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Enterprises part 2

Now its time to introduce the groups in Ogur and Agwen subcounties.

Agweng - Can Maki Weki – Rising out of Poverty - Beekeeping

Site seems very good and they had already cleared it and are ready to receive their hives.

Agweng - Par Pi Wa – Think about us - Tailoring and Welding

This group might reinvent the chainmail suit?

Agweng - Angeo Koma – i know myself - Bakery

Excellent site located across from a market. In an area where there are no bakeries. Can’t wait to deliver their new portable rocket oven.

Ogur - Bedi Woro – Have respect -  Poultry and Saloon

Yet another interesting combination. Here in Uganda they call hairdressing shops Saloons (not salons). But i have yet to find a beer or Clint Eastwood in one.

Ogur - Tam Pir wa  - think about people - tailoring

This was a remote site, but strategic as there are many schools around for contracts for uniforms. Will need some slashing before they can get going but we expect to send out the village trainers next week.

Ogur - Akano Youth Tailoring – tailoring

Far enough from other tailoring sites to not be competition. Ogur and Agweng will have the best dressed school children in Lira District!

Youth Enterprises

So the groups have been selected. They have chosen their enterprises. Last week we inspected their sites and this week we began setting them up in their work.

Aromo – the “most organized coordinator” award goes to…. Gilbert. Gilbert is amazing. He was elected the vice chairman of the 6 groups in Aromo subcounty for the project and has continued to impress me like nothing. He is responsible for mobilization of the groups and when we went out to visit the groups at their sites, the entire group was there at each place. He has also rallied for additional training on their behalf on HIV/Aids (a huge problem with my groups) and once our new Volunteer gets settled in her job with the district health office i will be getting her to come and do some training. He also acted as my translator when i sat in on Piggery training this week. I am looking forward to working with Gilbert for the next two years. You will see Gilbert in most of the pictures below (tall holding the files)

So the groups in Aromo are:

Onen itic (See from the work) will be doing agriculture. We have trained them on Sunflower crop production and they received their plow and oxen this week.Lets hope it rains this week so they can get the field plowed and planted.

Pe nwongi abedo – you cant get anything while seated.  They will be doing piggery and tailoring. They received their piggery training this week, the pig house will be build next week and the tailoring trainers move into the village next week. Theirs will be the best dressed pigs of north erute county!

Bar Pii child mothers – they were donated these two buildings for their bakery operation, no rent!! good work girls!! their new portable rocket oven will be built and delivered in the next few weeks then Patrick will be there to train them on making bread.

Obanga okomya –God has helped me – are seen below, when we arrived they were busy slashing their land in preparation for their apiary.

Lobo oyelo wa – the world has disturbed me – when we arrived were busy preparing their land for their apiary, land was donated by tonny, seen here in the white shirt.

Can odio wa childmothers – poverty has overloaded me – have found this great site in the local trading center for their bakery, its across from a market in an area where there are no bakeries.

I am already very proud of the groups here in Aromo and hope the next few weeks will get them started well towards better futures.

Weekend of Shea

Shea butter, i have introduced a few of you to it, and when doing my research about the region i would be working in i was very pleased to know that i would be close to the Shea belt which runs through northern Uganda and southern Sudan.

I have found both cooked Shea oil and cold pressed “butter” here and use it exclusively for my skin. I also use it in my soap.

A friend Andrew and I have a strong kinship being both from the agricultural world and we have on and off discussed visiting his village (which he described as remote) and doing some plant research. Well the weekend came,and because Andrew is also my motorcycle trainer, we combined both and i did some practice riding and we spent the weekend deep in a neighbouring District – otuke.

It was a long 3 hr ride to the village (town) of Otuke were we stopped for a rest before proceeding to the village. The final few kilometers on the “Main road” is just a dirt path through very tall grasses, yes this is remote. We passed a few settlements before arriving at his uncles village where we discussed the use of the Shea and we showed them the soap. We travelled back to the town for the night and had a good evening discussing the potential of Shea development in the area.

The next morning we suited up and headed back to the village to observe the whole process of making Shea oil. Andrew informed me that the “local Consultants” were who we needed to learn from, i agreed… lets go…

When we arrived they were ready for us and i was able to document the whole process:

Roasting - Pounding -

 

Cooking - Pour off oil -

While the process was going on, Andrew said we should go and investigate a plant the local “consultants” said they use for soap. It is a root that is ground and pound and creates a good soap for washing the clothes. We went with someone that was able to identify the plant and we dug up some roots and took them to the river to wash them up. At the river we met another “consultant” who told us of a few more plants that would be able to be used this way as well….

When we returned to the village we tested the roots and found they do produce a great lather, so we discussed how it could be used to improve the soap, we need to experiment so i brought home some roots to work with.We also discussed the milk source for the soap and he pointed out the local goats that had been crossed with a breed from south africa, that can produce enough milk for our use. I could not have been happier.

We had a meal of chicken, spent a bit more time with the “consultants” and drank some local brew and it was eventually time for the long drive home.

Just the weekend i needed.

Selection process is over…. meet my groups

Well that was a lot of work but we have found our groups and they have now begun to plan for their projects. In the end we selected 12 groups in three subcounties. They are a good mix of the most vulnerable youth, between 15-25 years old. They have selected specific projects for us to guide them on for the next 2 years.As they are scattered throughout the area its a good thing i will be getting my motorcycle license next month.

While reviewing the files many were shortlisted based on the individual surveys completed and the stories they shared with us about their life so far. Vulnerable? we have two groups of child mothers one story struck me specifically, an HIV positive, abductee child mother, orphan who also takes care of her remaining siblings in what is called here a “child headed family”. She is 19 and explained she is just too tired to dig to provide support for the family. This is a typical profile of the youth we encountered and are supporting with this program.

Last week we went out to visit the selected groups and have them choose their projects… we will have 3 beekeeping operations, 3 tailoring projects, a pure agricultural group growing soya and sunflower for oil production, a local chicken operation, a piggery, a few bakeries some welding and brickmaking operations, and even a hairdressing salon (they call them saloons here).

After the group selection we then conducted Organizational training for the Community Development Officers in the sub counties. They will then help us in training the youth on group formation and will be the first training we offer for the groups.

It is interesting to see how well some groups worked on identifying their common project and how that project will give them money to then diversity. Our agricultural group want to get an Oxen plow and hire it out to plow other fields as additional income to their crops. I am very excited to work with the group of girls that want to do the hairdressing as we can make cosmetics and soap as well for sales locally and perhaps throughout Africa. This area is part of the Shea belt and this weekend Andrew and I are going out to his village in Olilim to collect and discuss how we can use the Shea here for these products.Cant wait,should be another wonderful time.

Last night I had a chance to take out another volunteer (Yvonne from Ireland) presently working in Kampala but moving soon to the north (gulu) as she changes projects. We had a great time out at Boston pork joint eating the most wonderful roasted goat meat and having a few drinks with Andrew and Frank. Then on the way home we stopped at “one for the road” my completely local local (really just a shack) for some more drinks and some chair dancing. Neither of us really dance, so we just boogied in our chairs as  we were entertained by one guy who put on quite a show of Northern Ugandan dance moves. She was the first “white” person i have been out with here socially, as all of my friends are Ugandan. It was nice to see how easily she fit into my social network. Really looking forward to having someone to come and visit me that GETS my jokes! We had a great night. Just what i needed after a few hectic weeks with some great high points but also some lows…

next week 2 days of computer training and three days in the field checking out the locations where they will be doing their projects. but first the weekend….

The project is in full swing

We started late on the Youth part of the project but it is really now in full operation. As protocol goes here, you can’t work in an area until you have introduced the project to the local leaders. So we had two introduction sessions mid May when we met with 30 or so local representatives in each of the two subcounties we will be working in.

The events were good, we had good turn-up, participation and based on the response from the youth it was a complete success.

The leaders were told to mobilize the youth (get them into groups and get them registered with the district sub county offices) and they did in spades. In one sub county alone we had 90 groups (20 members each) register. So imagine showing up and over 1500 youth were waiting for us. … pictures show the masses of youth we met with…..

The need in this area is overwhelming. and the they are the  most vulnerable people. Many child mothers, child headed families and former child soldiers and abductees.

In the end we interviewed 120 groups,  thats about 2500 youth.

Now my challenge is to identify 200 youth for the project… i am working on this but its going to be hard

 

Time for an update

Time for an update, its been a while.

 

Things are great here in Lira Land, learning the language and expanding my social calendar. Spending more time in the "village" and enjoying the dark skies and starry nights that only Africa can provide. I am settling in here and will post some new stories soon.

 

 Project is going well, we have now begun with the youth groups and have conducted more surveys than i would have thought possible. Today for example we had over 1000 youth show up in one sub county alone. Hard to count how many really, and it could have turned into a mob scene when we had to send alot home, but in the end the more we meet and understand the need the better. Wed we do it all over again. The pictures are from this work today, and the official launch of the project held in two areas we will be working in.

 

On the weekend I attended the swearing in of a neighbouring districts chairperson and local elected officials. Typically Ugandan, it started 5 hours late and ran over time. The formality of it all was facinating and so were the rather heated debates over the appointed executives. Thank goodness I had the local opposition party head and the minister for Production from another district sitting with me to coach me on the activities.  Especially when they started yelling at each other I needed a bit of help to decypher the situation.Of course the press were there and being the only white person everyone wanted their picture with me.So much for political neutrality!   At the reception they sat me at the head table and the chairmans brother told everyone we were going to have "obama" children together. My weekends here are never dull.

 

In a closing and sad note:

 

I want to formally say good bye to two of my worker bees (social work interns) who are returning to school after volunteering with us on this project. They were excellent in the field and have helped this project tremendously. Best of luck to Juliet and Fiona.

 

I also want to say good bye to my dear housemate Lin, who returned to her home in Scotland after a few weeks spent touring around Uganda with her son. Enjoy the quiet time, but I know you will miss:

the bats, the "shirts" (white and blue), finding new types of loo rolls, Dickens, Discovery Pork, the call to prayer, our local wake up rooster with the bad voice, ambrose and black kitten, the biting ants on the clothes line, toot toot, flop flop flop and so many other things.

 

For everyone else, these will all be explained in time.

 

Apwoyo matek, bedo aber,

One Day Film Actors and musicians

One day? how about TODAY.

I have to say, my choice at late has been pretty narrow when it comes to music. But HW might have to step aside for a while as I have discovered a new, young African sound that I just can’t get enough of. One thing that has been very appealing to me is the sounds of the local instruments here. Traditionally, the sound of this area is based on a lot of drums and a local guitar. Also the thumb piano that I introduced you to in the Women's Day posting. Women's day also introduced me to the fantastic culture here of dance and story telling… not theater in our traditional sense, but a much more rich and expressive culture here of music combined with dance.

One day last week, while reflection on how theater and plays would be such a great communications tool for the youth here i wrote some ideas in my little journal about a play I would love to see about how the war here affected the communities. Anyone that knows me understands that i am not really a big theater person, but lately it seems to be intersecting with my life enough for me to start paying attention. So I wrote down some ideas while I was waiting for a friend to arrive, and put the “play” aside.

As fate has it here. And there seems to be a lot of fate happening here these days for me. I was sitting in the same cafe a few days later when i ran into a friend, Carolyn. She is a war orphan and hers as well as other stories I have heard were most likely responsible for my new found interest in plays as expressive art. She was reviewing movies taken by two men, Isaac and Moses, and I could clearly see these were acted movies. As I watched I found them so amusing I had to know a bit more about what they were doing.

They have a group of youth named “One Day Film Actors” who have been creating local movies and music and its really quite fantastic. They invited me out to meet these youth, and presented me with a CD of their videos/music. I can’t really say enough about how young and vibrant a sound this is. They are using music and movies as a way to get their own messages of the challenges of life here in Uganda to other youth. The musical sound is happy, positive and extremely catchy. Their movie themes are of HIV/Aids awareness and how to live a positive life, even if you are positive, and just typical stories of a poor man going to town for the first time and being discovered as an actor. This is the story of many of them, and it is so uniquely this area of Uganda, specifically Lira, and so very very funny. Its in Lwonglish as I call the hybrid language that many (including me now) speak.

HIV/Aids is higher in this area of Uganda than anywhere else and although its “officially 8%” everyone knows its much much higher. And because it affects here women and youth, the message coming out of this group I think is something that needs more widespread exposure. Everyone of the actors I interviewed were either affected by the LRA war, or HIV/Aids or both.

and last night I went to a local bar… Capital Teso Bar, to see their first ever play/music/comedy/movie night. It was quite a hit with the local folks and although I barely understood anything going on (it was in Lwo), I certainly understood how the crowd reacted. Isaac has done an amazing job in giving these youth a chance to have a voice through music, acting and comedy. I think this will be the beginning of a very different concept here. At the beginning I could see the crowd rather restless with this idea of a play on stage in a bar, but they had the crowd rolling in the aisles after the second skit. A pretty dramatic turn around from someone yelling “we are not here to watch plays”. At first I was a bit worried it could become a hostile crowd, but everyone loved them and I think now it will be a regular Friday night thing. 

I had an opportunity before the performance to sit down with many of the performers to interview them and create profiles for each for the blog I am creating for them. Can’t wait to get this project started (yeah another on the side to keep my nights and weekends occupied) and introduce everyone to these fantastic artists here from Lira. We will also get some things posted on Utube and Ustream to share this music with everyone.