|
|
Bukiende County Cluster Level Association! #TeamCLA
|
A year ago I was at a Cross Government event celebrating International Women's Day at the Senedd, listening to women from different sectors and backgrounds talk about their career paths and the challenges they faced to get where they were today. That got me thinking about what I wanted from my own career and how was I going to make the most of the opportunities available to me to help me get there.
So twelve months on, it doesn’t feel
right to be here in Uganda and not write a blog on International Women’s Day –
and the fact we have a bank holiday would emphasise the important role
women play in life here.
To see the
changes the community want - improvements to the standard of living and opportunities
available to everyone, its starts with the women. Here, mothers are the driving
force behind family survival – looking after the children, the home as well as
finding means of income to enable them to pay for school fees, medication,
housing and land.
A model I’ve
seen repeated in several of the organisation’s I’ve visited is setting up women’s
Self-Help Groups. Following discussions with local leaders, more and more women
are coming together to form small savings groups that allow them to take loans to address their
individual needs. Once the groups
are up and running smoothly, the support organisations, like BRDC, provide
skills training which allow women to then start their own small businesses.
e.g. a loan to buy a sewing machine then provides income through making and
mending clothes.
So here are a
few of the inspirational women I’ve met along the way, not only playing their part in their
own family life but helping to empower others to make changes.
Beatrice, Assistant Project Coordinator
Beatrice
is part of the Community Based Training team at BRDC. Her role is to work with
women’s groups and the wider Cluster Level Associations, training them to work
together to save money; loan money to each other, run small businesses and
represent their community to improve issues that are affecting everyone e.g.
food security, a clean water source.
 |
| Zebbie and June |
Zebbie, Livelihood Programme Coordinator
Zebbie also coordinates
women’s groups within the Mbale CAP Livelihood Programme, linking them to
resources and training to initiate the community changes or small business
needs they want to meet. There is a close link to the Health and Education
Programmes who use the women’s groups network to share their key messages on
nutrition, parenting, hygiene and available services etc.
Anne, Director at Bushikori Christian
Centre.
Anne has been Director of Bushikori Christian Centre for 20 years, overseeing the running of
a Primary and Secondary School, student Boarding accommodation, a local Medical Centre and a Community Nursing Outreach Programme. Anne’s passion
and dedication to her role has created a successful, nurturing school of over
400 students and a busy medical team providing care and advice to over 20,000 patients who arrive from across the district.
 |
| Alice 'overseeing' the boys! |
Alice, Community Coordinator
Alice takes a lead with her community tree nursery, coordinating activities to ensure the group work together at the right times to grow, plant and distribute seedlings to farmers and landowners in the area. Working with BRDC, they ensure a variety of trees are available to address soil erosion, provide food and fuel in a sustainable way. The additional income this has helped Alice's family generate has enabled them to move from a small mud hut to a stone house with an energy efficient stove.
Meghal, Medical Student at CURE
Meghal is a current housemate working on a research project here at CURE for nine months. Meghal will
return this summer for her final year in Medical School before
beginning her US residency programme. Working in Uganda has helped Meghal
decide that she wants to continue with general surgery, rather than
neurosurgery, which will be more transferable in the future when she hopes to
work with Médecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders) in refugee camps and developing countries.
We stayed at
Nile River’s Explorers Camp which was just what we needed after a few weeks in
Mbale, a bar, chips and six nations on tv! Friday evening we took a guided boat
out on the river and it was great to get up close to some more wildlife! June
is my bird guru – over twenty years visiting family in South Africa she can
spot the colour of its plume before I’ve even found the right tree! I think we
saw about five of a possible eight types of Heron, plus African Fish Eagles,
several species of Kingfisher, Egrets and bonus Red-Tailed Monkeys, a rather
enjoyable couple of hours while the sun was setting.
You’ve might
have seen a few mentions of Mbale CAP along the way, this is Mbale Coalition
Against Poverty, a Ugandan Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). This is a
development of the Partnership Overseas Network Trust (PONT), a Pontypridd
based initiative that seeks to eradicate poverty through sustainable
partnerships. Made up of District Leaders, Education and Health organisations
and Private Sector partners, Mbale CAP creates a network throughout the region
to share information, resources and essential support that helps local
communities initiate activities to address the social and economic issues they
face. The long term vision is enabling such activities now, will alleviate and
ultimately eliminate poverty in the future.
Not long after
we arrived we met Rogers, a previous Mbale CAP employee and regular contact of
ILO-ers gone before who invited us to visit his community, Nauyo (Na-ooo-yo).
This is a slum area on the edge of Mbale, so we were keen to go and experience
a different side of life here. There is a balance of not feeling like you’re just
being nosy and looking at how people live their lives here versus using the
opportunity to better understand the issues and situations people are facing
and where possible make connections to potential solutions. Rogers volunteers
with his community council to network and start initiatives to benefit the
community’s health, education and income generation etc. We’ve since been up a
couple of times, both very different experiences!
I believe there
are three waterfalls altogether so we walked to the base of the second one on
Saturday afternoon then walked back to the top of it on Sunday morning and on
up to the base of the third waterfall before heading back to Mbale. The falls were beautiful so I imagine give it
a few more weeks when we arrive into rainy season and they’ll be quite
powerful!
