lifelong Sky Blues fan who volunteers at the museum and village, has kept Ronald up to date on all City first-team, U23's and U18's matches and the club news.
Ronald has his own football team and now due to wearing City clothing sent to him by people from 2-Tone Village, the City supporters in his village now number over twenty, and he has been seen regularly on social media.
That is how Ed Stockreisser became award of Ronald, and has been supporting Cefovid for around 2 years. Ed, formerly of Allesley Park, recently moved to France from a 20 year stint in Hong Kong.
Through Ed’s work in Asia, he has been able to source solar powered lighting kits for Ronald to allow the children light at home, to be able to read and carry on studying etc, after school, as well as all the other uses it would bring.
Ed has started a Justgiving page, posted on my professional network pages, as well as Facebook and to support fundraising for Ronald – fans have already donated, and you can donate too here:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/cefovid-ccfc
We asked Ed about his involvement with Ronald and Cefovid, and more about the fundraising…
How did you first hear about Ronald and the work he is doing?
I first heard about Ronald and his work in Kampala via the Coventry City Fans Forum on Facebook. I've been a long distance supporter for 20 years, as an expatriated Coventrian, living in New York and Hong Kong. Having met Sky Blue fans in both continents to watch games with, I was amazed at how big our CCFC network is. I started supporting Ronald's work 12 months ago and was just so impressed with what he is doing, how the club has become part of the "culture" of a Kampala children's school and how far Coventry has spread its wings.
What have you been able to do so far in supporting him?
I've supported Ronald's charity personally, but my work as a consultant put me in touch with a lot of different businesses. One being a new provider of a solar powered light and WiFi box, based in Indonesia, specifically developed to provide connectivity to locations without electricity. The other is an old school friend from Finham Park who I haven't spoken to in over 20 years.....also a supporter of Ronald. When we reconnected for work reasons I asked Andrew Convery, of Caniican, if there was anything that we could do as CCFC fans, for Ronald. Andrew told me that we could do it, and to "just go for it". All of a sudden it clicked. I wondered if the solar powered lights could be useful to Ronald, so got in touch with him. He does so much to put children through school, that it made sense to connect the dots. Ronald's children, in the Kampala slum, have no access to electricity at night and I felt it could help. The solar powered light company was raising funds for other charities and it got me thinking. If there was a way to help Ronald and CCFC Uganda, then it was worth trying. From Hong Kong, to Indonesia, via my now home in France, for Coventry, in Uganda! That's all singing together!
With the fundraising, what are you hoping to achieve?
The solar powered light boxes cost around 70 USD each, plus delivery, but I believe that I can get them cheaper with volume. The boxes provide USB charging ports and a 5 metre cable to run light bulbs off the solar panel placed on the roof of houses in the slum. They can also help the schools that Ronald work's with for light. Ronald spent a night in the slum for his birthday in November 2019 with no light, for him and his receiving family, and the idea of getting a sustainable, solar power light to those families just in the first instance to see, let alone offer so much more, is huge to me. At our target, we could get Ronald 70 light boxes, with shipping and customs duties etc. He's a Sky Blue.....and as a community we stick together.
Ronald has said that he could use over 100 light boxes, for a number of different uses, so I'm striving to get him as many as possible.....and keep helping him...but for now, the 5000GBP is the target.
How can Sky Blues fans support?
Any donation to the JustGiving page would be a huge help to get Ronald the delivery. I can't wait to see a picture of Ronald with a Sky Blue flag with his Ugandan family, connecting us all as a Sky Blue "Army". A lot of the SBA have donated already.
To help support Ed in his fundraising, head over to the JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/cefovid-ccfc