Future of Uganda’s Educational System

With a 21.4% inflation rate in the last year, Uganda’s educational system has been forced to alter their fees accordingly. What does this mean for the students attending these schools?

As we’ve noticed in northern Uganda, many families already choose not to send their children to school, as the fees are just too expensive. Uganda is under the universal educational program but unfortunately, having the ‘universal’ title does not mean it is all inclusive. School fees still exist and this is due to lack of government funding, and privatization. Many families cannot afford to send their children to school and thus, thousands of students across Uganda are missing out.

In the past few months, we have also seen the threat of a teachers’ strike across Uganda. Teachers face risk of not getting paid monthly, not finding work, and have been continuously underpaid. We are waiting to see how the government will respond in assisting the people that will help mould the future citizens of Uganda.

In the last 20 years, education has reached more Ugandans than ever before, but with the additional increase in living expenses and educational fees, what does this mean for students now? Will more children be held back to help their family at home? Will more students have to drop out because of the increase in fees? Will families hesitate to send their children to classes? Will teachers continue to receive low pay or will they make change through striking?

All of these questions will be answered in the next year but it also brings to light that many things should be open to adjustment in the Ugandan educational system. If change does not happen, we will continue to see thousands of students lacking essential education. As the new term begins this month, I hope that the government takes time to sort through these issues and make the future of education a number one priority. We can only wait and see.

Child Soldiers as adults...

Last week, the first Ugandan war crimes trial opened in northern Uganda. Thomas Kwoyelo has been charged with 53 counts of willful killing, hostage-taking, destruction of property and causing injury. Thomas, now 39, has denied all charges.

This trial has me thinking a lot about the use of child soldiers and the implications of a child growing up within an army environment. It has been reported that Thomas joined the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in 1987. That would make him 15 years old when he began his life with the Ugandan rebel army. Did Thomas really have a say in his role? Did he have a chance to be a teenager? Did he want to commit the crimes that he committed? As evidence has confirmed, Thomas played a leading role in the conflict led by the LRA during his adult years. However, did Thomas have a say when he first joined the LRA? Did he have a choice when he was forced into committing crimes under his commander’s orders?

In both Police and Paicho primary schools we promote peace, understanding, and human rights among students. Things change though when someone’s life is put at stake. We can teach children to pursue peaceful behavior in their lives but when adults take advantage of children in a conflict situation, many will be forced to go against what they believe in and what they believe is the right thing to do.

As the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers states on its website, ‘The use of children as soldiers has been universally condemned as abhorrent and unacceptable. Yet over the last ten years hundreds of thousands of children have fought and died in conflicts around the world.’ As a child you do not have a say in whether you fight; it is something you do to stay alive. Thomas is responsible for the crimes he has committed but did he really have a choice in his initial involvement? When it comes to fight or die, as a 15 year old, which would you choose?

Children poorly taught in East Africa…

This week an article was printed in the Daily Monitor entitled ‘East Africa children poorly taught – a report’. To tell you the truth, it doesn’t surprise me.

IPEP has been working in northern Ugandan schools now for 2 years and we have seen the ins and outs that go on in primary education. Our staff has met with the Board of Education, the National Curriculum Development Board and many consultants involved in education here in Uganda. Unfortunately, the same conclusion always emerges; the education system in Uganda is failing more than succeeding.

The problem is not only in the classroom though; it is the entire structure of the educational system. Ugandan teachers are not supported and most of the time not respected. We’ve seen it time and time again where teachers do not receive their salaries, and yet they must stay or else they would be unemployed. When teachers are not paid, they are not motivated. Therefore, they tend to not show up for classes, do not prepare lessons, and do not really have a reason for working. The person that suffers the most in this situation is the student.

Daily Monitor reports that In Uganda and Tanzania, pass rates were at 4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. “There is a crisis of learning in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Governments are proud of their achievements in expanding school enrolments. But they should now not hide behind these achievements, and focus instead on making sure that children in school are in fact learning,” reads part of the report released last month.

Our Program Director, Miriam Wertlieb, has met with education officials continuously and stated that ‘the current education system is not working, and this is why they are in the process of overhauling it completely to make the system better and improve the education that Ugandan children receive.’

This is great news and for the students of Uganda, we hope its impacts will be seen sooner than later.

Read more about the report here.

Peace Education continues in northern Uganda...

We are well into the second term of Peace Education at Police Primary School and it’s going great.

Before the term started we experienced a challenging time; as it was questionable whether or not the IPEP team would be returning to both Police and Paicho Primary Schools. However, we received the go ahead and the Insight Peace Education Project is reaching the students in Gulu District that need it most.

If you’ve been keeping up-to-date with us, you know that we had a Master’s student, Gwen Bogels, in Gulu earlier this year researching the ins and outs of the project. We wanted to share with you what our IPEP students shared with Gwen:

“I love it [peace education], before I didn’t know anything about conflict. I want it to continue, it is important. I should not be the only one to know about conflict, more people should. It can help other children to know what they didn’t know. I learned a lot. People saying these are your rights, but I didn’t know. But last week we got to know 26 of them, that should continue. It helped to know what happened in other countries, because we saw pictures of it.” - Ojok Benson, P7 student, 16 years old

“The goal of peace education is for children to have respect. When Miriam started coming, children talked about bad things. Now there is some improvement. We were used to fight, but now there is reduction in fighting.” – Akwero Jeneth, P7 student, 14 years old

“Last year I heard about peace education for the first time. This changed my life.” – Okema Timothy, P7 student, 14 years old

In a region divided by conflict, peace education is encouraging these children to ask more questions, to develop their skills, to know their rights and to fight against violence in their schools. Peace education does not just teach students what to think, but rather how to think critically. It does not only affect the individual, it concerns the community at large and how the next generation of northern Ugandans can grow in a region of continuous peace. We’ve been in Gulu now for almost 2 years and we see the potential this region has. With lasting peace, there is nowhere to go but up.

Thank you for another great year!!!

The end of term 1 has finished here in Gulu and all primary teachers and students have returned home for holidays. It is also the end of the second phase of the Insight Peace Education Project. This year was instrumental in judging the need for a continued peace curriculum throughout Gulu. It was unanimous that the project has succeeded in the pilot stages and the local Ministry of Education agrees. “After years of insurgency, the need for peace education in our schools is essential,” says District Educational Officer in Gulu, Akena Caesar . Peace education is not just about the now, it is about the future and by maintaining this project, sustainable peace in northern Uganda is possible.

To commemorate this amazing accomplishment, all IPEP staff, volunteers, teachers, and their families from Police and Paicho Primary Schools came together for a celebratory dinner. Not only are these teachers changing the way children see themselves but they are changing the way they see the world as a whole. We wanted to make sure our teachers know how special and important they are in keeping northern Uganda a peaceful place. In addition, we recognized a pioneer teacher that has gone above and beyond his role in implementing the IPEP curriculum at Police Primary School. Komakec Romanson (pictured below with Educational Services Manager, Miriam Wertlieb) was awarded with the ‘teacher appreciation’ award for excellence in his contribution to IPEP. It is our hope that in the next year, IPEP will continue to train more teachers and teach even more primary-aged children in peace throughout Gulu.

We would again like to extend our thanks to all teachers and volunteers involved in the Insight Peace Education Project, because without you, the program could not have reached success!

Me in Three

If you were asked to describe yourself as you see yourself, as others see you, and as you truly are, would you know what to say?

This week at Police Primary School, the P6 class took a shot at answering these tough questions. I sat at the back of the classroom and observed while so many students eagerly raised their hands to contribute. They seemed to know exactly who they were, or at least they were trying to understand. “I am a fat girl. I am stubborn. I am strong,” one student said. ‘Others say I am a polite girl. I am a hard working girl,’ another added.

This lesson is part of a complete unit regarding ‘identities’. Identity is said to relate to self-image, self-esteem, and individuality. Throughout our lives we are often changing and questioning our identities but in adolescence, it is when youth first begin to distinguish themselves as individuals. It is a critical time for one to ask themselves these questions, especially if they have never lived in a peaceful society. In northern Uganda, over 25,000 children were abducted to become combatants or sex slaves during the 20-year conflict; 7,500 of those children were girls of whom 1,000 returned from LRA captivity having conceived children of their own (United Nations). During that time, I’m sure many of them questioned who they were, where they were going and if they would even survive. Their identity was so construed that many didn’t even have the chance to ask the questions a typical child should ask.

This is why the Insight Peace Education Project has taken the unique approach to providing students with the opportunity to raise these questions. ‘Who are you in your own thinking? What does it mean?’ Instead of someone defining their roles in society, they have a chance to think for themselves. Now, more than ever, northern Uganda must continue to promote peace. These students need to continue to ask these questions. They need to question who they are and try to understand it. These students are the future of Uganda, and when they have peace, the entire nation will too.

On the outside looking in...

My name is Gwen Bögels and I’m an anthropology student from The Netherlands. For my masters I am required to do 12 weeks of in-depth research. Over the past few years I have grown more and more interested in peace education and I decided I wanted to research this topic. I am trying to find out what the perceptions of children are on war and peace and what their strategies are to resolve conflicts between each other, but additionally between themselves and their parents or teachers. This is why, over the past few weeks, I have chosen to talk to the oldest children of the two schools where the Insight Peace Education Project is implementing their peace education curriculum.

My interest in peace education started when I was taking a course called Education and Development, and the professor introduced me to the topic of education in conflict areas. Education is, according to me, an important feature of a child’s development. In school, children not only learn how to read, write and add numbers, but also how to interact with other children. School is where children learn how to share, how to quarrel, and how to resolve these quarrels. Next to that, children represent the future, so we should invest in them; even when a country is at war. Or maybe it is even more important to invest in education when a country is at war? School makes life a little bit more normal and it is a place where children can be themselves within these ‘bad surroundings’[1].

Since the beginning of this century, many organizations have begun to see education as a part of humanitarian aid. Next to food, medical care and shelter, more organizations support education in conflict affected areas. Although Gulu is a post-conflict area now, there are many NGO’s here working with education, children or youth. One of the first things I noticed driving north to Gulu from Kampala was that all signs featured the name of one or even two NGOs. But now, five years after the conflict ended, many of these NGOs say their work is finished and the number of organizations is decreasing. Luckily, and hopefully, the Insight Peace Education Project will continue with their good work, at least if there is funding for the next year(s).

As I mentioned before, I have been interested in Peace Education for a while now. I have read about it, wrote about it and now I finally see it ‘in real life’. It is amazing to see how the children and the teachers respond to the Insight Peace Education Project. In January my time at the project started with a two day workshop for local teachers. After the workshop, the teachers were asked if they wanted to stay involved, and they all did. I have also observed a couple of Peace Education in-class lessons. These lessons are unique because finally, the children don’t have to sit at their desks. They can also go in front of the class to sign their class contract. The contract is simple; the children make their own class rules, and with the contract the children all sign these rules. This allows them to stay engaged. It’s amazing to see how accurate these young children can describe peace.

The first thing I noticed, when I started talking to the children at both schools, is that they are incredibly smart. Sometimes I think they know more about the world than I do. Actually, I’m sure they do. These children grew up in a world that I could never imagine growing up in. War has affected all aspects of their lives. And even now, when I ask them if they think that Uganda is a peaceful nation, some say there is no peace in Uganda. They still cannot go out in the night to the bathroom (because it is too dangerous) and people are still displaced. Uganda is officially in peace (although the LRA never signed the peace agreement), but some children and even teachers still say it’s not.

That makes you ask: What is peace and what makes a country peaceful? I don’t think I know the answer, but I think some of these children do. They say they can make peace, can be good to their friends and the people of their community. And yes, I do think that when you want to make a country peaceful, you should start with the people who make the future: the children. My hope is that the war in northern Uganda will not return. What I know for sure is that the people in Gulu do want peace, and they try to be peaceful. But is that possible after seeing all the misery of a 20-year war? Let’s hope so!

Apwoyo matek,

Gwen

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[1] The title of the book about the war in Northern Uganda: ‘Living in Bad Surroundings: War, History and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda’ by Sverker Finnström.

The North is Another Country

According to travel writer Philip Briggs, “Education in northwest [Uganda] and associated prospects of employment were deliberately stifled by the British, in order that the region might remain a ready source of military recruits and manual laborers.”

Northern Uganda is acutely and obviously impoverished. For those of us who work in the region, being aware of this problem becomes like breathing. Hunger, abuse and disease are all around. But in our isolated Gulu, relative comparisons become scarce. This is poverty in a vacuum.

It wasn’t until I recently went on holiday in Uganda’s southwest that I realized, after 9 months of work in the north, just how damaged and disadvantaged this region is.

In the south, impenetrable forests contrast dried up croplands in the north. Nearly thriving tourism in the south juxtaposes an onslaught of foreign aid workers in the north. Children vibrant with health, energy and crisp colorful new school uniforms stand out against distended bellied toddlers wearing stained scraps of second-hand t-shirts. Brilliant green tea plantations stretch for miles across southern farmland, contrasting the squalid IDP camps that desertified the north (pictured below).

The scenarios make sense – the Civil Society Organizations for Peace in Northern Uganda estimated the cost of the war in Northern Uganda to be $1.3 billion, with 90% of people in Acholiland forced out of their homes. These are catalysts of long-term, widespread damage that can be seen, felt and heard simply by moving from one end of this Oregon-sized country to the other.

As we moved through protected, profiting national parks and lively, stable towns, I felt defensive of the north and protective of the people suffering there. Maybe it doesn’t matter whether this kind of deep contrast happens across borders or within them. But seeing the difference in the south and knowing this was still Uganda gave me pause and incited frustration outside of the familiar concern I have for poverty and war devastation per se.

Shortly after South Africa’s transition from Apartheid to democracy, Allister Sparks said of the emerging system: “Tomorrow is another country.” Here, the north - south divide makes Uganda feel like two different nations, governed by two different administrations and run on two different economies.

Healing a region after repeated offense takes time and attention. The Ugandan government, the shepherd of the nation in its entirety, would do well to strive for a less conspicuous rift by giving Northerners what they need to fulfill their potential and match their compatriots to the south.

Peace,

Holly

Proving Peace Education Works

Development work is often volatile- we pour our hearts and souls into a program, and hope that our efforts will result in sustained impact. But even the most effective organization, complete with dedicated staff and deep community integration can find itself without sufficient funding and thereby paralyzed o continue their work.

As we’ve been labored over grant proposals aimed at securing funding for such continuance for our own impact, I’ve asked myself what the future will hold for the Insight Peace Education Project, and for myself as one of its staff. What could we do with 50k? 100k? 500k? What could we do, what do we want to do, and what would make for a quality continuation?

Beyond having ideas, the most important factor to ensuring a continued impact is having proof that the project is both affective and effective. While we’ve been following expert monitoring and evaluation protocols, I never expected to have any “evidence” that our materials worked within a mere few months.

When we recently sat down with our teachers for our monthly meeting, we were humbled to hear them report (unprompted, might I add) several significant changes that they’ve observed among their students since we began curriculum implementation. Female class participation has increased significantly. There is more order both inside the classroom and during break-times. Students have gained a sense of peer-enforced accountability. More students than ever before are making their way to the school libraries, requesting to take out books.

Could this all really be a result of our program? It’s both relieving and rejuvenating to know that our efforts have led to visible positive change. It’s rare to see the impact of one’s work so quickly, and these changes support the core beliefs behind our project- that children are malleable, and that through youth education we can positively affect the future.

Kaa Salama,

Miriam

Are We Together?

During our week of teacher training workshops, we used various methods to get to know the five teachers we would be working with at our two pilot schools. As we moved through our sections on Identities and Communities, we gained insight into their lives. Our concern coming out of the workshop: How do you relay the same lessons and build the same trust and collaboration in a class of one hundred and fifty students effectively? Now that we’ve begun our classroom implementation phase, the answer is clear: you leave it to the professionals.

In the past four weeks, I’ve spent most of my time with the Primary 6 classes at Police Primary, watching their teacher, Nyerere, dominate the classroom in a way I could have never imagined. The first time I walked into his class, I had a heavy feeling at the bottom of my stomach, the same one I often get right before a big game. After the class greeted me, Nyerere wrote “Peace Education” on the board, and soared away with the planned lesson, while I sat in the corner and watched the show. As we discussed different ideas surrounding the meaning of the word peace, a hundred hands flew up in the air, and in forty short minutes, I had heard from virtually every student in the classroom. Looking around the classroom, I felt that each student had been touched by the lesson in one way or another.

The curriculum that we’ve offered the teachers is beyond interesting; it is educative, exciting and motivating. Still, a great classroom needs more than a great lesson plan. Typically, Nyerere opens his class with a review of what we talked about in our last lesson. As he emphasizes what’s important, he somehow finds little ways to relate his words to every single student, making the classroom erupt in laughter. Before you can blink, Nyerere has moved on and the children are quiet and attentive, and most importantly, extremely engaged. As he walks up and down the narrow isles in his classroom, he asks the class “Are we together? Are we together?” As the children say “Yes,” in unison, Nyerere offers a mellow “Ah,” and class continues.

It’s just about the most peaceful thing I’ve ever seen.

- Kijana

Mantra

"[Children] construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it."

Some things are universal. This recent op-ed in the New York Times captures core principles that compel the work we're doing. Enjoy, share, repeat.

Peace,

Holly

New Arrival

This month, we are thrilled to welcome a new member of the team - Kijana will be interning with the project for the next 4 months, helping on everything from workshop facilitation to impact monitoring and day to day interfacing with local stakeholders. Here are her first impressions of life in Northern Uganda:

Although I had been greatly anticipating my arrival in Gulu for several months, I was constantly reminding myself to stay away from creating a false picture in my mind. It was hard not to be anxious, excited, and nervous, knowing that every minute of my eighteen hour voyage across the North Atlantic would bring me closer and closer to my new African abode. I had so many questions about this foreign land: What will it look like? What will the locals be like? How will I be received? What will my new family be like? What will my work be like?

Our short stay in Kampala showed me a beautiful, busy city- but I was happy to hear that our final destination would be a lot slower, and a lot calmer. In my previous inquiries about Gulu, the typical response was a shrug and a short line about “understanding when you get there.” The truth is: Gulu is an impossible place to describe, but I will try to do it some justice. The city itself is a small grid, with several villages surrounding it. Riding down Acholi Road, you might see local women carrying huge jerry cans of water on their heads, a group of boda-boda motorcycle drivers huddled on each corner, and young children kicking around a football on the side of the road. As you head to Senior Quarters on the other side of town, you begin to see sign after sign for the hundreds of NGO’s which Gulu houses, as well as expatriates and locals alike walking in and out of the popular cafés and restaurants. Although the roads are rocky and uneven, the African dirt is red, rich, and beautiful. The trees are green and the sky is clear blue. While the sun does blaze for hours after midday, the atmosphere is ever welcoming and easygoing. It certainly isn’t an exotic paradise, but it is not a war-torn hell either. There is a strong sense of peace and hope in the dusty air, which makes every interaction that much more fulfilling.


Life here has been an interesting learning experience so far. My host family was immediately welcoming, and we connected almost instantly. They have introduced me to their culture in several ways, including cooking delicious local dishes for me, bringing me to church, and taking me to a traditional Acholi wedding. Working with Insight on the Peace Education Project has also been educative and intriguing. Our week of teacher training workshops were eye opening, and hopefully their success is indicative of what our upcoming work will be like in our two pilot schools. As we head into the first week of the term, I am eager to meet the students we will be working with for the next couple of months, and hopeful that our curriculum will be able to teach them as much as I’m sure they have to teach me.

The Decisive Element

The public education system in Uganda is not known to promote participation and creativity. So we were not surprised when we began our 5-day Teacher Training, that our teachers, who have been through the Ugandan system, were shy when it came to sharing information and expressing their opinions. Compared to the dreamboat that was our Modules and Content Development (MCDC) workshop, the Teacher Training took a significantly larger amount of energy and patience. However, it also turned out to be significantly more rewarding. The growth we saw in each of the teachers’ enthusiasm, participation, and knowledge was truly incredible.

As we took our teachers through new teaching strategies, communication and conflict resolution activities, and the Holocaust case study, it was our job not only to impart content, but also to reinvigorate their sense of purpose and ability to positively influence tomorrow’s citizens and leaders.

In a system so burdened by regulations and results, teachers rarely have a sense of ownership in what and how they teach. It is nearly impossible for a teacher not to lose sight of what led them to teach in the first place- beliefs to which they must return and expand:

I am the decisive element in the classroom.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized.

- (Haim Ginott, Teacher and Child)

Teaching is about the experience of each child. We look forward to improving the educational experience of the Ugandan child, as we continue to support and empower our teachers as they embark on classroom implementation.

Kaa Salama,

Miriam

Media Frenzy: Homosexuality in Uganda

The question I was asked most upon return to California after three months of fieldwork in Northern Uganda was not, Is it safe is there? or, What’s the food like? or even, How’s the project going? Instead, it was What is going on with homosexuality in Uganda?!

For the past few months, there has been an international press storm brewing over an issue controversial in most every corner of the world: gay rights. This one happened to focus on my current East African country of residence. Here’s why: Uganda has a new bill pending in Congress that would legislate brutal punishment for homosexual citizens. Actually deemed, “The Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” this law would penalize those found “guilty” with life in prison or, in some cases, execution.

Although Africa doesn’t have a glowing record when it comes to gay rights, Uganda is relatively isolated in its extremity on the issue. There are seven countries in the world that prescribe the death penalty for homosexuality, and four others that dole out life imprisonment. Among those eleven, just four are in Africa (the majority are in the Mid-East and Central Asia). Overall, promoting this legislation is a rare step to take, and Uganda is paying for it in international disapproval.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the World AIDS Campaign, several United Nations agencies and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton among many others have spoken out against the bill. State sponsored killing based on sexual orientation is a grievous violation of numerous international conventions as well as the sign of a severely repressive government. But the outcry is nearly exclusively foreign. My friends back in California who asked me about the situation were disappointed to learn I knew only what they knew through NPR, The New York Times, and other progressive Western media. People in Uganda just aren't talking about it.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Fighting the bill locally is an alarming Catch 22: many say that for it to be squashed, disapproval must come from Ugandan citizens. But any citizen who speaks out against the bill is assumed to be gay, and therefore eligible for execution should it pass. This kind of association pattern in a place where lynchings are common means that activism by Ugandans in Uganda is nearly impossible.

One final note: the buzz in the US about this pending law may seem random: Uganda isn’t the only country to punish homosexuality with death. Furthermore, Uganda is newsworthy for a variety of other alarming human rights issues (extreme poverty, famine, child soldiering and HIV/AIDS to name a few) – why pick on their gay rights record?

It isn’t random. Much of the heightened interest is because there's evidence that the bill may have been pushed by a strong US contingent, even some of our own US Congressmen. A group called “The Family,” whose members include US state representatives, have been accused of offering ideas and endorsement that gave rise to the bill. Outrage from American press and individuals could very well stem from feelings of involvement by association. To find out more, read these articles: New York Times, Human Rights Watch, NPR, check out this radio broadcast about The Family's involvement in Uganda, and listen to four Ugandans voice their views.

Peace,

Holly

Rwanda and Its Discontents

With our first major milestone behind us, we set off a couple weeks after the workshop on a puddle jumper to see about our neighbor to the Southwest. Rwanda, a country the size of Maryland best known for a genocide that took place in 1994, knows a bit about post-conflict. We were headed there for ten days to learn some lessons on education in the aftermath of violence.

Our trip centered around a visit with Karen Murphy, the international director of our mentor organization, Facing History and Ourselves. Their latest of many international programs is located in Rwanda and works with teachers to introduce effective education on themes like citizenship, tolerance and democracy. We also visited the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, a center with a progressive approach to education for children orphaned by the genocide. This was my first visit to country, so it was also my chance to see the genocide memorials, beautiful scenery and a decidedly different political and economic climate than Uganda’s.

Upon arrival in Kigali, one could easily feel like she landed in a suburb of New York City, not a landlocked African country surrounded by nations at war and recovering from its own genocide that took place just 15 years ago. Lush flowering trees lean over well-paved roads, traffic obeys an organized order and people bustle about in heels and suits to and from glossy high rise office buildings. Food is indulgent and city streets are safe, though we found this came at a price. Tourists beware – Rwanda is a gorgeous choice for a visit to Africa, but not a cheap one.

Visiting Karen along with the Rwandan teachers and kids involved in the Facing History program was far and away the highlight of the trip. We arrived to the cavernous classroom of a boarding school where everyone was convened for a winter break workshop with Karen, greeted by the smiling faces of total engagement. The theme was United States social movements and governance – the kids were preparing for a trip to the US in March for an exchange program with high school students in the Boston area. Icebreakers, role plays and theatrical interpretations of the Declaration of Independence ensued, and the energy and creativity was contagious.

These kids were asking tough questions, interacting with each other with support and critical feedback and dealing with their own country’s past by courageously drawing nuanced connections.
We later visited two of the Rwandan teachers in their hometowns – one a Priest who toured us around the convents and cathedrals of Butare and the other a veteren teacher from the town of Gitarama.

Late in the week, we left Kigali for Nyamata to two genocide memorials at sights of attacks that took the lives of 15,000 people in two days. Musty brick churches became relics of atrocity – clothes of those killed were piled on pews once used as peaceful venues of worship.

Jewelry and ballpoint pens hung on threads strung from the ceilings and children’s lesson books from the days of the attacks left half-empty on tables in the Sunday school classrooms. Holes were blasted through the walls by grenades, bloodstains and bullet holes peppered the ceilings, and floral offerings were stacked on alters.

As we walked around the Nyamata memorial, our guide stopped in the middle of his historical narrative and pointed to a corner of the church. “This is where I hid,” he said. This young man had spent the 6 hour attack on his church crouched in this corner and the following 31 days hiding in a swamp nearby. His honesty and introspection painted a picture of loss as well as ethical complication in the aftermath. “I met the man who killed my mother here,” he explained. “I had to forgive him. We are made to forgive.”

Rwanda is a deeply scarred country whose attempt at recovery is, like any other, full of success and failure. We got a glimpse of this tension on our visit, thanks to the brave, informed insight of people dedicated to Rwanda’s future generation. Rwanda has done well to provide aesthetic beauty for it’s citizens and visitors – it’s litter-free and landscape-heavy, flowers and well-manicured lawns everywhere. The bigger challenge here regards intangible democratic freedoms. This transition, like so many of it’s kind, calls for serious attention to the limits, challenges, absences, and possibilities of demanding justice and a more peaceful, inclusive future. For more information, read current Human Rights Watch reports on Rwanda, and watch this video featuring the late Allison des Forges, an exemplar of human rights activism whose impact is greatly missed.

Peace,
Holly

Addendum: Congo

Journal: December 18, 2009

From our hotel room porch in Kibuye, Rwanda, a town on the shores of Lake Kivu, we can see across to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Kibuye and the lake are pictures of peace – rolling hills shrouded in greenery and humming with wildlife. But directly across the lake, a war rages in DRC .

I can point to Goma - we are among the embattled Kivus, one of the most violent environments on Earth. I can see crossfire across the lake - the sky lights up similarly to when African lightening strikes—quietly, with small flashes. But it is more centralized, smaller, and always close to the ground. It lights up pink and peach against the dark sky, and now that I’m listening for it, I can hear the pound of explosion, like distant fireworks. I am a direct spectator of war. Not of the aftermath, not of the tears of testimony or confession, not of the political violence of kidnapping or armed robbery that follows ten or twenty years in the wake of armed conflict, but of war.

Being American, living in Uganda and visiting places like Rwanda, it is easy to feel safe and focus on the after component of war. But those nights in Kibuye were important reminders of what it is we’re trying to prevent. They reminded me that many places are not out of the woods, and there are lessons in coming face to face with that. For more on DRC, and to help at this critical time of violence, visit the Enough Project’s campaign for Eastern Congo.

Workshopping Peace

The past few/couple/I’m not even sure how many weeks have truly been an exhausting whirlwind. Holly and I were preparing to formally present our project to our core local advisory group at what became officially known as our 3-day Modules and Content Development Committee (MCDC) Workshop. Relatively new to the world of workshop facilitation, Holly and I were anxious - would the MCDC find our materials appropriate for the Northern Ugandan context? Would we fall on our faces? Would the committee members participate? Before I tell you all about how awesome the workshop was (and how outstanding Holly and my facilitating skills turned out to be), let me shed a little light on what exactly this MCDC workshop was all about.

Before even setting foot in Uganda, Holly and I partnered with several exceptional organizations in the field of peace education. For the purposes of the MCDC workshop, we utilized materials from two of these organizations, Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) and Tapori.

FHAO is an internationally recognized organization that promotes civic responsibility, tolerance, and social action among youth through innovative curricula and teaching modules. The content and activities covered in our MCDC workshop were most heavily based on FHAO, and fell into the following units: 1) Identity and Individualism; 2) Communities and Conflict Resolution; 3) Case Study: The Holocaust; and 4) Promoting Peace: Be the Change.

We used Tapori’s collection of issue-based children’s stories to illustrate some of the complex concepts introduced by FHAO. For example, a story about Jacinto from Guatemala depicts a young boy living in poverty, who suffers from hunger and must regularly skip school in order to help his half-blind uncle tend to their crops, provides a context for our primary school students to understand the overly legalized jargon of “Human Rights.”

While all of our materials went over well, our MCDC members were particularly enthusiastic about the Holocaust case study- something truly groundbreaking in the Ugandan education system. They eagerly explored the causes, realities and consequences of hatred, as they made connections to their own atrocity-ridden past. We designed the program to give Ugandans a case study to which they could connect their own experience with mass atrocity. We were hesitant to present formal lessons on recent Ugandan history, but it quickly became clear that open discussion about the war carried out by the Lord’s Resistance Army will be an essential element of our program.

Kaa salama,

Miriam

Unsung Heroes

The road to Paicho IDP camp leads out of Gulu to the Northeast through rural farmland and neighboring camps, a dynamic pair of symbols: the first of hope for a future that allows people to return to their peaceful pastoral lifestyles, and the second, living legacies of the war.

Paicho, the site of one of our two pilot schools, has become somewhat of a hybrid between the two. During the armed conflict, mud huts stood crammed together, tens of thousands of people living 9 or 10 to a room. Food was delivered once or twice monthly to long crowded lines of families waiting to receive bags of rice. Camps were set up for people who lived in remote areas to provide protection from rebel attacks and abductions. But often the camps increased the efficiency of rebel activity, condensing large populations into one relatively small, miserable space with a disturbingly disproportionate guard-to-civilian ratio.

Many Paicho residents have lived in the camp their whole lives. Women have raised children there, young adults have spent their formative years there, and communities have organized into support groups and nonprofit organizations. Many people have left to return to their original villages in order to reclaim their land and resume farming and relinquish the crutch of the UN. Others, though, have made Paicho their home, building more permanent structures, investing in the school and participating in local leadership structures. One such resident is Richard Onen, a man who's commitment to peace and development is only matched by his humble kindness and true optimism for his community. Along with his childhood friend, Victor Ochen, Richard founded the Ugandan branch of the African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET). It is a small organization whose accomplishments put mega international organizations with ten times the resources to shame. With a staff of 11 and a small office based in the town of Lira, they aid vulnerable populations in over a dozen sub-regions of Northern Uganda.

This year alone, they are pursuing eight projects, including reconstructive surgery for youth who were mutilated by LRA rebels, micro-finance projects for young widows struggling to support their families and the resettlement of 4,000 internally displaced persons returning to their homes after 20 years of war. As they carry out their work, AYINET is audited by veteran institutions like United Nations and USAID, and consistently found to be working at over 80% efficiency, blowing their bigger richer counterparts out of the water. What explains the discrepancy? These are two individuals whose hearts and souls are tied up in their work. Their experiences during the war manifest in aggressive commitment to ensuring that mass atrocity does not reoccur in their communities. Their intimate knowledge of Northern Uganda - politics, tradition, religion, money, water, land - mean that they are better equipped than the most well-funded, PhD-ridden international aid staff out there.

Victor and Richard are a dynamic team who work harder than anyone I've known - I often ask Victor when he sleeps, to which he replies, "It's good to be exhausted. If I'm sleeping, I can't be moving around to all the ones that need support." On top of their insane work ethic, their charisma and humor makes spending time with them a total joy. They pay attention to the human side of suffering, and avoid the jaded attitude of development workers who have little personal long-term investment in Northern Uganda's future.

Politicians, celebrities and international humanitarian advocates puzzle endlessly over the best ways to carry out development work, dumping funding into large-scale cut-and-paste programs. Many of them are missing the local component. We would go a long way in supporting transitional democracies simply by spending the time to find the individuals who make magic happen in their communities. These are the people we need to support.

Peace,
Holly

Dust Your Average Day

Don’t you just love that red African soil? I know I do. I love it thinly coating my entire body, gathering greater density in the crevice between my nose and sunglasses, clinging to my Burts Beeswax-covered lips.

But how do you achieve this ‘look?’ (You’re clearly asking yourself right now). The answer is simple- you hop on the back of a ‘boda-boda’ motorcycle for a 40-minute ride from Gulu town to Paicho Primary School, in Paicho internally displaced persons (IDP) camp.

You may have gathered through conversations with me over the past few months, or maybe just from pulling up this blog, that Holly and I are here in Gulu to develop and eventually implement peace education curricula. As the first phase of our project, we’ve been meeting with local experts in the fields of education, youth leadership, and human rights. Most importantly, we’ve started to get to know the primary level 5 and 6 students from the two pilot schools we’re working with- Police Primary in Gulu town, and Paicho Primary in one of Gulu district’s countless IDP camps.

Police Primary is a beautifully maintained ‘urban’ school (urban for Gulu), recognized in the district as a ‘model’ school, with the some of the top teachers, highest examination scores, access to resources, etc. Paicho Primary is at the other extreme- a ‘rural’ school, with a larger population of directly war-affected children, and a scarcity of resources.

Today, Holly and I slathered our pasty selves with sunscreen, filled up our water bottles, and mounted a couple boda-bodas with boxes of needs-assessment surveys in tow. We rode up to Paicho Primary, where we were greeted with the typical stares, giggles, and shrieks of ‘munu’ (whitey). We carried out the surveys with the P5 and P6 students- the upcoming P6 and P7 students with whom we’ll be implementing our curriculum come February.

While we haven’t yet had a chance to read through the hundreds of surveys (combined with those from Police Primary, we have about 450), we hope that the children’s responses will help us to understand their knowledge, attitudes and skills around peace and conflict resolution.

Tikka-MaSalsa,

Miriam

Rebranding Aid

Reporting last week on President Obama's recently won Nobel Peace Prize, celebrity artist-turned-anti-poverty-activist Bono writes in a New York Times Op-ed that this is the beginning of the rebranding of America. He says this year's Prize is a signal that Obama is a leader who will bring us into the global peace building fold rather than one whose initiatives consistently undermine it. Of the new administration, Bono excites, "From a development perspective, you couldn’t dream up a better dream team to pursue peace in this way, to rebrand America." A sea change for the US, to be sure. 

But what about a change for the direct beneficiaries of peace building and poverty eradication efforts, regardless of whose flag those efforts are under? The problems with international aid go far beyond the US's recent absence. As a global community, we need to look at what has happened to and due to status quo aid work. In our very small way, this initiative aims to confront those questions and attempt a change of tack. This blog will keep you posted on what comes of it. 

Some background: Northern Uganda recently emerged from an armed conflict between government and rebel armies that lasted from 1986 - 2006. The war's architects conscripted tens of thousands of child soldiers and led campaigns of ethnically-based violence, widescale sex slavery and the displacement of 2 million people. 

In the immediate post-war setting, Uganda was a magnet for emergency humanitarian aid programs. Our program base is littered with UN compounds and European government-funded projects. At the height of the war, in their well-oiled way, they came in, set up shop, and saved lives by the thousands. Now they've moved to post-war reconstruction, handing out the last of the food aid, resurrecting demolished buildings and doling out micro loans to entrepreneur hopefuls. These are necessary activities, but there is a significant lack of two things here as in many peace building efforts elsewhere the world: preventative approaches and intellectual development.

This year, we are bringing attention to the war-afflicted population of Northern Uganda in a way that hasn't been done before. Our beneficiaries: youth and the future they influence. Our method: build democratic classrooms and give children the tools to promote the survival of peace in their society.

With this project, we want to participate in rebranding post-conflict and poverty-eradication efforts toward paying as much attention to the minds of future leaders as is paid to the roof and four walls that we call a classroom.

Blogging from our base in Gulu, Uganda, we'll keep you updated on project progress, informed on issues relevant to the region, and entertained with daily reflections and photography. For more on the overall project plan, philosophy and parent organization (Insight Collaborative) visit our program website.

Finally, let our experience be a call to action - there is a lot to be done to rebrand aid and the trajectory of the next generation. As Bono points out, "The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, ‘Don’t blow it.’ But that’s not just directed at Mr. Obama. It’s directed at all of us."

Enjoy the blog and please send comments—we’re excited about the year ahead and love feedback as much as the next novice fieldworker. 

Peace, 

Holly