The question hung in the air, gathering strength in the silence that followed it. Professor Kaveh Khoshnood, a Yale School of Public Health faculty member who had just spent the past hour discussing with us the challenges facing HIV/AIDS treatment in Uganda, looked around the table at the twelve of us sitting around him. He had high expectations; we could not disappoint.
In the moments that followed, I pondered the question at hand: was I going to “help,” in that abstract and undefinable sense of the word? That wasn’t quite it…maybe it was more like to “give”? But again, that wasn’t quite it – I struggled to discover the nugget of a phrase that could communicate why exactly I wanted to go to Uganda.
But then I realized that I was struggling not because I didn’t know why I wanted to go on the trip, but rather because my desire to participate in this project could not be packaged and delivered in a few concise phrases; I wanted to build relationships, to create sustainable partnerships, to facilitate learning, to bring knowledge and to take away knowledge, and to enable the future of a community – a community that included both the men, women, and children of a rural village in Uganda, and us, twelve Yale students.
The roots of the relationships that this community will stem from have been growing over the course of the past two months, as the twelve of us have worked with each other and with partners in Uganda. Over the course of the last couple of months, we have been completing an educational curriculum in which we meet once a week to talk about Uganda and the country's history, HIV/AIDS, public health, and development. In addition, we have met with professors from the School of Public Health, surgeons working in Uganda, the Director the US-based NGO African Hope NEtwork, and others. Together, we have navigated the straits of international development, wrestling with everything from the societal implications of implementing animal husbandry projects to the ethical challenges of editing the stories of Ugandan children, and we will continue to work together through these problems over the course of our time in Uganda.
In Uganda, we will be spending time in the capital city Kampala, in a village in Masaka, and in a village in Sembabule. In Kampala, we will be both letting the new culture that we have just entered wash over us, absorbing its scents, feels, and colors, and diving right into that culture through a number of meetings with important figures from across the city. We have arranged to meet with figures ranging from HIV/AIDS doctors and specialists to professors of economic development at Makerere University, the most prominent university of Eastern Africa, to highly involved politicians. Each will give us a unique perspective on their understanding of public health, development, and government, providing us with the knowledge and understanding to make informed change.
When we move from Kampala into the rural villages, we will begin to work on the ground with the organizations that we have been working with over the past two months via email and Skype. The first organization we will spend time at is Hope for African Children (HAC), an NGO founded by Keneth Stahl, a young graduate of Makerere University. After visiting his grandmother’s rural village and meeting the many children of the village who had been orphaned or left vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, Keneth became determined to develop a sponsorship program that would ensure that these children go to school. The NGO has gradually expanded in its scope, seeking to implement income generation, water sanitation, and de-worming programs in the village, thereby addressing the two major factors that often keep children out of school: lack of funds and poor health.
There are four groups of students who have been working on projects associated with HAC. Amal has been working on developing a new website for HAC, where donors would be provided not only with all most important information about the organization, but also with critically important photos of the children who are supported by HAC, along with their stories. Emily has been helping Amal with the website development, but has also been working on a comparative financial analysis of HAC and other similar NGOs that would illustrate the organization’s promising future. Austin has been working on developing a new evaluation form that would quantitatively assess the progress that students make when they begin to be supported by HAC. Jensen and Chandrika have been developing a number of different methods by which to analyze the quality of the water that is available to the community. Rachel has been researching the impact of worms on the community, and the ways in which they prevent children from attending school. The group will together work to complete these projects, thereby fostering relationships with not only Keneth and the children who are supported by HAC, but also with the village community. This is the beginning of a dialogue, the beginning of an exchange of information and experience that will stretch on into the future as this community continues to grow in strength and resiliency from within.
Children at HAC are thrilled about receiving new school supplies!
After HAC, we will move on to the Sembabule region, where we will be working with the Cosma Foundation, a community-based organization that is just getting off the ground. Two groups of students have been working with the Cosma Foundation. Korn and Nora have been working on developing a website for the organization that, similar to that of HAC, will have stories of the children that the organization supports and donor information. Connor, Chris, and Angelica have been working on a number of income generation projects, working off the research done by the Roosevelt International Development Center’s Fall 2010 Report. They have been researching both animal husbandry programs and arts and crafts programs. In Sembabule, we will work together to evaluate the community and the resources available to the community in the hopes of helping them implement income-generation programs that will be successful.
As the date of departure approaches, we continue to finalize our projects, as we frantically search for skirts that are below knee length to wear in the village, bug spray, and the smallest travel-size items available. Few know exactly what to expect – we go into this experience with open eyes and open minds, excited to give and receive, learn and teach, and forge relationships with individuals and with communities that will carry us into the future.
You do what you can when you can because you can as often as you can.
ReplyDeleteterrifically inspiring. very proud of your emphasis on each group member preparing some valuable contribution to an organization. wishing you the best as you strive to leave a positive mark, and you'll undoubtedly learn a lot in the process :)
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