Saturday, May 29, 2010

“For heaven’s sakes are you condemning a whole generation in the Acholi sub-region to being carpenters and tailors?”

That statement hit me hard. It’s like the aftershock of when you try and open a door that you absolutely know is “open” and with all confidence you grab the knob and push with your whole body just to find that you’ve slammed your face into the door because it is in fact, very much “locked” … It hit me like that.

I was in a meeting with the director of a community-based organization in Gulu who shared with me some very eye opening information and more on the harsh reality of the educational situation in northern Uganda.

When researching, you sometimes get to a point in which you can predict what a participant might say and what your results may look like. You think you know everything there is to know about your particular subject. And for me, I felt as if the majority of the people I was working with shared the same sentiments as I did about the power of community and local initiatives. In general they do, but I’ve finally found the gray area.

Right now, the gray area includes finding out that one of the local organizations that is a part of my study has been speculated of being guilty of nepotism and mismanagement of funds leading to loss of a donor and funding. As much as I believe in community I was faced with another “locked door” situation. But I wanted to address this first before getting into the topic of this post. I’m learning that there may be no formula to running a successful program/initiative- whether run by locals, foreigners, expatriates, a mixture- Locals may understand the situation better, but you find that outsiders grasp that much as well. There is still power in community and local initiatives, but I have learned not to discount those that are not.

I am grateful though. The learning never ends so I am keeping my mind, heart and more importantly EARS open.



Talking with the director, some very interesting information came up. He said: “Today most of the interventions are people [the youth] being trained in vocational skills and what are we talking about- carpentry, tailoring, bricklaying and concrete laying”

It doesn’t sound “bad” at first does it? To give the hope of a better future through vocation to thousands of Acholi and Langi youth who don’t have the opportunity to continue their formal education. But as I’ve learned, these vocational skills programs discriminately outnumber those providing scholarships for secondary education and disproportionally outnumber programs for university sponsorship.

So what are we looking at here? … Exactly what is being suggested- The northern community of Uganda will not be able to compete on the same level as the rest of Uganda- especially with central. The Acholi and Langi continue to remain marginalized in accessing meaningful education. When local/national political and civil positions become available who will be qualified to run for them? The carpenters and bricklayers of the north?

I would take the time to discuss the UPE an USE (universal primary/secondary education) but we all know that these two governmental initiatives to aid education in the north are “free in theory” so I shall not misuse time and talk about it.

BUT

I believe that this wouldn’t be such a dire situation if there were more scholarship programs for tertiary education and if access to all levels of education was higher in this region. Yes, things take time and reconstruction is a tedious and extensive process, but it does not mean that the best solution is to settle.

In a way everyone is caught up. Donors don’t like to fund projects that they cannot immediately see the results for. Many NGOs and CBOs receive funding for 1, 2 years and after they must search or renew for that same funding. So there is a real struggle to secure funding for 6-8 years. But with education, “long-term” funding is the name of the game. What we are seeing is organizations and initiatives catering more towards these vocational programs because they will receive funding for them AND in 1 or 2 years donors see results.

A friend put it this way: “Sponsorships don’t pay off in the short-term. You keep sending children to school, but it takes years to realize what the pay-off has been and many donors are not that patient … yet if you are really to make a long-lasting intervention that is the way to go; you’ve got to make for posterity, you’ve got to cater to the future of this region.”

This is creating a lack of human resource in northern Uganda in fields such as medicine, law, administration, politics and among all things education! I would love to see many more youth from the north be able to compete and compete favorably with their counterparts in the rest of the country. After all that has happened in and to this region and people- the bureaucracy of aid is hindering true growth …

So the question still remains “Are we condemning a whole generation in the Acholi sub-region to being carpenters and tailors?”

Comments are welcomed.

Monday, May 24, 2010

One Day I'll Wake Up

This is not a dream. This is not a dream. This is not a dream. This is my life.

Have you ever had to tell yourself that? In good situations and in bad- that what is happening around you is actually real.

Well I’m saying it now, but for me it’s the good kind of realization. And for that I am grateful
If you’ve been reading then you know I’m living in northern Uganda- Gulu to be exact. This journey started in January and sadly it is coming to an end soon. And by soon I mean mid-July.

I looked at the calendar today and I have a little less than 8 weeks … see I know what you’re saying, “8 weeks? That’s a really long time” … and my reply would be along the lines of, “not when you’ve been here for months” … “and not when you can’t even count how many things you’ll miss between the time you leave and the time you return”



I ate dinner alone tonight. I met up with the crew (Erin, Dustyn, Rachel, Whitney and friends Jeff and Sam) for dinner at a traditional foot spot called Tofique- But I left to eat at Mealtime because Tofique was finished with a lot of the dishes I actually eat.

Which leads me to tell you some of the things I will miss the most:

Malakwang and sweet potatoes! traditional beans and rice, rolex, chapatti and motoke, roasted corn, the chicken. Oh the FRUIT: bananas, pineapple, mangos and apples. Yes, I can get these fruits in the States but they taste so much better here :)

I’ll miss the Gulu market, the evening sunsets, the neighbors children running up to touch my hand and occasionally walk me to the road.

I’ll miss the stars because you can see them so well versus back in Knoxville or Memphis. I’ll miss the moon which lighted the sometimes difficult path back to our house at night.

I’ll miss the landscape … the beautiful beautiful landscape. The majesty of the Nile, the vibrant green hills.

I’ll miss riding on bodas

I’ll miss traveling … to the village, to Kampala to Kitgum. I’ll miss the fresh air outside of town. I’ll miss the people- all the people I’ve met and their stories.

I’ll miss, I’ll miss, I’ll miss and keep missing until I return

However, things I will not miss: the bad roads (but I’m sure every Ugandan would say the same thing), the jeering men & extreme change in weather (hot or rainy- take your pick)


So as I walked back to our apartment from dinner at Mealtime I told myself, “this is quite in fact a dream- a very vivid dream” and I congratulated my conscience for crafting such a detailed and magnificent dream. The walk home made me think about how much I’ll miss the cool night and the breeze as well.

I know that for about 8 more weeks I’ll get to wake up here in my second home. A place that is so real that I think it’s a dream sometimes.

For months now, I’ve been planning how and when I’ll be coming back. I'm hoping next summer. Because I know that one day I’ll wake up …

and I won’t be in Uganda anymore.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

“Really All The Students Have Been Affected …

they may not have been abducted themselves, but maybe their parents were abducted. Or simply they were all forced to live in a camp. So in one way or another all the children have been abducted. All of them have something to say about peace and the need for peace”
-Educationalist for the Pincer Group International Limited.

Living is Gulu sometimes it’s hard to believe that northern Uganda was once a war-zone- The site of brutal killings and rape, mass murders and child abductions. I wish I didn’t have to start this post by recounting what was, but it’s important to note that these things did occur- That they happened and the people affected are the people I meet and talk with everyday …

Like I said it’s sometimes hard to believe. Even when I travel to districts and regions such as Amuru, Pabbo and Kitgum I know that these roads were once dangerous and impassable. Remnants of the war come in different forms: a destroyed school building here, a IDP camp there, from the physically disable who you see on a weekly basis to the mentally disturbed people moving about with no clear direction … it comes and goes through your mind and you remember the history, the stories, the lives lost and those still living with the cost of war.

I mean the “cease-fire” was in 2006 so everything is “freshly post-conflict” and yet the resilience here is inspiring and unbelievable.

But recently I was overwhelmed with what was … and sadly what still is.

I’ve been volunteering for the Acholi Education Initiative (AEI) for about a week and a half now. AEI was started in 2001 by a cross section of Acholi society in Gulu, Kampala and in the Diaspora under the auspices of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative. Their vision is to empower war affected youth for sustainable peace and development in the country.

My first task before going out into the field was to organize and file student profiles of youth who are beneficiaries of sponsorships from the Netherlands & Irish embassy, War Child Canada and DANIDA. It seemed like an easy job. I’m not much of an office person so I was anxious to get out into the field. But as I continued removing student photos, labeling them, filing them by school name I started to notice the handwriting inside their individual folders.

Each folder contained a different style of handwriting and I discovered that they were filled out by the students themselves. There was a pattern among the files because AEI works with the most vulnerable war-affected youth (most are orphans). I scanned folder after folder in which students recounted how they lost their parents …there was malaria, AIDS and natural causes, but most of the students' parents were killed by the LRA rebels and even by the Karomojong.

For one girl, after her father was killed by the LRA her mother was murdered because her brother escaped from LRA captivity. And a young boy’s eye was removed after he attempted to escape for the first time.

No article, no report, no statistics can come close to the vivid voices of these children. Nothing can record what they themselves can write down about what happened to them and their families.

I physically felt heavy. My heart sank to my stomach. My eyes, blurry, stayed glued to the pages even though my mind instructed me to stop reading. If you were a victim of abduction there was section for that. Some were in captivity for as little as 1 week and others for as long as 1 year. These boys and girls are usually the eldest too and they all claim their younger brother and sisters as dependents.

So who is taking care of them if they are orphans? Well for those who lost one parent they are struggling with a single-parent income. And for those who lost both parents, their new caregivers range in age. But mostly they are 26 to 35 year old peasant farmers and maids and then you may have a grandparent taking care …

It was hard for me to continue filing. I had to take a few moments to breath. Their faces stuck in my mind. The eeriness of the white and black portrait shots of more than 150 students. File after file- a story to tell. It seemed like something out of a movie. But it’s the reality all around me.

The situation is dire especially since acquiring funding is extremely difficult these days. Even one of AEI’s donors has decided to withdraw their support this year citing a number of reasons, but one included that the “war is now over” … but to me, NOW is the most critical point to support CBOs like AEI. What you invest in now will set the trend for things to come since you are rebuilding from war.

These community-based and grassroots initiatives are so important to these communities and are essential to the rebuilding of the north. And I believe in community. There are so many initiatives on the brink- trying to survive on the little donations and funding that they have. They’re not yet “big names” they are not “well-established” so they get looked over for grants and funds. But I say INVEST in them! especially when there is little money to go around.

“We understand the people. It is easier to talk from the African context” – Bishop Ochola

“I’m a teacher myself and I have taught in the classroom since 2006 and I know the problems that our students here in northern Uganda are going through” -Innocent Achaye, founder of a new community initiative called Pearl Africa Education Initiative

“I told you in our selection process we involve the community members and so we have the support of the community members themselves, the local leaders and even the students are very grateful for what is going on so they are willing to cooperate with us. They are really willing. And you see here the working environment is good” – Susan Alobo, project coordinator for AEI


I am not saying that funding should be directed away from the national and foreign governmental organizations and agencies, but that there should be a preference for grassroots initiatives to the point that they don’t need to give their ideas and programs over to well-established organization and hope that it gets picked up. It’s a real struggle to see these initiatives survive off as little as 2 million UGX for 2 years and the kindness family and friends …

I hope to gather more information on this topic of CBOs in education and the power of grassroots initiatives as I further my research for my Howard H. Baker Scholar appointment in the coming weeks.

For now, I’m not sure how these initiatives will keep providing services for the community and a part of me thinks that they will not be able to in the current economic climate. But like I said, resilience is abundant here.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Acholi Dance Festival

About two weeks ago, I was invited by a friend who works for Gulu Public Primary to witness an Acholi cultural dance festival & … It was absolutely AMAZING! There were about 6-7 groups who performed almost a dozen dances with traditional costumes and instruments.

Dances included:
The Raka-Raka (for Courtship)
The Bwola (for Peace) &
The Otole (Warrior Dance- which was performed solely by elderly Women)

The festival was sponsored by The Watoto Church, Gulu Theatre Artist Company and the War Affected Youth Association.

I left with my heart full !!! Again, I will let the pictures speak for themselves