SOS Children’s Village

P6220134, originally uploaded by ficubc.

It’s been a busy week here in Uganda! This past thursday some of our members travelled outside Kampala to the village of Kakiri, which is home to one of three Kinderhoff children’s villages in Uganda. They are basically model villages with housing, sports facilities, health facilities, and schools for orphans. There are approximately 160 children and 60 youth staying in the village currently. We had an excellent day hanging out with the kids and playing some football, especially exciting with World Cup fever here in Uganda! SOS is actually an important partner of our group, as the volunteer abroad program at Concordia University that many of our FICCU members lobbied to create is working in partnership with SOS in Gulu to build a new chldren’s village for orphans affected by the conflict in the North.

For more information on SOS visit: www.sos-childrensvillages.org

Participatory Appraisal aspect of the project is over…almost

P6160405, originally uploaded by ficubc.

After almost a month of implementing a community development program in the urban slum of Namuwongo, in Kampala, Uganda, we are finally wrapping up the participatory appraisal aspect. Following mobilization of the community for the project, which included electing representatives from each of the four zones from varying interest groups such as youth, men, women, the elderly, landlords, the disabled, and local chairpersons, we have used a number of tools to better understand the nature of the community.

The tools are as follows:

1) Community Resource Map
2) Transect Walk
3) Demographic Survey
4) Daily Calendar
5) Seasonal Calendar
6) Historical Profile
7) Income/Expenditure Analysis
Gender Analysis
9) Problem Identification/Prioritization
10) And we are currently in the process of doing pair-wise ranking of problems and creating a problem tree

Following the use of these tools, our group (which includes FICUBC, the Practicing Environmental Managers Organization (PEMO), and the elected community representatives) will have the necessary information and knowledge to produced a Community Action Plan (CAP). The CAP will outline all the necessary background information for development work to be carried out in the community by our group, local residents, government agencies, or other NGOs. Once we have identified the problems and opportunities faced by Namuwongo, we will be in a position to take further action through long-term projects and/or our peer education program that should begin next week.

It has been a long and stressful month (with some exciting and fun moments along the way) but things are finally coming together. To witness the empowerment and energy that pervades our meetings these days is truly a wonderful experience!

GFIC MINI CONFERENCE No.1

Notes from First GFIC Mini Conference:

Mobilization of Youth for Development

Problems

1)      Apathy, overexposure to developing world poverty through ineffective means of communication, poor methods of dissemination of information

2)      Lack of opportunities to increase personal identification (i.e. field projects)

3)      Media Bias (on the part of
Africa and the West)

4)      Identification of incentives for youth/No feeling of ownership of projects

5)      Distractions/competing interests/lack of available time

6)      Mistrust due to previous failed projects by NGOs and governments

7)      Students know that they WANT to do something, but they don’t know HOW

Solutions

1)      Targeted development education

2)      Continuous and energetic promotion of issues

3)      Promoting transparency within organization in order to build trust

4)      Offering opportunities for field work alongside financial subsidization in order to make such work accessible to a large variety of individuals

5)      Alternative youth programmed media (literature, websites, podcasts, music, films)

6)      Increase awareness in the West of the benefits of international development to our own country (culturally and economically)

7)      Peer education Programmes

      Sports involvement in local communities

9)      Integration with school curriculm at jr high/high school level

Participatory Approaches to Community Development

-         Need partnerships with CBOs, not just NGOs

-         The involvement of many stakeholders increases the ownership of the project as well as the financial resource base

-         Long term sustainability is the major benefit of community participation/leadership

-         Direct interaction with the community requires cultural sensitivity and awareness

-         Mobilization of the community can be difficult due to issues of population size, mistrust, and limited resources/incentives

-         Problem identification at the community level prior to project design limits ability to plan projects ahead of time and makes it difficult to secure resources from aborad ahead of time

-         Following problem identification, need project design and implementation as well as long term monitoring, availability of time is a huge factor when dealing with university students (need to integrate follow up internship program)

Skipping in Namuwongo

P6120310, originally uploaded by ficubc.

Despite the conditions, there’s always time for fun in Namuwongo and you’ll always be greeted with a smile!

Historical Profile Panel

P6160405, originally uploaded by ficubc.

In order to better understand the history of the community of Namuwongo we gathered longstanding residents to help narrate their story for the last 50+ years. It was very interesting to learn the patterns of migration, which came in waves from Western, Eastern, and Northern Uganda. The historical profile is one of the tools of participatory appraisal that allows the community to better understand the source of its problems and identify where opportunities lie.

Drawing the community resource map

P6120267, originally uploaded by ficubc.

Namuwongo representatives constructed a map of their community using locally available materials, in order to identifty resources, problems, and opportunities.

Namuwongo Community Resource Map

Namuwongo Community Resource Map, originally uploaded by ficubc.

This is the map as drawn by the community. The original was created by the representatives and measured approx 15 x 5 feet. It was constructed using ash, maize, reeds, jerry cans, bottle caps, and other materials. You can see the close proximity of the railway on the one side of Namuwongo, many people including children have been killed by passing trains. You will also notice the lack of wells, considering we estimate the population of Namuwongo to be between 10 and 20 thousand. The blue river at the bottom of the map is Nakivubo channel, which is fill with industrial waste from upstream, raw sewage from namuwongo and the community elevated above namuwongo, and other contaminants. It is freuqnetly crossed by Namuwongo residents, and many have died when it becomes a raging river during heavy rains.

YouLead House

YouLead House, originally uploaded by ficubc.

Here is the YouLead house in Masaka, mentioned in the previous post about our weekend, for those interested. It has 6 rooms and will be home to a resource centre as well as YouLead’s “Man on the ground” Daniel, the Kitengesa community librarian.

Week two update

Following our relaxing weekend in Masaka, we have returned to 10 hours days in Namuwongo as we continue our participatory appraisal (PA) of the community. On Monday we started working on the first tool of PA, the community resource map. The approximately 60 representatives from all four zones gathered outside the church, our regular meeting place, and drew a map on the ground using local materials that represents the community. It included valuable resources as well as hazards. From viewing such a complete map that is really a reflection on the resident’s perception of the area, we were able to make some simple deductions. Things such as a lack of toilets, road access, access to health clinics, access to clean water, and the close proximity of rail lines will all factor into future discussions when we create the Community Action Plan (CAP).

Tuesday marked the beginning of the second tool, the transect walk. We split ourselves and the representatives into their four respective zones and set out to draw a complete cross section of the zone, complete with notes regarding soil types, vegatation, land use, problems, and possible opportunities. It was excellent to see the representatives take ownership of the project and act as leaders out in the community as well as in our meetings in the church.

Today FICUBC and PEMO members set out to conduct a demographic survey of the community, which has given us valuable baseline data regarding population, incomes, health and sanitation issues, and community perceptions of outside organizations.

We look forward to continue introducing new tools over the next 2 weeks and look forward to the exchange in ownership of the project from our organization to the community members.

Masaka Weekend

This weekend we took a short trip to Masaka town, about 2 hours southwest of Kampala. It was a great chance to enjoy some fresh air and a break from the hustle and bustle of the big city. We stayed at the Hotel Brovard and visited a number of shops and restaurants, which is about all there is to do in Masaka.

Saturday afternoon we travelled to a small village of 3000 called Kitengesa, about 30 minutes outside of Masaka. This is the location of a YouLead (an organization at UBC) development project. We toured the community library with Daniel, the local librarian. We also had the opportunity to see the new YouLead house/resource centre under construction. Kitengesa is a wonderful village and a place I think we all would like to visit again.

On our way home we stopped off at the equator for some touristy pictures