Fellow World Action Supporters!
Nicole here, post-trip greetings from a recent 10 day visit to Uganda. And as always, what an amazing trip it was. As announced earlier, I had the privilege of traveling with 3 colleagues from the IOMBA masters program I am currently completing in Geneva, Switzerland. Emo, Sonia & Violaine (Hungarian, Colombian and French, respectively) made the visit incredibly fun, and also demonstrated extreme generosity and support to every one at HOH while there. My sincere, sincere, thanks to each of these incredible ladies for their optimism and sense of adventure while there. (Enjoy some pics here.)
So, upon returning from the week-long site visit to HOH as part of World Action’s annual monitoring and evaluation, I wanted to be sure and share news about a very unfortunate event that occurred at the project.
The evening before we arrived, there was a fire at the school. Unfortunately, it seems to have been arson as there was evidence of malintent. Luckily, none of the main school buildings were damaged too badly, though we did loose one temporary classroom to the fire. In addition, the brick dormitory structure that was nearly complete was taken down by what appears to be sledgehammers. All in all, damage has been estimated at about $12,000 USD.
The good news is that no one was injured, nothing was stolen and the livestock were left intact. I, along with Jenifer and her staff, was completely shocked as to who and why anyone would do this. However, over the course of the week and numerous meetings with police and community organizers, I have come to understand that this kind of reaction is not an isolated event in community development programs in Africa. The fire was most likely an act to intimidate Jenifer, a woman who is exhibiting strong, independent leadership and directing an incredibly successful community project that has attracted both local political and western financial support. Such a break with traditional power structures and the community status quo can often be met with acts of intimidation such as this.
Since the fire, Jenifer has received a flood of support from the community who came out in droves the following day and pledged volunteer time and financial support to help rebuild what was damaged (the financial pledges are significant in particular, given the extreme poverty most of these folks live in). Interestingly, the incident seems to have caused many in the local community to recognize the importance and value of the project. We believe these folks represent the vast majority and that the perpetrators of this incident were a merely a disgruntled few.
There is still much work to be done, however, to build more community support and gain the endorsement of local religious and tribal leaders to ensure this does not happen again. We are seeing this event as an opportunity to do just that. Last week, we helped to connect Jenifer with a local Ugandan woman who has significant community organizing experience. She has many years of experience setting up numerous, extremely successful, community based HIV/AIDS programs. She will be working with Jenifer on specific steps to better engage more of the community. Jenifer will also be working closely with World Action board member, Manka Johnson, who has significant experience working in East Africa.
There have been no interruption in services provided at HOH, and they have already begun rebuilding the temporary classroom. At the suggestion of our community organizating expert, Jenifer is working to garner more community support before beginning to rebuild the dormitory. A decision we support entirely. In the meantime, we have started a fund to support the dorm’s rebuilding. Donations to support rebuilding efforts can be sent to:
World Action for Humanity
P.O. Box 193584
San Francisco, CA 94119
Or directly online at: http://www.worldactionforhumanity.org/donate2.html
Together with Jenifer, World Action is using this recent event as an opportunity to reflect on the project and to build deeper relationships and develop stronger support from the community.
I wanted to be sure to share this information with our supporters around the world. This incident has given me a whole new understanding of the true development challenges these folks face in their communities, and motivates me and the World Action board even more to support the hard work of local leaders who are doing the real work on the ground. I feel completely confident that Jenifer and her staff will move past this incident and continue to expand upon the much-needed services they are providing to the Kyazanga and Nakateete villages.
Please feel free to contact me or anyone at World Action for more information.
Meantime, thanks again for all your continued support!
Nicole