Dear Munduru and Anguzu, Thank you very much for interest in trying to allert us about the dangers of excessive alcohol use in West Nile. While we know that the greater number of abusers are the educated group who can afford to buy beer etc, we also have the rest who can afford the cheaper brew at home, be it kpete or nguli, who also need this education very badly in order to reduce consumption or totally abstain from the use. I suggest that while trying to find and organize a lead group to address this topic for the educated mostly, we should find some one who is willing to address the topic thru the airways. We do have at least two radio stations in Arua which could help disminate this important message to the young ones, especially in primary and secondary schools and those who regularlaly spend their hard aerned money to drink away their lives and savings. If that can be arranged, especially on Sundays when most of the abusers are not hassling and busling during the week, I am willing to CONTRIBUTE to the cost of the broadcast. This is a topic that is worwhile SPENDING MONEY on for the West Nile group. So please get us informed of the organization in Arua.Let us request request members to contribute to this important crusade. Christine, thanks for taking the initiative to organize the Science Fair. Adiga Godi.
--- On Wed, 3/2/11, Christine Munduru <[email protected]> wrote: From: Christine Munduru <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] Yesterday'sScience cafe To: "A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile" <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, March 2, 2011, 6:00 AM Dear Anguzu, Thanks so much for appreciating and your interest in Science cafe. Patrice had introduced this idea through Ayibo in Arua, am not sure what exactly happened after it started because Dr. Anguzu the district Health Officer was even very happy and was ready to start leading the discussions when Patrice talked to him. The energy was very high and people really liked the idea. What we are missing in Arua is to have passionate people about the idea and we work together with them to share our experiences. If they identify a group and have one or two people to organize am sure we shall not lack professionals to present because they are so many in Arua. So first identify a reliable group who are interested, let them identify a topic and you look for a presenter who talks for 15-20 minutes and people ask questions or comments and this goes on for one hour. But if people are interested they continue for sometime before you declare discussions informal. This is how simply we do it in Kampala and Entebbe. We do it out of passion as a way of giving back to the community and it is purely voluntary. So if there are people who like to volunteer and are interested in starting it in Arua, we shall help them to start. The next one in Kampala will be on 26th March from 3pm in a place called Naalya Hill view near Northern by pass round about in Naalya near Joglo. Dramadri Joseph has a bar in this place and we carry out the discussions in this bar called "friends together".When you come, you can let one of us know so that we can direct you. In Entebbe we have 8 different malwa groups who do it once every month. Thanks Christine On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 1:19 PM, anguzu yumaa <[email protected]> wrote: Thanks a lot Christine, for the summary of the proceedings of the last Science Cafe. I particularly liked the suggestion of taking the discussion to WestNile. A lot of people could benefit. I remember there was once such an initiative in Arua at the West Nile Golf Club some two or so years ago and it has since died. This initiative could be revived and enriched with your experience in organising the event in Kampala. I understand the next event is on 26th March. May I know where the venue is? I could make a deliberate effort to attend one of the sessions. Thanks. Dr. Anguzu Yumaa Patrick P.O.Box 701 Arua, Uganda, East Africa. Telephone: +256476421367 - Home +256772696200 - Mobile e-mail: [email protected] “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. ” There's never a "right time" to wait for. So whenever you get the chance, take a risk. From: Christine Munduru <[email protected]> To: A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, February 27, 2011 9:58:36 AM Subject: [WestNileNet] Yesterday'sScience cafe Dear all, I would like to thank all the members who attended the science cafe of yesterday. The turn up was good and blessed with the presence of our two newly elected MPs; Hon Bako Christine and Hon elect Engineer Dr. Aridru(forgive me if I have not placed the titles well). We also had two elders who were very embraced and attentative to the end The topic Alcohol and the community was handled very well by members under the leadership of Dr. Bhoka George who took charge in the abscence of Fr. Vundru who got committed in the last minute. Thanks so much to Dr. Bhoka for doing it very well even when not prepared. We had a moving testimony from Adomati Dickson who finally made a decision to control alcohol after seeing what it had done to him plus many others that made the discussion very interesting. Sharing those experiences was very important to remind us. Keys issues put forward; Individuals should know that alcohol has more negatives than positives and each person should take charge of himself or herself and know the personal limitations while drinking. We need alcohol policy in place and the police makers should take it on. Women generally have less capacity to consume alcohol than men and they should take note of that.(this is a scientific fact) We should be our sister's/brother's keeper and come to advice when we see alcohol is taking over the brother or sister People want to know about the rehabilitation centers and what packages they have We need to take these discussions to Westnile because many of us are taking care of families of drunken brothers/sisters and therefore we need to address the issue right from the roots Government needs to understand the causes of over drinking in Uganda, propbably research needs to be done in this area to inform policy. Way forward We need to have a development agenda for westnile and address these issues in the broader framework of our development agenda This therefore gave rise to the next topic for science cafe discussion which is "Setting development agenda for West Nile". This will be led by our members of parliament. Hon Christine Bako and Hon elect Engineer Dr. Aridru will take lead in organizing their colleagues and the link for mobilization between us and the MPs will be Aggrey Adrale(Aggrey is my own suggestion given his strategic position and thinking). The suggested date is 26th March 2011 from 3pm in the usual place. We shall keep reminding you but please book that date on your calender, any adjustments will be communicated. What made me impressed was the fact that everybody including our MPs were talking the same language; development and togetherness. We are not talking about parites but development and Science cafe will not encourage any party tone in the discussions, those will be reserved for places where they belong. Therefore nobody should come there with that intention. All the MPs are our brothers and sisters and all the positions they have taken are very strategic and this was well elaborated yesterday. On another note, yesterday's Monitor carried the Entebbe fishermen story where our brothers were killed. Tabu of Monitor sent the reporters to me and for two days we were documenting the story.The story was long and traumatising. You dont want to know what is going on there. The thing I want to bring to people's attention is that the situation is still very volatile. Attempts to attack the westnile community after that incidence has happened twice and the most recent was four days ago where about 60 people armed with pangas were ready to come to attack the westnile fishing community after false report to the police by a Muganda man. The police were also ready to come to arrest the westnile fishermen based on the false reporting. It was only after the victim, whose head was badly shattered reported to the police that it was the westnile community who saved his life and he was beaten by the Baganda ,not the westnile community. There will soon be a civil war between the Baganda and Westnile community if there is no intevention and with the high tension in the country, this could be misinterpreted and could result into serious loss of lives. We had made attempts to make a broader intevention into the issues, unfortunately we were betrayed by our own brothers on this forum and out just because of love for money. This was becoming an insecurity source for me. I pray that we put humanity first before money and try to help our vulnerable members of community. I throw it to our concerned members to take note. Thanks so much Christine _______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ 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/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ 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/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ 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. _______________________________________________
