(Sorry gang, didn't mean to get sick. It's up to you when you'd like to write chap 6 test, I should be at school Friday...)
I know some of us were touched by the Invisible Children presentation and I found this article in an online magazine called 101... Hopefully the pictures show up, otherwise, simply copy and paste the following url into your address bar... http://www.101magazine.ca/2008/08/finding-passion-in-uganda/
PS I received a personal email from Ms. Aaron and she's excited about our school's involvement in helping Children in Northern Uganda and gave me permission to publish her story here (way to go Ms. Aulakh and the gang).
Finding Passion In Uganda · by Nikki Aaron
Published August 29th, 2008 @ 1:55pm · 0 Comments
Nikki in Uganda
I left for East Africa as an experienced traveler, having already been to 20 countries outside of North America by the age of 22. And yet when I found out about the opportunity to volunteer in Northern Uganda for two months with Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program (CVAP) at my university, my emotions were so dispersed that I wasn’t sure if I was excited, afraid, or both. I was worried that I might only go to Uganda because it would be an amazing experience, but as the departure date became closer, I realized I really was quite afraid of what I was throwing myself into and that my intentions were anything but selfish. I left for Northern Uganda with very few expectations. My personal goal was to get some experience in doing work in development, and find out if this was the kind of career I wanted to make for myself. But all I really cared about was providing some sort of relief to the people of Northern Uganda. And so I boarded a plane with ten other students from Concordia University in Montreal, barely knowing anyone’s name, and together we commenced a journey destined to change our lives forever.
Northern Uganda has been in civil war for over 20 years, but the past two years have been fairly tame as peace talks between the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army began and created a somewhat safer environment. So you can only imagine the kind of atmosphere that we were entering. We were given an outline in Montreal of what we would be doing in Gulu, but CVAP is a new NGO, and we were really the first official group of students to go on this trip. When we got to Gulu, we were immediately taken to a local IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Camp. As we entered the camp, we realized we were surrounded by people of all ages (mostly young orphaned children) who were wearing rags for clothing and starving from lack of food and water. Yet there was nothing we could do about this particular need, and this was heart breaking. It was literally like walking into a World Vision campaign video that plays on CTV on the weekends. This was our introduction to Gulu.
After a week of orientation in Gulu—visiting IDP Camps, schools, hospitals, etc., we began meeting with all sorts of people within the community. They told us what they thought about the humanitarian work being done in their community and what they felt they were lacking, as well as what they needed on an individual basis. This was followed by a week of training in which we, CVAP Group 1, developed the mission and vision for the organization. It was a pretty phenomenal experience that fully surpassed my expectations. Our goal became, and remains, to empower the people of Northern Uganda to be self-sustaining and self-reliant.
By doing all of this, I began to realize that the humanitarian world really is not doing that much. There is a lot of money invested in thousands of government and non-government organizations, and yet when it comes down to the bureaucratic aspect, the people who should be receiving the money, or the goods purchased with the money, are not receiving it. This could be for many reasons. In Northern Uganda, there is huge long lived and historical stigma placed against the Acholi people, which seems more often than not, to result in them receiving less aide than the people of Southern Uganda. I also realized that humanitarian organizations giving these people what they need on a “daily” (things are often not delivered on time) basis is resulting in more harm than anything else. Yet if the process stopped, millions would die. CVAP partners with S.O.S Kinderdorf, which is an organization that places huge emphasis on the ability of communities to be self-sustaining. The majority of the people in Northern Uganda are living day-to-day rather than for the future (which could be as little as a month away). It is therefore very difficult to implement self-sustaining and self-reliant initiatives. This is going to take new types of humanitarian initiatives, and a new generation of people to implement them; this is going to be up to the young people of today’s world.
I cannot even begin to explain to you how amazing the people of Northern Uganda are. For people who have lived in war for 20 years, many who have been forced to kill and rape and have lost all or most of their family, they presently live fairly happy lives. However, psychological problems are numerous, as one can imagine. The majority of today’s population in Northern Uganda knows nothing but war and violence. I came back to Montreal with the hardest culture shock of my life, which was something I didn’t think possible after I came back from four months in Asia back in 2004. I came back disgusted with people who dwell on the little things and take things for granted. I came back astonished and revolted by the idea of school shootings, and most importantly, I came back realizing that this is most definitely my career choice in life, and I will do what it takes to make a difference, and pave a new way in the humanitarian world.
East Africa is an amazing place, the people of Uganda are so friendly and the country is extraordinarily beautiful. I also had a chance to travel down to Kenya and Tanzania while I was over there. I ventured through the Serengeti and saw more animals than I knew existed. I would not trade my CVAP experience for anything in the world, and I cannot wait to go back to Uganda to study my Masters in Development Studies, and create my own NGO, focusing on the empowerment of self-sustainability and self-reliance—probably the two most important things I learned through my experience.
~Nikki Aaron
www.intheirshoescanada.org
