GIlbert, John, and Modest, To eliminate poverty in West Nile, our people must always be selling something (product or service). Masindi Gilbert referred to is better off than West Nile because they are always selling. They’ve enough food to eat and sell. Believe me, food security is the foundation for poverty eradication. The westerners also say the ‘light’ they see today all started with establishing food security. Unless people have food in their stomachs, they will not help themselves; children won't go school, parents won’t dig, and you can be sure a number of things will stand-still. With food prices skyrocketing each day, farmers in Masindi are fetching a lot of money from maize production and it’s the reason behind ever increasing number of privately sponsored students from Masindi in institutions of higher learning. With my short term engagement in agric sector, I can conclude that the relationship between market and production is reciprocal. Its egg and children scenario—what comes first? To access good markets, production (volume and quality) is very important and so does market if people are to produce. Whether there is market or not, I think food must be produced. Still on the doing nothing! Those who have had an opportunity to traverse our region in the recent past will agree with me, most people especially in rural areas are doing little to change their situation. I therefore wonder if the adage 'every adversity carries with it an equivalent seed of benefit' means anything to us. We are not learning from the food insecurity, abject poverty, high level of illiteracy, marginalization etc. In the past, evenings would find people in their gardens during rain seasons but today its only women you can find seriously engaged in production. Men are mainly in trading centres drinking, eating muchomo, and enjoying hotel food. Would we say people are trying to help themselves? Today if someone ever wants to talk about hardworking people let him talk about the Bakiga—we’ve seen them work in different parts of the country. Ours is no more. It’s history unless we revive the spirit. Lack of political will—nail on the top! The good news is that we've all realized or experienced some sort of marginalization which should have sharpened our zeal to fight the problem. Knowledge of marginalization is not any better. It’s just like having a beautiful plan not acted on. It all trickles down to whether can do something about this known problem. For example, in Maracha, politicians were giving salt to women supposedly to empower them and this has been happening on the watch of the elite. Before we point fingers at others; we should take responsibility for our failures: failure to hold our leaders accountable, for wrong or poorly defined priorities, for lack of concrete regional plans, envy of one another and failure to unite, failure to fight the dependence syndrome, etc. To sum up, i wish to reiterate the need for entrepreneurial education in West Nile. Whereas ABE is the brilliant idea, we shouldn’t wait for government and NGOs to support such initiative. For example in Feb, i organized a day's workshop for over 250 protestant leaders from Maracha Archdeaconry, got facilitators from Makerere University to train the leaders on how to come up with income generating projects in their churches and families. That day we these leaders were also trained on their role in the fight against HIV?AIDs (prevention, control, and positive living) by officials i got from TASO. We've scheduled similar training for over 300 Catholic leaders in June. The whole idea is make churches self sustaining. As we all know, our churches are heavily dependant on struggling Christians and there is no way the churches will ever be rich if the Christians are poor. The Christians can’t also be rich unless their leaders rich. All we now need in this arena is action however small it maybe. Though I had to part with some small money, i still cherish the sweetest reflection that my money is not lost but invested in people—the greatest asset of our time. Besides, how would life be like if we didn't have courage to attempt anything? I think life is more meaningful if it’s lived for others so the most imported thing on earth is not to win but to let others win even if means slowing down your journey. There are could be over 10000 registered women groups in West Nile who dire need of entrepreneurial skills. In Maracha alone, there 200 women groups comprising 30 women in each group engaged in loan saving associations. Though these women are able to mobilize savings, they can not exhaust their savings because of lack of business skills. In my short interaction with them, i discovered that they have problems identifying business opportunities. Most of them lacked business motivation and big goals—meaning they are working towards nothing. I'm therefore calling upon members of this forum with skills and knowledge in business to come up with some basic training content customized to address the needs of such women. Awadifo! Denis Lee Oguzu
________________________________ From: JOHNSON OMBIGA <[email protected]> To: A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 11:00:23 PM Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] High unempoyment & Poverty Hi John, This is a good idea. ABE, a mane that exists in my Ancestral Tree given to a Great Son that crossed River Kaya through Gogoropa to Olengaku, where the people of Ludara now live; would replace the Adult Courses which Makerere University used to teach for those who were unfortunate to get admitted to Makerere University. It used to be called Extra Murial Studies. Adult education for those unfortunate sons and daughters of West Nilers, particularly during the years of wars in Uganda would benefit from the ABE classes. It would attract brilliant teachers to volunteer their time to help their own brothers and sisters for a minimum fee per hour. It also fits well with efforts to alleviate both illiteracy and poverty among our people. I support it, but it would require an effort to sell it to Uganda Government by an NGO, such as West Nile Commission, as suggested by other members on the WestNileNet. Modesto --- On Wed, 5/20/09, JohnAJackson <[email protected]> wrote: From: JohnAJackson <[email protected]> Subject: [WestNileNet] High unempoyment & Poverty To: [email protected] Received: Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 2:58 PM Other Creative Job Creation Initiative a) Adult Basic Education (ABE): We should seriously promote ABE program at every village/parish level. ABE alone could create several hundred part-time jobs for instructors of ABE. Lessons could be taught in the evenings or weekends 2/3 times a week for 2.5 hrs. Church Parish hall, borrowing a classroom from existing Primary schools or some other community palce would a perefect venue. Encouraging adults who dropped out of from either elementary or secondary school to pursue Vocational Training may perhaps be one of the means to alleviate poverty. b) Recruit and train young graduates in social sciences (Sociology, Psychology degrees) to work as Youth Workers (Social Workers) or Community Development Officers). This could create several job opportunities at sub-county or Parish levels John J Avudria _______________________________________________ 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. _______________________________________________
