Northern Uganda: Hope for sustainable peace.

What kind of jobs does aid create?

2010-02-10T00:27:00.000-08:00

One of the things that never seems to be discussed in development is probably also one of the most tangible effects of aid: It creates jobs for local professionals who run the aid/ngo organizations.

In Gulu, there was a huge influx of NGO’s and aid money that poured into the region in the early 2000’s, catering especially to the needs of the nearly 1.7 million Ugandans living in Internally Displaced Person camps. In the period after the Cessation of Hostilities agreement was signed between the LRA and the Government of Uganda in 2006, a relative peace has held up to today (unless you are looking at the situation from the point of a Congolese or Southern Sudanese). During this period NGOs continued to grow in number and started moving their services from relief based efforts to more development and resettlement based efforts.

Today, most of the IDP camps have been dismantled, people have rebuilt their lives on their ancestral land, and the camps have closed down, save for a smaller number of very vulnerable populations still residing in camp land (mostly the orphaned, the sick, or the very old). NGOs are now losing their mandate for funding and many are winding up their projects in the Gulu area and heading for new problem areas in South Sudan and the DRC, among other places. Normally, this would be considered a success, but it will probably have a substantial impact on the local Gulu economy. The NGO’s, as the main “white collar” industry, provided a number of good middle class jobs and most likely kept a stable middle class afloat during the last decade in Gulu. In fact, during the last decade, Gulu Town has experienced a sort of economic boom (and quite possibly a bubble) as many multi-story hotels have been built, shops have opened, and Africa’s biggest banks have opened their doors to Gulu residents. By one unofficial count, there were only 2-3 major banks in Gulu Town at the turn of the decade. Now the town boasts over about a dozen, including all of the major banking brands you might find in Kampala or even Nairobi.

There is a lot of debate currently about the usefulness of aid: Does it produce real change? Growth? The data is not really conclusive in either case. And surely aid should attempt to help the most marginalized. But one thing is certain: It provides middle class, professional jobs and helps create a stable, educated middle class that largely, in turn, creates more jobs for other sectors in a local economy. For example, the local development worker with a good salary will spend more money locally on food, entertainment, education, health care, etc, creating more jobs in those industries as well.

The problem, however, is that these jobs don’t last forever, especially if they are provided by large international NGOs who tend to relocate to new problem areas every few years. It would be better, perhaps, if more of the aid could be invested in local, grass-roots development organizations that plan to stay for awhile. I can think of a number of grass-roots organizations that have been around Gulu for years and are not only providing jobs to middle-class locals, but are providing careers. Human Rights Focus, comes to mind as one of these organizations. We set up BOSCO to be run as such an organization, operating within a local structure that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon: the Catholic church. Our Executive Director here is a long-time resident and priest from the north, Fr Joe Okumu. We have made substantial investments in our work here and don’t plan to be going anywhere anytime soon. In that sense, we think that as we grow we are hopefully providing a place that gives local professionals not just a job but a career. That is at least one substantial contribution that we can make.

We are also, of course, hoping that our ICT training in the rural areas prepares undereducated youth with job and communications skills that will one day help them remain employed in their fields of work.

PS: Maybe this argument could also be made more to donors who don’t like to pay for overhead and administrative costs. If we rephrased it as “job creation” costs, maybe more would contribute to non-profit overhead and administrative costs.

Gulu Town viewed from BOSCO tower

BOSCO Uganda's first ever Web 2.0 training workshop

2010-01-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

This week, BOSCO is hosting our first ever Web 2.0 training workshop, on site at our office in the Catechists Training Center, Gulu. We are hosting 16 young men and women representing 8 of our rural sites (see site locations here).

They are going to be focusing on learning collaborative, web based applications like Wikispaces, Google Docs, and other social media applications. Our users have already learned how to create their own blogs. You can see their work here.

Upon completion of the workshop these users will return to their rural based ICT sites and will be the primary peer trainers, initiating the Train the Trainer process.

When Good Aid Goes Bad

2010-01-21T23:10:00.000-08:00

There have been a lot of news stories recently about what Haitians need from the Western world to recover from the earthquake. People want to help and many Americans look first to the piles of junk they have accumulated in their basements or attics as a way of clearing some space while giving them to someone in need.

A recent New York Times article touches on this issue. What should Americans give to Haiti? The overwhelming answer from the likes of the world biggest relief agencies is: Cash. The argument goes something like this: Relief agencies are already on the ground and can use the cash immediately to put in place relief efforts and supplies. Donated, used goods, often don’t match the needs of the disaster victims and can get in the way of what relief agencies really need. Further, some donated items just get stuck in customs waiting for corrupt officials to clear them. When good intentions go bad it can look like this:

"One person wrote about the bewilderment of survivors of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras upon opening a box of donated high-heeled shoes, while another tells of the arrival in Congo of boxes of used toothbrushes, expired over-the-counter drugs and broken bicycles."

To bring this story closer to my work in Gulu: We know of one aid organization that collects used desktop computers. They then refurbish them and distribute them to schools and local institutions. The problem with this is that these computers are, first of all, old and often run like a 10 year old computer should run (i.e., slow) and secondly, because they are old desktops, they consume tremendous amounts of electricity. This becomes a problem when there is no electricity grid outside an urban area. Schools with donated computers are left to try and buy fuel for a generator to run these things, which if ran everyday, would cost the school thousands of dollars a year. Schools here just don’t have that kind of budget, leaving these second-hand, donated computers as mostly useless (see photo below).

Unused Aid

We installed a few (new) solar powered PCs at a school in Pabo (a former IDP camp). They had also been given a lab of 8 refurbished desktop computers from the above mentioned unnamed organization. We asked them how many times they had used those computers and their answer: 1 time in 3 years.

So next time you have the impulse to throw old “things” at a problem, do a little research and see what organizations can meet the same needs more efficiently with a cash donation (and think of BOSCO-Uganda if you are looking to get involved with computers/Internet/ICT in Uganda!).

PS…from my experience, donated second-hand clothes have been put to good use domestically at homeless shelters or your local Catholic Worker house.

More pics from Kenya

2010-01-18T11:05:00.000-08:00

Some more photos below from my holiday travels in Kenya. We made it to Kisumu, Nairobi (the capital), and coastal Kenya to Mombasa and Lamu.

These two photos are from Kisumu which sits at the northeastern edge of Lake Victoria.

Dowtown Nairobi above, the capital of Kenya. Also a city of extremes with high rise office buildings looking out over huge slums.

Mombasa, above was our next stop, squarely on the Indian ocean. One of the main attractions in the city is old town area where Fort Jesus is located. Fort Jesus, pictured above looks out over the harbor and was built largely of coral by the Portugues in 1593.

The final set of photos are from Lamu, also on the coast of Kenya closer to the Somalia border. Reaching Lamu by bus from Mombasa is a little bit difficult and tiresome, as we found out. From Mombasa you head north on two hours of paved road to Malindi. After reaching Malindi, the run of good roads comes to an end. Despite being only 100 miles south of Lamu, it takes another 5 hours on a terrible road to reach Lamu from Malindi. Upon reaching, you have to exit the bus and hop on a ferry to take you to the island.
We decided it wasn't worth putting ourselves through that again on the way back to Mombasa. So we booked a $50 flight, taking all of 25 minutes to reach Malindi, where we then boarded a bus. That 25 minute flight would have been a 5 hour bus ride. Check out the pic of the airport on Lamu island -- not much more than a grass thatched roof with some seats underneath. The last photo is a view of Lamu form a few thousand feet up.

The Mutsinzi Report -- The event that sparked the Rwandan Genocide

2010-01-12T23:22:00.000-08:00

Confirming what many had suspected for years, the Mutsinzi Report, released this week, outlines in detail how extremist Hutu factions in Rwanda used surface to air missiles to take down the Rwandan president's (who was a more moderate Hutu) airplane in 1994. At the time, the death was blamed on the Tutsi rebels and was used as a justification for the ensuing genocide.

The president, at the time, was returning from Peace talks in Tanzania...peace talks that apparently weren't welcomed by the more extremist of Hutu factions. Check out this 5 minute video, recreating the event: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/the-spark-that-ignited-rwandas-inferno/

In Uganda related news, check out this article from the Independent. Ugandans are calling for both LRA and UPDF offenders should be tried for war crimes. Also interesting to note that the UNDP survey states that Ugandans think that religious institutions are the best groups to facilitate reconciliation. This largely supports the role that the Catholic Church played throughout the Peace Process in Juba with Archbishop John Baptiste Odama and social service organizations like Caritas.

Full article is here: http://independent.co.ug/index.php/column/insight/67-insight/2370-ugandans-want-lra-updf-offenders-tried-for-war-crimes-

New Year Travels

2010-01-12T01:51:00.000-08:00

I’ve been away from this blog for some time now. Work with BOSCO-Uganda in Gulu is proceeding well. We are growing fast here in northern Uganda. We’re currently working on finalizing a substantial grant in partnership with Unicef that would allow us to almost double our ICT sites in Gulu, Amuru, Kitgum and Pader Districts of northern Uganda.

Over the holidays I had the chance to travel to Kenya for the first time. After passing through Kisumu, Nairobi, and then the coastal city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean, we landed in Lamu, a small island off the northeast coast of Kenya, about 60 miles south of the Somalian border. The island is a throwback to the Swahili culture/ race as it was a landing spot for Arab traders who intermarried over time with Bantu Africans in the area, creating the Swahili culture.

The island remains largely untouched by modernization. The coral houses stand as they have over hundreds of years. By local accounts there is only one car on the island (but no real roads to drive it on), belonging to the local government official. The primary mode of transport is by donkey or dhow (a small wooden sailboat) and the island is only reached from the mainland by ferry. Actually, when I disembarked from the ferry with my luggage upon reaching Lamu, I asked for a taxi only to get the response, “We don’t have taxi, but we have donkey!”

Coincidentally, there is also a good article in today’s New York Times about Lamu. The Kenyan government (via Chinese contractors) wants to build the largest seaport in East Africa within miles of the island. Tourists and locals alike fear that this commercialization will destroy a delicate culture and ecosystem that has, up till now, remained free of many modern influences. Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/africa/12lamu.html

Enjoy some photos from my travels to Lamu below!

Building collaborative communities

2009-03-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

Typical Information and Communications Technology (ICT) projects in developing areas of the world focus simply on delivering computers for educational and community use. This basic and simplistic approach has often been tried and the results are varied. Organizations have been committed to sending “refurbished” computers to schools while others have helped start Internet cafes in towns like Gulu, where access to the Internet had only recently been available for the last few years.

An environment like Gulu, however, presents a few basic obstacles to the traditional and tried approaches for bridging the “digital divide” with ICT and computer solutions. For example, one organization we’ve come across is refurbishing old computers in the United States and then shipping them to schools here in northern Uganda. These desktop personal computers (PCs) were built for the 1990’s and consume large amounts of power. Unfortunately, most Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp schools in northern Uganda don’t have access to a power grid. Consequently, these PCs require use of expensive generators (fuel costs over $8 per gallon in Gulu, Uganda)—most schools can’t afford this and thus can’t use their “refurbished” PCs.

Other locations across northern Uganda do have access to grid power and are at a distinct economic and social advantage. But what good is a PC in these locations if the infrastructure for accessing the Internet is not there and the cost of other solutions like satellite service is prohibitive? In today’s world, providing computers to groups without access to the Internet is like providing a car without wheels—the computer provided is not going to take its users anywhere.

However, BOSCO overcomes these difficulties by providing low-power PCs that can run on a 12 volt battery charged by a small solar panel. On top of this we leap over the gaping infrastructure holes by transmitting our Internet signal over a radio wave that can reach sites as far as 60 miles away from our hub in Gulu. The expensive cost of high-speed Internet service is then shared over the whole network because all of our sites are connected with one modem located at our Gulu office. Each rural or IDP site ends up paying only about $15 per month for access to the Internet.

But besides the technical side of BOSCO, what makes it truly innovative is the philosophy behind what we are trying to do. BOSCO, while delivering ICT resources that leap over the holes in the infrastructure, operates on the premise that the local community has the power to articulate and communicate their own needs better than any outside actor. So, with the help of the Internet we are diving in to a training program at each of our sites that throws the traditional curriculum—heavy on theory and light on practical experience—out the window.

We, instead, begin with small groups of local users, led by volunteers who have prior computer and Internet experience. These groups train together, helping each other learn by biting right into the meat of ICT in today’s world—the Internet. The first thing we do is get them on email, then we let them navigate our simple Intranet site which connects all BOSCO sites to a high speed internal network, useful for posting photos, blogs, and other educational content. After these groups gain competence navigating the web, we point them in the direction of our BOSCO Wikispace so that they can begin collaborating immediately. Collaboration between previously isolated communities can help them reconcile with each other, share information, and articulate local solutions to community problems. Check out the chart below which gives a visual of how this kind of Web 2.0 collaboration can work.

Step 1: User groups formed at BOSCO sites with ongoing competence training (represented by block of people holding hands on each blue space)

Step 2: Local user groups sign up and begin posting their own content on BOSCO Wikispace from their respective school, community center, or IDP camp. (Solid blue lines between blue boxes represent user collaboration on Intranet between BOSCO sites; Dotted black line represents posting of material on BOSCO Wikispace for rest of world to view)

Step 3: Collaborators from within other parts of Uganda and across the rest of the world log onto the BOSCO Wikispace and view user content directly from IDP camps and schools in northern Uganda: Stories are shared, war-ravaged cultural practices documented, community development project proposals are posted.

Step 4: Collaborator input is returned from across the globe as people develop a vested interest in the plight and recovery of the people of northern Uganda. For example, one collaborator funded a small community proposal for $100 dollars to help a youth group of former abductees carry out traditional reconciliation practices. This proposal was posted by the youth group in one of our IDP camp sites.

See image below of what the Pagak camp Wiki site looks like. Notice that various users at this site have links for educational proposals, farming proposals, journal sharing, and a community notice calling for sign ups to partake in computer training at the site.

Please visit our Wikispace site at bosco-uganda.wikispaces.com to begin exploring what is happening on the ground and begin learning how BOSCO is turning the keyboard over to the people who know best what the needs are on the ground: the Ugandan’s themselves.

If you would like to begin responding directly to users at each site by adding your own content to the pages (a wikispace site is by definition a community site where anyone who is a member can edit and add content to the pages) please send your email address to me at kpbailey3@gmail.com .

-Kevin

Tower Problems

2009-02-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

One of the challenges of trying to launch an innovative non-profit organization in a former war zone is that on any given day, you can run into serious and unexpected problems that can impede your progress.

One story from a couple of months ago best illustrates these surprises and challenges:
One morning, I received a call on my cell phone in Uganda: it was one of our regular users of the BOSCO network, named Jokondino, in Pagak IDP camp, a fairly large and congested camp of over 15,000 people. As an aside, Jokondino is a primary school teacher and has been using our network to find educational information on the web to enhance his knowledge of the school subjects he teaches—many teachers in northern Uganda do not receive adequate training and almost none of the primary school teachers have received a university education. Jokondino also journals about his experiences in Pagak as a primary school teacher on our BOSCO collaborative wikispace workpage (See http://bosco-uganda.wikispaces.com/Jokondino%27s+Journal).

Anyway, back to my story: Jokondino called me and told me that the network was down, he was not able to access the Internet or the central server we use to remotely store user files. At this particular time, our technical assistant was on vacation in Austria so I was left—without many technical skills—to try and figure out what was going wrong with our long range wireless computer network between all of the IDP camps. That morning I received a dozen or more calls from users in other IDP camps wondering why their access to the outside world had been cut off.

Our network uses a 100 foot TV tower to broadcast the long range WiFi signal out to all of the camps using directional antennas. The government’s Ministry of Communication had given us written approval to broadcast from this location free of charge. After doing some preliminary testing of the network to find the problem, we were able to determine that the camps were not receiving their signals from the TV tower our equipment sits on.

I asked Fr Joseph Okumu, the Director of BOSCO-Uganda in Gulu, what we should do and he instructed me to drive out to the TV tower to see what I could find.

When I arrived at the tower—with its rusty chain link fence around it—I found a couple of security guards watching over the property, armed with AK 47 guns. In the corner of the property, lying on the ground was a large wooden box with yards of cable coming out of it—The box was labeled with the logo of the government telecom company.

I was a bit confused, confronted with a “coup” of sorts of our TV tower. And I was certain that we never previously had used armed guards to protect our equipment. I ended up approaching the two guards and made casual conversation with them. Eventually, I inquired about what was going on and who had moved into the tower property. They informed me that it was the government telecom company. They had purchased the land and wanted to erect a cell phone antenna on top of the tower we were using to transmit our long range WiFi.

I then asked them if I could take a look around the property and they agreed to let me. I looked up at the tower through the glaring sunlight and counted the BOSCO antennas, still mounted 100 feet up—they were all accounted for. Then as my eyes followed the long, thick black cords coming down the tower from the antennas, I noticed that there was an abrupt cut in the wire, which left the wires hanging precariously five feet off the ground with nothing attached to them.

Someone had cut the wires which were attached to a couple of pieces of equipment on the ground, including a solar panel and batteries which powered the antennas on top of the tower, enabling them to transmit the Internet WiFi signal to the IDP camps. It was clear then that someone had stolen the equipment on the ground—equipment totaling almost 2,500 dollars.

Later on, we would come to find out that the government telecom company had purchased the land that the tower sat on. They wanted us to remove our equipment from the tower—it’s still not clear who actually stole the equipment we had on the ground. We did climb the tower to remove our antennas and spent the next weeks trying to figure out a way to redeploy our system on a new tower—either renting space on another tower or building our own.

Since that time we have been in discussions with the government telecom company and have come close to resolving future disputes regarding the renting of tower space for our equipment. The difficult part about this incident, from the perspective of our organization, was that we had a legal right and permission to be there and no recourse or funds to contest such a large government entity in a court of law.

Last week, we had just finished discussions with the government telecom company about the legal arrangements for renting space on the tower they had taken over for us. We went into the discussions with a clear understanding of a potential partnership: We would be providing Uganda’s poorest and most rural areas with Internet access (people who would be unable to afford a regular Internet subscription) and the government telecom company would benefit from this because we were training their customers of tomorrow. Our preliminary rental discussions had us renting tower space for about $40 a month—a reasonable rate we presumed.

Well, after going to Kampala to finalize the legal documents, we discovered that the government telecom company had inserted a price in the contract calling for rental space on the tower to be charged at $700 per month—per piece of equipment. We have 6 small antennas to mount on that tower so the total price would have come to $4200 per month! Keep in mind, building our own tower would cost between $12,000-$15,000. Of course, we didn’t sign this contract and came away a bit disappointed.

The work carries on, however, as we try to find a creative solution to this problem. We have permission to use a Catholic radio station tower in Gulu Town as a short-term solution and then are experimenting with new technology that may allow us to skip large towers all together. We hope that as we learn and overcome these challenges that we will be able to accomplish our mission of reaching all of the most rural and war-affected areas of northern Uganda.

A long overdue update!

2009-01-09T02:24:00.001-08:00

It’s been a long while since I have updated my blog here. A lot has been happening with BOSCO since I last posted about our human rights monitoring initiative that we are doing.

In fact, you may not have known this, but between the last time I posted and now, I spent about 7 weeks in South Bend, IN working with the BOSCO board of directors and folks at the University of Notre Dame on our initiatives.

I arrived back in Gulu, Uganda last week to continue my “on the ground” efforts, working with people in the IDP camps here to find useful ways to connect them to the outside world with our solar-powered Internet PCs.

Maybe I’ll just start by giving you all an update of where the project is at now and then where I hope it will be going:

Right before I left Gulu for the US at the end of October, we had just found funding to support local capacity building. We realized that if this ICT project was going to be sustainable in the long run, we were going to have to have local, Ugandan, staff available and trained to carry out a lot of the technical computer networking tasks, especially as we expand to new sites in northern Uganda.

We were able to hire two new Ugandan staff, one as a “Technical Assistant” and the other as a “Project Coordinator.” This brings our team total in Gulu, including myself, to 6 people. We now have four Ugandan staff—our Executive Director, Fr Joseph Okumu, (seen here talking about the project) is a local Diocesan priest who is very politically and socially connected in this area and brings a ton of development expertise.

The next piece of big news is that we were able to secure an agreement with a group of local partners to expand our network to 12 new sites east of Gulu into Kitgum and Pader Districts (map of northern Uganda here). We will provide connectivity to a local NGO looking to setup ICT resource centers for youth who were formerly abducted by the LRA and have returned home. Also, we are connecting the local government offices and a couple of vocational training schools to our network. It is hard to imagine that until now, even the local government offices in district headquarters (a district here is like a state in the U.S.) still do not have access to Internet or the infrastructure for reliable service in the year 2009. We are hoping to setup an e-governance concept whereby people in rural outposts will be able to communicate and collaborate with their elected officials at the district headquarters.

We hope to begin deploying at these new sites in the next couple of months. We also will have the help of a Notre Dame engineering student this summer who is being sponsored by Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns in a summer service/internship capacity.

As for what is next on the horizon: Much of what I have begun here on the ground in Gulu and at Notre Dame will require my continued involvement into next year. Last December, when I began raising funds to support my involvement, I originally had committed to one year of service with BOSCO. As I grew comfortable with my role it has taken on something like a full-time management role. I am very invested in the future of the organization and I was lucky enough to have great support and prior experience in Uganda which made for a smooth transition into my work in Gulu.

As a final note, I came across a reflection I was reading on how we can always strive to be more compassionate with those we interact with and those we are serving. This reflection basically says: compassion is not a gesture of sympathy for those who are less fortunate or who grow up in places of violence or destruction; compassion is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a gesture of pity either; compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and investing a part of your life with them; it is about learning from them and listening to their stories while reaching out to offer your own story, giving a helping hand where possible. I think that is what I’m striving to do and I hope that is what the BOSCO project is ultimately about.

-Kevin

Human Rights Volunteers

2008-10-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I initiated involvement with Human Rights Focus, a local non-profit group which is training human rights field volunteers--over 600 across northern Uganda--to become human rights watchdogs in their communities, to perform community sensitization on a variety of human rights issues, and to act as mediators and provide referrals to justice authorities in community conflicts. The main substance of my involvement was to see if these field volunteers could be trained to integrate ICT--specifically Internet and use of digital cameras--into their field work. I started with the field volunteers in Lacor IDP camp, which is the closest camp to Gulu town, about 5 km away.

My idea was that these people could be trained using existing BOSCO stations to submit their human rights monitoring reports using email to the head office in Gulu. They could also submit evidence of conditions or violations using the digital camera that BOSCO provides at each computer site. Further, they would be able to use the Internet in their community sensitization efforts to look up educational resources on the issue of human and civil rights in northern Uganda. Last week we submitted a proposal to USAID--the United States Agency for International Development--proposing to expand this type of programming to almost 30 locations across northern Uganda where human rights volunteers are active. If this idea were to get funded we could use the BOSCO network to link the VoIP phones to the Human Rights main office in Gulu so that all volunteers could be a free phone call away from using the main office as a valuable resource for checking in and referring rights abuse cases to the proper authorities. Also, we could use the internal network that BOSCO hosts to support an online user forum where human rights volunteers from different IDP camps could share stories, offer support or advice, or post case studies for future use.

While working with the human rights field volunteers in Lacor IDP camp, I realized quickly how motivated these volunteers were to integrate their work with technology. Previously, they were bicycling their monthly reports to the office in town. Now they can just send it by email and include photos. They were also really excited to use the digital camera which can become an educational resource in their community sensitization work.

Francis and Paska, the two volunteers from Lacor, used the camera to create a photo essay which I will post below. Their photo essay was presented at the Gulu Walk--an annual event raising awareness for northern Uganda--in South Bend on Sunday Oct. 12. Paska and Francis wanted to document a common problem in the IDP camps: Vulnerable and child-headed families. Due to the terrible conditions in most of the camps, many parents died of disease, leaving the eldest child in charge of caring for the family. This has produced a number of social and cultural consequences as the photo essay documents.

Title: Vulnerable Children and Child-Headed Families: From Tragedy Toward Happiness

A photo of the authors, working hard to integrate use of ICT in human rights monitoring in Lacor IDP camp.

The photo above is showing a child mother who is sick lying on a mat. Her relatives and children are worried about her condition and status and are worried about where they can get assistance. They have lost hope on her status.

The child mother died after long sickness. She left her children with her grandmother, unfortunately the grandmother died too. Her children are left without a caregiver or attendant. This is a common situation in northern Uganda.

The children appear weak and worriedly are staving for food support, hoping to get food from neighbours. Many children in the camps are experiencing a similar problem.

Having lost both parents, the children remained without proper wears and some are left naked.

School going pupils are wishing goodbye to those who are not going to school since they have no one to take them to school or pay the fees. Although Uganda has established free primary education, some pupils are left behind because they cannot pay the extra fees which can total $5 dollars per term.

There is no proper shelter for these children because there is no one to make one for them. This case is common in Northern Uganda due to HIV/AIDS and WAR. Most families living in displacement camps are lacking a proper shelter.

The child above has been neglected since the mother died of Aids in 2005 . Most of the children in the camps are suffering as a result of War and HIV/Aids. The child has lacked proper nourishment, causing mental retardation and development.

The child of the deceased has also been infected with HIV/Aids after the death of the parents. The brother is monitoring him from home without any proper treatment.

The boy of 18 above continues with begging after the death of the brother in order to care for the young ones at home. He remains in the trading center for nine hours every day trying to collect money or food.

After long suffering as orphans, the children have turned to thieves after experiencing difficulties for many years.

These boys after long suffering, have now joined youth group whereby they can help each other by carrying out some activities for fund raising. And they are now rejoicing their output for this year after doing Income Generating Activities like crop production.

Through group guidance and counseling, this boy has managed to go back to school after suffering in their home as orphan for many years without schooling. After 21 years of conflict, the youth desire to begin a new life.

Life at the Catechist Training Center

2008-09-11T01:33:00.000-07:00

I realized that I haven't said a lot thus far about the Catechist Training Center where I am living. And I also wanted to include a few photos of where I am staying!

The Catechist Training Center is located about five kilometres outside Gulu Town in an area cleverly named ForGod. On our street (if you can even call the muddy river next to our compound a street) we have the Archbishop's residence, the Gulu Cathedral, various convents of nuns and offices for Caritas and Catholic Relief Services. It doesn't take too much intelligence to figure out why they named this area "ForGod."

The Catechist Training Center is actually made up of two separate buildings on one compound. The building you see in the picture above is actually the Catechists Training Center where the church trains volunteer catechists from all over Acholiland in northern Uganda to teach the faith to their various communities. This particular building has a few offices for the priests and sisters inside, classrooms for the catechists who are undergoing trainning, and a chapel where we attend mass on Sundays (see picture below).

The second building is the guesthouse where I live. At any given time the guesthouse can have between two and 12 people living there. The only permanent residents are Fr Joe Okumu, the director of the BOSCO project, and another priest from the Archdiocese. Right now we have six people staying here, making it much quieter than it was during the peak times of the summer when we would usually have 12 or so around the dinner table each night.

The photo below shows the second level veranda rooms--mine is the third from the right.

The photo below is a good view of our beautiful compound from the second floor veranda of the guesthouse. On our compound Fr Joe grows and raises almost all of the food we eat on a daily basis: potatoes, greens, tomatoes, cabbage, maize, cassava, etc. He also has a place for the animals: the pigs, ducks, turkeys, and chickens. And to top it off, he has a small vineyard to grow grapes from which he makes his own wine. Depending on the bottle you get, it can either taste like grape juice or vinegar--he is still perfecting this craft.

Below is a picture of the room I stay in followed by a view of the sunset from the second floor veranda just outside my room.

The Catechist Training Center is a great place to have as my temporary home in Gulu. It is a peaceful enclave from an otherwise hectic and seemingly chaotic world surrounding the environs of Gulu. However, it was not always this way.

Until 2006, Fr Joe used to welcome between 400 and 500 night commuters every night to sleep in relative safety on his compound. The night commuters were mostly children and young adults who lived in the surrounding IDP camps. It was not safe for them to sleep in the IDP camps at night because it was a common event for the rebels to attack the camps at random during the evening hours. During attacks, they would especially target youth to abduct into their infantry ranks. Consequently, every night, tens of thousands of youth would walk into Gulu Town and to places like the Catechist Training Center to seek relative safety from rebel abduction and/or attack.

Yet, even places like the Catechist Training Center were not free from intrusion by the rebels. During peak times of violence about three to five government army soldiers would patrol the compound where I stay, charged with protecting the 400-500 night commuters sleeping on the compound each night. However, this was not enough on an occasion in 2006. The rebels came into the Catechist Training Center compound while the government soldiers retreated or went into hiding. They abducted Fr Joe's cook and then looted supplies and food. Then they escaped into the night.

Hearing these stories from Fr Joe--someone who has endured this instability for twenty years--is almost surreal as I enjoy peaceful evenings and beautiful sunsets over Acholiland while imagining how only two years ago those sunsets were colored by the fear on the faces of young children looking for a safe place to sleep every night right below my bedroom.

In the final picture below I managed to find a Notre Dame fan in Uganda. He had no idea what Notre Dame is but he said he enjoyed his jacket anyway!

The youth search for peace

2008-08-25T00:42:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest tragedies of the war in northern Uganda over the past twenty years is the devastation it has inflicted on the civilian population and especially on the youth. Throughout most of the conflict, the LRA rebels employed a strategy which terrorized those living in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps by abducting youth—both boys and girls—to use as child soldiers and wives for the older soldiers. Many were kidnapped directly from their villages and from the IDP camps where they were supposed to have been protected from rebel attack. Once abducted, it is well documented that the rebels often used brutal psychological tactics on these youth by sometimes forcing them to kill their own family and community members.

As the violence began to subside in 2005 and 2006 with the onset of the Juba Peace talks in South Sudan between the LRA and the Government of Uganda, increasingly more youth who had been soldiers—some since the age of eight—were able to escape and return home to their villages. However, it wasn’t just as simple as walking back into the village and being greeted and welcomed by loved ones and community members. First, many former abductees had nobody and nothing to come back to. Secondly, they were ostracized and also experienced a great deal of stigmatization, which was simply overwhelming for most.

This stigmatization may seem odd to a Westerner at first because, after all, it was not these youth’s fault that they were abducted and forced to commit terrible acts against their own people. Nonetheless, when they began returning in larger numbers, the community had a great fear of these “former rebels.” The community had knowledge of the acts they had committed and many members of the community had witnessed these acts first-hand and now were faced with accepting those youth who had committed these acts back into the community.

I asked a colleague at Human Rights Focus—a non-governmental organization in Gulu that has been one of the leading monitors and watchdogs of the human rights conditions in the IDP camps over the past few years—the following question: What are some ways to help the youth/former abductees to overcome the stigmatization they usually feel upon reentry into their communities? He responded, “The abductees were removed from their community by the rebels. They were then forced to carry out serious human rights violations and to abduct others. People in the community have a very serious fear of these children when they return to the camps. They are ostracized from the community, ignored, and socially excluded. They are kept in a constant state of rejection.”

He continued on to say that the question, then, that communities and organizations in Gulu are now asking themselves is: How can we help reduce the stigmatization and foster a process of reintegration that encourages harmony, peace, and reconciliation. The Church has begun to take on this role at an institutional level. Archbishop John Baptist Odama did not ask the child soldiers to repent for any atrocities they committed. Nor did Odama set out by laying culpability explicitly with LRA commanders—although he did condemn their actions. Instead, he took the sin of war and of the ongoing humanitarian crisis onto the whole Acholi community. For Odama, the community repents because the community was responsible for the well being of these children—the sin is taken on by the whole of the Church. Furthermore, Odama has never referred to the LRA or those abducted as “the rebels.” He has, instead, continued to call them “his children.”

But action is also taking place among the youth themselves as they realize that any attempt at adequate reintegration into the community will ultimately have to begin with their own efforts. Consequently, many camps now have youth groups that have risen up, formed by young leaders who were once victims of abduction. They have returned with the goal of working to reharmonize their community and especially their fellow youth.

Dennis, the leader of the Yub Pa Lacwey Youth Group in Lacor IDP camp started his group in 2006 for those youth in Lacor IDP camp who were returning from the bush to their community after being abused by the rebels. Dennis himself was abducted at the age of 8—he is now 18—and was forced to do things he says are unimaginable for any human to have to endure.

Indeed, the psychological trauma of these youth is more than substantial and for most, professional treatment is a need. However, there are virtually no psychiatrists in the region and even the NGOs, community organizations, and the Church are often underequipped, undertrained, and underfunded to be able to carry out any substantial and widespread post-trauma and psycho-social treatment.

So, instead, the youth in Lub Pa Lacwey group come together under a common them: unity. In Yub Pa Lacwey’s mission statement, they say their main objectives are to reduce the level of stigmatization that former abductees currently face, to offer each other support emotionally, psychologically, and economically, and finally to uplift good cultural practices through the practice of traditional cultural dances and through the formulation of dramas which offer community sensitization on such topics as HIVAIDS, peace and reconciliation, and landmine awareness.

When I had a chance to witness Dennis and his group performing the traditional Acholi “Bwola” dance, I could sense the role that this was playing in the release of suppressed emotions and tragic memories. The dancing, the harmony, and the unity of the dance itself acted as a moment of peace for these youth, even if only for a few minutes. It reminds these youth that peace is still possible in a world that for them has been torn apart by senseless violence.

Dennis says of the dancing, “It is so refreshing to dance and to meet people who had been through the same things. I feared returning to the village not just because of the stigma and problems of food, but because if the peace talks break down then the soldiers will come back for us and this time they will kill us. But when I’m dancing I forget the past, the bad images and bad dreams. It silences the cries of those I saw killed. It refreshes me.”

The possibilities!

2008-08-04T01:14:00.000-07:00

After only a few weeks working in the idp camps, I am already beginning to understand the complexities of development work. Whenever a service is provided or a material item is provided to people who are in very vulnerable situations, such as the internally displaced persons around Gulu, the implications of this give-take relationship can become enormous for the sustainability of any development project. Take, for example, our project with BOSCO. Right now we have installed low power computers, internet access and VOIP telephone service at seven sites in various IDP camps around Gulu. Yet it is not as easy as it sounds to just plop a computer with internet access wherever you please in these camps. First, there are technical things to consider and with the radio transmitters that allow the network to function, there are only certain places in these IDP camps which are accessible.

Secondly, one has to consider security issues. The computer has to be kept in a building which keeps it safe from the elements (this is not always easy to do in some of the camps which lack feasible structures for keeping such equipment) and safe from theft. This means that some of the computers must be kept in traditionally non-public spaces such as a teacher’s office or the residence of the local priests in the rectory of a church.

This brings us to the third issue. Who takes ownership of this material item that has been given? In this case a computer with access to the internet and cheap phone service has been installed; so does this belong to the person with whom it resides? Does it belong to the local school? Does it belong to the IDP camp as a whole (populations in the largest camps can be in the tens of thousands). One of the difficulties then is that when the material item has been given it often comes attached with privilege and power as far as who is allowed to access this new material item. Clearly, only so many people can have access to a computer at once so it is not feasible to say that anybody from and IDP camp with 30,000 residents is free to use the BOSCO computer at any time they choose. The question remains then, how can we best set up the expectations to realistically accommodate as many people as possible, facilitating as many users of the computers as possible, while also keeping in mind the restraints listed above.

One of the easiest solutions to this is simply to have more computers. Right now in some of the we have many people who are learning to use basic computer programs as well as discovering for the first time the communications and self-advocacy potential of the internet with email and VOIP. They are becoming capable users of this technology simply because they have access to it and can learn with very little guidance how to use it. In some camps, we even have users that are proficient enough that they have started trying to train other peers in the camps by setting up tutoring schedules.

Consequently, in a short period of time, I am already convinced that one of the key issues to expanding the abilities of those interested in becoming proficient in computers is simply access to a computer. These days, most of us each have our own personal computer at home. Some households have as many computers as people. And how are we (most of us!) able to stay ahead of the curve in our use of a computer to complete our daily tasks: again, simply because of the ease with which we have access. With more computers—even only a handful—at each of the existing sites, we could greatly improve the abilities of the Acholi people to learn to become proficient users and, in time, they can be trained to use the internet to advocate for their own cause.

For example, BOSCO has set up a wikispace page which allows internet users in the camps to collaborate with each other and with those in far off lands such as the U.S. Using this wikispace, the users in the camps have been able to post their own proposals for various causes. The site works like an easy-to-use webpage allowing people in the camps to edit and post their own material. In the Pagak IDP camp, farmers have started to post farming proposals on the BOSCO wikispace. This is a great tool for these farmers to start advocating for their own cause as they resume farming again after being cut off from their main source of income during the war (people living in the idp camps didn’t have access to their land when the conflict was at its peak).

For those interested in viewing one of these proposals, you can visit http://bosco-uganda.wikispaces.com/Pagak . Christopher who currently lives in Pagak camp, has organized a youth farming movement and has posted his farming proposals on the BOSCO wikispace. If you navigate to this site, simply click on the "Organic Farming" link and it will take you to his proposal page. Once users such as Christopher are proficient enough to use the computer and the internet in these kind of ways, the next challenge is trying to get their proposals read by the appropriate organizations who could help fund such proposals. Nonetheless, I think these proposals demonstrate the value of having access to computers and the internet in a post-conflict landscape. I hope that it will continue to be shown that providing people with resources that allow them to advocate for themselves will be a sustainable model of development for BOSCO!

First Step on the Journey

2008-07-21T04:57:00.000-07:00

Over a year ago I made my first trip to Uganda. I had just received a research grant from Notre Dame to spend a couple weeks during Christmas break studying the effects of globalization on the spirituality of the Ugandan people. While on my flight to Uganda, I was waiting in line for the restroom when a man in front of me asked me where I was from—he must have noticed that I was wearing a Notre Dame shirt. I went on to tell him that I was a student at Notre Dame and then he introduced himself as Gus Zuelhke, also a Notre Dame graduate doing work in Uganda.

In those next few minutes, Gus explained to me that he had started a project in northern Uganda, collaborating with the Archdiocese of Gulu. Initially, Gus’ idea was to use a technology that we take for granted in the U.S. as a method for saving lives in the Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps of northern Uganda. The poorly protected camps were often raided in the past by LRA rebels, leading to the abduction of children to use as child soldiers in their war against the Ugandan government. Gus’ idea was to use wireless internet, solar powered computers and VOIP technology (similar to Skype)—cheap internet phone service—to connect the isolated camps which were often without electricity or effective modes of communication. This, in turn, would allow the camps to alert and warn each other of rebel movements in the region and would act as a deterrent to the rebels by providing immediate documentation and witnesses to the violence committed in the camps. At the end of our conversation, Gus and I promised to meet again back in South Bend to discuss shared experiences in Uganda.

A few months later, I returned to Uganda through Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns International Summer Service Learning Program to teach at a Holy Cross secondary school near Jinja, Uganda. Before I left, Gus told me that he would put me in contact with leaders from the Archdiocese of Gulu so that I could spend a few days in their hospitality. At the time I didn’t think that I would have time to get up to the north because I was only spending nine weeks in the country and eight of them were spent teaching. However, I became convinced that there was another side of Uganda—a forgotten side—that was not apparent to me while I was in Jinja.

Yet, it wasn’t until my second month of teaching that the conflict in the north would really enter my consciousness. Next to the schools, there was a novitiate for the Sisters of the Holy Cross and we would occasionally go over to eat with them. After lunch on this particular day, we had an extra hour so the sisters asked us if we wanted to see a new documentary that they had just received on DVD. It was called “Uganda Rising” and was a chilling and poignant description of the events that had occurred just 200 miles north of us over the past twenty years. Watching this documentary deeply affected me; the documentary showed how the policies from both within and outside of Uganda had affected the life of the conflict and the continuing neglect in seeking a peaceful solution. It showed pictures of human atrocities (a photo of a brain hacked out of someone’s head was shown), killings, and of many acts of absolute human terror. To say the least, I was touched, terrified, moved, speechless, and upset all at the same time.

After watching it I was emotionally exhausted and had no words left in me. It was a surreal experience, one in which you realize only silence remains—there was so much evil seen, so much gratuitous suffering that all that remains in the silence of God. At the time, I could think of nothing else to do except to pray in the sister’s chapel, so I did just that. I asked God for peace, for love, for the softening of hardened hearts. And I thanked Him for the gift of hope.

It was at this point that I started to contemplate going to the north to learn about the conflict first hand—to see if I could discover the forgotten side of the Ugandan story. I thought to myself: how can I continue to neglect this conflict and the Acholi people who had been left behind?

I did eventually make it up to northern Uganda at the end of my time in southern Uganda. I had the chance to be hosted by key leaders in the Archdiocese of Gulu and to visit the IDP camps to see with my own eyes what had been shown so poignantly by the “Uganda Rising” documentary and what had been spoken so passionately about by Gus and others during their work in and around Gulu.

As my senior year at Notre Dame began, I remained abreast of news coming out of northern Uganda and kept in touch with Gus, learning more about how communication could lend itself to peacebuilding and development in the region. Sometime during Christmas break I decided that I needed to return to Uganda after graduation. I wasn’t sure how I would be able to do this as I learned that there was not room for any more volunteers at the Holy Cross secondary school I had taught at the previous summer. Northern Uganda was on my mind, yet I didn’t know how I would be able to contribute. I talked to Gus about possibly returning to northern Uganda to work with the BOSCO project and the Archdiocese of Gulu. He agreed that there was plenty of work to be done and that I would be able to make a substantial contribution. So we outlined a basic proposal about what I might work on over the course of the year in northern Uganda. It all sounded good and exciting until I realized that BOSCO had never had a full-time volunteer from the U.S. before. It is an organization run full-time by committed board members who do a fantastic job of contributing to the growth of the project from within their other professional commitments as lay catechists, IT specialists, and physics teachers, among others.

In short, I came to the realization that to make this possible, I would need to raise all of the money in order to support myself for the year. So I sat down, did some research, and figured out that with the cost of airfare, health insurance, room and board, transportation, etc, I would need to raise almost $23,000 dollars to support my work with BOSCO. It seemed like an impossible task at the time and I was not convinced that I wanted to go forward with it. After all, I was busy trying to keep up in my classes and enjoy the last couple of months of my senior year, while also applying to other service programs as a safety net in case returning to northern Uganda would not be an option.

Gradually, however, the donations started rolling in from family, friends, and supporters at Notre Dame. By March I had raised half of the money necessary to support myself for my work with BOSCO. And within a few weeks after that I was able to finish my fundraising efforts—It seemed that as I followed my heart and sought something that I find great value in, all the world conspired to help me achieve it. I have been blessed and humbled by all of those who have made my upcoming journey possible through their selfless generosity.

Finally, as I arrive in northern Uganda I will be living at the Archdiocese of Gulu’s Catechist Training Center, where they often host visitors. My role will be similar to that of a “community organizer.” I will be visiting the IDP camps frequently to assess how the BOSCO systems are being used and to try and facilitate greater and more effective use of the technology so that leaders in the camps can communicate with each other and with the Archdiocese. This will help the Acholi people to become self-advocates for peace, by relieving some of the isolation they currently experience with the lack of communication resources in the camps and with the outside world.

I ask for your prayers and continued support as I undertake this endeavor. I have been blessed with this opportunity and I intend to take full advantage of it. Really, all I am trying to do is follow my heart, follow what I’m most passionate about, and to seek to live fully and learn from those I encounter.

2007-01-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

Notre Dame's President Fr. John Jenkins was in Uganda for a week to initiate Notre Dame's role in the UN Millenium Development village project. Notre Dame will sponsor a village just west of Kampala. The Millenium Development Initiative was started by Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs. You may have heard of his bestselling book, "The End of Poverty." For more on Fr. Jenkins' visit to Uganda see president.nd.edu.

2007-01-20T12:53:00.000-08:00

The boy chasing the tire seems to be a national pastime for young children in Uganda. Everywhere you look you see children chasing/rolling tires down the street.

The children of Uganda always seem to be happy and always have a smile on their face. They seem not to know of their plight in life and are thankful for what they have.

2007-01-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

Photos of some villagers from Bugembe taking goods to and from the markets.

Below a boy driving his cow around the village and a brave monkey in Kampala that walked into the bar at the hostel we were staying at.

2007-01-20T12:37:00.000-08:00

The first two photos in this set are of Lake Victoria which is a gigantic lake that Bugembe Village sits on. The last three are the River Nile.

2007-01-17T20:22:00.000-08:00

These photos are of Moreau House, the residence of the Holy Cross Community. The house while old and in somewhat of a state of disrepair is an absolute mansion compared to the surrounding residences in the Bugembe village. It seems in Uganda, and especially in the rural areas, that the two most lucrative jobs are either priest or politician as both guarantee meals and a roof over one's head everyday.

The small block house is the "guest house" where Shawn and I stayed while in Bugembe. We had our share of nightly insect visitors such as large cockroaches, other unknown insects and lizards crawling the walls.

The last picture in this set is the house cat. I wasn't a cat fan before this trip...this cat only reinforced that notion for me. (It really does have two different colored eyes)

2007-01-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

The following set of photos are from Bugembe. Bugembe acts as one of many trading posts which can be found along major highways in all directions.

2007-01-17T20:05:00.000-08:00

More photos from Kampala.

2007-01-17T19:51:00.000-08:00

The first two pictures were taken from the top of the Sheraton hotel. These show a nice panoramic view of Central Kampala which is the most modern area of the city and consequently is the most affluent area. As with most developing urban areas, the inner city represents the center of wealth and the out-lying areas are increasinly impovershed.

The last two photos in this set show the business of everyday life in the city. Traffic is largely unregulated and people mill about on the streets.

2007-01-17T19:42:00.000-08:00

The following photos were taking on my recent trip to Uganda. I spent half my time in the capitol city, Kampala, which is a city of about 2 million people. The rest of my time in Uganda was spent in the small rural village of Bugembe outside of Jinja town about 5o miles east of Kampala. Jinja Town sits at the source of the River Nile. While in Kampala, Shawn and I stayed in various hostels and while in Bugembe we stayed with the Holy Cross Commumity in their residence.