N4A outreach counsellors in high demand in Uganda

Today’s post is the final in a three-part series on Network for Africa in northern Uganda and reports the progress being made by our outreach counsellors who are part of the Patongo Counselling Community Outreach programme [PCCO].

PCCO’s progress

Psychotherapists Shelly Evans & Dr. Barbara Bauer and PCCO Coordinator Agnes Nyaga Nighty 

lead a training session for PCCO outreach counsellors.

Network for Africa and our partners are tackling numerous threats to the well-being of individuals and families in Patongo.  In addition to the trauma, depression and fear recorded in our community trauma survey, several other factors continue to challenge people in northern Uganda, who have survived more than two decades of violence:

·      Marriage breakdown and shattering of families.  Many wives want to leave their husbands because of their drinking, violent behaviour and inability to provide sufficiently  to feed their children.  The men often do not want to get divorced.

·      Conflict arising from HIV-related problems: mainly, men refuse to get tested yet continue not have various sexual partners.  Their wives/girlfriends want to leave them.  Some husbands also steal their wives' ARV medication to treat their own HIV.

·      In an effort to encourage men to get HIV tested, the local health clinic has not been testing pregnant mothers for HIV unless accompanied by their husbands or fathers. Thus many women go untested for HIV, and therefore untreated if they are positive.

·      Alcoholism is still rife, as is, of course, poverty.

To respond to these challenges, our outreach counsellors provide basic counselling services and social support to local people.  They also help local people who want to start income-generating activities.

The outreach counsellors’ work has been so successful that five more communities in the surrounding areas of Patongo have asked the counsellors to help them, too. This request indicates how badly the counsellors’ services are needed and speaks highly of their ability to help the communities in meaningful ways.

Donations make counselling equipment possible

Simple items like Wellington boots help the counsellors travel even during the rainy season, 

ensuring that the community has consistent support.

Generous donations from Network for Africa supporters have made it possible to buy each outreach counsellor a bicycle, a pair of Wellington boots, a messenger bag, an ID card, and a raincoat - all practical items that we might take for granted, but that help make the counsellors’ jobs easier and more effective.  In particular, having a bicycle means the counsellors can cover more ground more quickly, greatly increasing their ability to offer services to the communities. 

Please help support the services that we are able to offer traumatised survivors as they rebuild their lives: £55/$90 could pay for a bicycle for one outreach counsellor to support 160 people for a year.  You can donate here.

Read about food sustainability in Patongo.

Read about malaria prevention in Patongo.

Stories from Darfur: When the Stars Fall to Earth

N4A founder Becky Tinsley has written a novel, When the Stars Fall to Earth, about the ongoing genocide in Darfur.  The novel follows five young Darfuri refugees on their journey of survival as the Sudanese regime tries to destroy them.  Becky recently spoke with Psychology Today blogger Jennifer Haupt, about the book.  Jennifer asked Becky the question that is bound to be on the minds of many of the novel’s readers: How closely are the five main characters based on real young people you met?

Read Becky’s answer here. 

You can purchase a paperback copy of When the Stars Fall to Earth or order the ebook.

100% of Becky’s profits from the book will be donated to Network for Africa, to help support genocide survivors working to build better lives for themselves and their families.

If you are in the Washington, D.C., area, you can join a book discussion with Becky Tinsley tomorrow, Wednesday, May 24, from 12:30 - 2:00pm at the American Bar Association, 740 15th Street NW, John Marshall Conference Room, Washington, D.C.  To RSVP, contact Rabiah Burks at 202-662-1002 or rabiah.burks@americanbar.org. 

£3 to stop a killer: malaria nets in northern Uganda

Today’s post is the second of a three-part series and features Network for Africa's plans for malaria prevention.  The previous post demonstrated how N4A is working to address the problem of late rains, which threaten northern Uganda’s already unstable food supply.  Please check back with us for the final article, about the progress being made by our outreach counselors who are part of the Patongo Counseling Community Outreach (PCCO) programme.

Malaria in northern Uganda

Causing over 70,000 deaths every year, malaria is Uganda’s biggest killer.  In theory, Uganda has free malaria prevention programmes in public clinics.  However, the northeast corner of Uganda is often forgotten, and its clinics are rarely properly stocked.  Thus, Patongo and the surrounding areas have very high rates of malaria, with thousands of people dying from it each year.

Mosquito nets offer simple and effective protection against malaria, but there is an inadequate supply. Even the relatively small cost can be prohibitive for the vulnerable families that Network for Africa works with.  Since there are not enough nets for everyone, families are forced to prioritize who uses them.  While babies usually merit the nets, other vulnerable young children, especially ages 5-6 and upwards, suffer as they often go without.

Photo by Tjeerd Wiersma

Treated nets are only effective when properly used, and that requires training. For instance, some people mistakenly use mosquito nets as fishing nets, not realizing their importance in protecting against malaria.

Supplying mosquito nets to protect against malaria

A very generous corporate supporter recently gave a donation enabling us to supply more than 2,000 nets to people in Patongo.  Crucially, our outreach counselors will distribute the nets, training each family in how to use them effectively – and in the importance of doing so.




Please help us to reach more families.  Buying malaria nets is one of the simple “baby steps” that can transform an African child’s life chances.  A donation of £3/$5 could pay for a mosquito net and training in how to use it correctly.  Please donate here.

Late rains worsens precarious food supply in Uganda

The people of Patongo in Northern Uganda where we work are being severely affected by drought. As if they don't have enough to cope with, rebuilding their lives after twenty years of conflict, now the seasonal rains are late. Below is the first of three updates from Patongo. This one features the late rains; the last two will feature our plans for malaria prevention and the progress being made by the lay counselors who are part of the Patongo Counselling Community Outreach [PCCO]. 

Late rains

The seasonal rains that usually arrive in Patongo by now have still not come, preventing farmers from planting any crops.  People are becoming worried about the inevitable food shortages that will occur in a few months when there is nothing to harvest.  Because of this unwelcome delay, farmers are not expecting their first harvest of groundnuts, a staple crop, until August or September, even though the groundnuts are usually harvested in July.

Unfortunately, northern Uganda has been experiencing erratic rain patterns for the last few years.  Last year, unpredictable rain meant that most of Patongo’s groundnuts were ruined.  This year’s delay further exacerbates the already precarious food supply.

How Network for Africa and its partners are helping

Water and food conservation

Network for Africa is working with local community leaders in Patongo to determine how to collect and save rainwater when it does eventually arrive, and the best way to disseminate that information to everyone in the community. 

We also plan to experiment with ways of preserving fruit, such as drying mangoes, so that they can be saved to eat later.

Our Outreach Counselors, who provide counselling services in Patongo, have already gained the trust of the community and their advice is in high demand. They are well-placed to train others in the community in techniques like water and food conservation.

Community vegetable gardens

While we and our Patongo partners can’t make the rainy season start on time, we can help the community strategically use the land and water that is available, and to recover traditional techniques used to maximize the farming season.  To this end, we are working with Slow Food to plant three vegetable gardens in Patongo.  Slow Food is a global, grassroots organisation committed to supporting the local and sustainable production of food.  Slow Food assigns an expert agronomist to work with a community to assess their food/farming needs and resources and to then create small-scale vegetable gardens specifically tailored to that community.  We hope many more people in Patongo will follow suit and start to grow their own vegetables.

Women start bakery, use donations to enrol in school

The hard-working team at Wanda Bakery in Kigali, Rwanda are now officially registered as a co-operative.  Starting from literally nothing, the women, who are students at our Rwanda Multi Learning Centre, have created a bakery business. Their work is an inspiration to others in Rwanda, and a source of utterly delicious treats. Their customers include expats, hotels and embassies across the Rwandan capital, and they have plans to produce more traditional food to tempt local taste buds too. To sample their brownies and zucchini bread is to be transported to heaven.  See what we mean by checking out Melissa Musgrove’s photos of the women and their baked goods: http://gallery.me.com/melissalmusgrove#100076.

Our thanks to Julian Roberts, who ran the Berlin Marathon in September 2010 on behalf of Wanda Bakery and Network for Africa. The team is using the money so kindly raised by Julian to invest in further culinary training.

Two of the Wanda Bakery women will take courses in food preparation and services, while another is enrolling in an accounting and business management program.

Julian's donation is also being used to allow two Wanda Bakers to enroll at the Kigali Institute of Health to study psychological counselling.  This may seem unconnected to cupcakes, but as one of the students explains:

“We want to be trained in counselling so that we are able to create a good and peaceful atmosphere for the business, but also for the Rwanda Multi-Learning Centre. A lot of young orphans, especially young girls, come to us for advice and help, and we want to be better able to help them.”

The Wanda Bakery women's determination to offer help and support to everyone in the Rwanda Multi Learning Centre community is what underlies the success of Network for Africa's projects: previously vulnerable and isolated women are forging a strong social network, supporting each other both personally and professionally, with each participant gaining greater self-confidence as a result.

This is how lives are transformed. We thank Julian and Alison Roberts, who worked so hard to raise money to help these remarkable women in Kigali. 

Rwanda: what it's all about. A message from N4A's new CEO.

As Rwanda mourns the million people who were murdered in the 1994 genocide, I reflect on my recent visit there.

Rwanda, where at least half a million children were orphaned.

Rwanda, where the international community stood by as one by one, a tenth of the population was systematically hacked to death, often brutally raped or tortured first.

Rwanda, a country so beautiful it literally takes your breath away – avenues of eucalyptus trees, mountains whose pinnacles are shrouded in mist, banana plantations, hills chiselled by terracing, rice fields in the valleys, children running by the side of the road, goats, pigs, chickens, intense green.

As the new team member at Network for Africa, I was there to meet our project partners and see the good work that they are doing.  And as CEO, I am always thinking about how we raise the money to fund the good work that is happening on the ground.  Part of that process is being able to paint a picture of the difference we are making to people’s lives.

It’s about the 120 orphans of the genocide who had no education, grew up in child headed households in extreme poverty, but who are now learning English, IT and music at our Rwanda Multi Learning Centre. They are in with a fighting chance of going on to college and forging a career for themselves, because of what we’re doing. 

It’s about the brave young women who formed their cooperative Wanda Bakery Restoring Lives, and work so hard baking and selling cakes to the expatriate and diplomatic communities in Kigali.

It’s about the determined young men and women who have formed their Heart of Africa choir, because they love music and because it helps them recover from their trauma.  Heart of Africa, whose sound made my spine tingle.

It’s about the 350 women – orphans, widows, child mothers – who were destitute, but were gathered up by one of life’s visionaries, Peace Ruzage, and are now are learning to read and write, have a vocational and a marketable skill, know about their rights, and can now feed their children.

It’s about the 17,000 people who until two months ago, had to walk all day to see a doctor but now have the Ntarama Health Clinic and Hospital on their doorstep.

It’s about understanding the long-term psychological problems, left in the wake of genocide.  It’s about seeing how our work brings a transformation to the lives of our beneficiaries and their extended families.

And being able to listen when people like Rose say:

Three years ago I couldn’t speak.  It was hard to believe that I would ever smile again.  The [Music Centre] choir is like my dream.  I’m very, very happy.

           

I get it.  I can paint the picture now. 

~Annabel Harris

Network for Africa

Life-changing bikes

In 2010, two donors – Liberty Wines and a private family – bought 40 bikes for a group of vulnerable women in Patongo, northern Uganda.  These relatively inexpensive bikes are nevertheless tickets to greater freedom and better lives for the women, who work together in income-generating activities.  In particular, the bikes have drastically helped women transport firewood; without the bikes, the women have to walk between 5-8 miles to collect wood.

Other important uses for the bikes include:

• Quicker transportation to the hospital, especially important in emergences.
• Increased efficiency and productivity in their fields.
• Help with small businesses, as women can travel far to collect produce for selling.
• Reduced time spent fetching water.

Here is what some of the women told me about how the bikes have changed their lives.

Julia: The bike has given me a great deal of help in my life. It saved my life. I live in a polygamous marriage and my husband abandoned me a few months ago, leaving me with nothing at all, no wealth or possessions and three children to feed and educate. I use my bike to collect firewood from far away, and then sell it in the market.

Kissa: I used my bike to fetch firewood and transport it back to Patongo to sell. It paid for my son's transport to go back to school. My son also uses my bike to go to school.

Sara: The bike saved my child's life. My baby had malaria and was sick. The health centre in Patongo had no treatment and so I had to cycle with my baby on my back to Kalongo hospital 22 miles away. It saved his life.

Elise: The bike saved my child's life. She needed treatment at hospital, and we used bike for transport. She is well now. I also use my bike to collect firewood to earn a living.

Margaret: I am thankful for the bike as I manage to collect building material from far away for my new house.

Jane: I used to have to walk to fetch water. I could only do this once a day because I have difficulty with chest pain, and the walk caused my chest to hurt too much. Now I can cycle more than one trip and collect more water. My health has also improved.

Abbo: I have been able to get to the market far away to buy food to eat for my family and also sell the rest at the local market.