Dear Denis,
I have modular courses on Small Business Management and I have conducted
several of such courses to such women groups and members of village micro
finance groups in Eastern Uganda. I am willing to conduct training for these
groups if you can organise them and we arrange the appropriate time for
conducting the training
Regards
Ronald Okuonzi
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 00:59:36 -0700
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] High unempoyment & Poverty
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
CC:
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_______________________________________________
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