Jackson, You've always made us win even it sometimes means slowing down your journey. The decision to deal with poverty is long awaited. Many at times people fail or fear to discuss this topic for fear of their frame of reference (is he/she rich to talk about poverty etc). So what happens if someone asks them how rich they are to discuss such issues? To me poverty is relative. Without fear of being prejudiced for being poor One of the issues we've got to deal with in our endeavor is apathy; a feeling of being unable, incapable, and doing nothing about one's situation. Many people are doing nothing about their situation. Our culture of helping one another seemed to have bred reluctance to work and promoted the spirit of receiving free things. I think its time we changed our empowerment approach from one that breeds dependence to one that rewards hard work. History tells us, Europe was once in the same mess we are in today but what they did was to start giving to those who work. People later got to realize that only hard work pays. Decent life can only be led after working. This was however done with respect for the rights of the sick, elderly, and others genuinely incapacitated. The second thing we've got to deal with is the information poverty. Globally, info is now power yet many of our rural poor do not have access to information which to enhance their productivity, employability, etc. Such people have dwindled chance of ever making informed decisions? Sam raised also a serious issue and I wish to state the following. Marungi is now one of the cash crops grown in Arua with its nucleus in Kijomoro, Maracha County. Many people have looked at marungi with complexity/mixture of feelings. It is a source of living to some people especially those in Kijomoro and also number one cause of idleness and other problems. Someone wondered whether people would still alive in kijomoro if Marungi plantations are cut down. While on a tour in Maracha, president also told the people marungi is a mild. Most people are now not into production thinking that will buy food from marungi proceeds. The youth are heavily involved in nothing else except chewing marungi. Politicians fear to talk against marungi for fear of loosing votes. Without jeopardizing livelihood of some people and blessing the dangers of Marungi, how do we strike a deal? In addition to Marungi, we've got to deal with excessive drinking. Amb. Phillip Idro once told me our poverty is first class poverty. He explained it as follows: that people in first class poverty spend all their earnings trying to catch up with what they missed in the past--meaning they do not invest. With no savings, such people find themselves in what Robert Kyosaki called 'rat race' and this is typical of our tobacco farmers. Year in, year out, they are in fruitless production. The challenge is really enormous. At times, the problem is contagious. In trying to help others, one could catch the disease. But I'm confident we'll all be able to do our part. Regards, Denis Lee Oguzu
From: samuel andema <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] Hot Topics for discussion To: "A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile" <[email protected]> Date: Friday, May 15, 2009, 9:44 AM Hi John A. Jackson, What a wonderful job you have done to capture all the main points in our discussions on Degazzetting of Barifa forest and the concerns over the environmental situation in West Nile. Thank you for a job well done. Congratulations and please keep it up. You should have a professional rapporteour. You are sitting on an important tallent man! Am sure members will appreciate all your efforts to document the discussions in the most precise way possible. The question might perhaps still be how do we ensure that feed into policy formulation and decision making processes? At least we now have some thing at hand to present. it also brings back the question of identity. Who are we? I agree with you it is time we discuss the causes of the increasing poverty and unemployment in West Nile and their implication for the social, political and econamic stability of West Nile. As you bring up this topic my mind immediately runs to the iddleness and disorderliness among able bodied young people devouring "marungi" like cows in Arua Park in Kampala and all the towns and urban centres in our districts. What is causing all this and where is leading us? What will become of all these young people in years to come? These iddle youn people will soon turn into a bee hive of hard core criminals breaking into people shopes, offices and houses for survival. We seem to have assumed it as a normal thing in our middist. Whenever we meet these people we simply look away as if it is not our problem. We have trained our eyes not to see them. We want to pretend that it is none of our busines. But the day the will start targeting our hard earned resources and going after our lives we will see the gravity of the problem we have ignored for years. Those who have some thing will definitely be the first target! I really wish members appreciate the gravity of this problem and give it the attention it deserves for our own good and the good of our future generation. There is some thing which we have refused to do at the most approriate time which we will be compelled to deal with at a much higher price in future. I may sound alarmist but time will tell. Thanks. God bless you. Sam Andema --- On Fri, 15/5/09, JohnAJackson <[email protected]> wrote: From: JohnAJackson <[email protected]> Subject: [WestNileNet] Hot Topics for discussion To: [email protected] Date: Friday, 15 May, 2009, 7:41 PM This is a reminder about the issues & Hot Topics for discussion:* > ** > 1) Closure of Primary School in Koboko District---------Done > 2) Migration of Walalu Pastoralist in Wet Nile > 3) Barifa Forest demarcation for development-----------Done 4) Derfoestation of West Nile Region----------------------Done > 5) Relocation of Arua Prison out of the City or Town > 6) Matego District Issue > 7) Electiricity & Power development > 8) Poor Performance in Schools in West Nile, Task Force (TF) = Waiting for > report > 9) High Unempolyment & Poverty in the West Nile Region > 10) Other Business ( Add more issues as you please) May suggest that to members of this forum that High unemployment and Poverty in the West Nile Region be discussed for the next two(2) weeks Please look at root cause & solutions/proposals I have attached two PDF docs about the summary points on the recent dicussions. -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet % WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________ -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet % WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet % WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________
