This is the year.

Yesterday, an Ontario judge ruled against the Occupy Toronto protesters, arguing that a removal order against tent-city was constitutional and could apply immediately. Occupy Toronto called on citizens to come down to the park to protect the occupation. As an individual who agrees with what I see to be the fundamental goals of the movement - an end to injustice and equity - it is disheartening that the debate now revolves around the Occupy movement’s physical encampment. The strength of the original Occupy Movement was that it would represent the plight of an increasingly marginalized majority - the 99%. Appalling levels of inequality, rampant poverty, and a relatively inaccessible political system are very important issues, but it seems like very few citizens support Occupy Toronto. Why? The average citizen may have a different understanding of the goals of the movement than its protesters. The lack of leadership and clear directed message makes analysis difficult, but three que...

Just thought I'd write a short little update on how the research project is going. I just got back from a great few days in New York. Since we've been back in Canada, we heard really encouraging feedback about our research. In Uganda, we promised everyone we spoke to that we'd spread the word about the continuing problems in the country as widely as possible --- so when we got the opportunity to present at the UN, we were so excited! Today, we had the opportunity to present to staff at UNICEF, UNOHCHR (Human Rights and Justice) and the Special Representative's office to the Secretary General on children in armed conflict. It was so interested in to present and discuss these important issues with individuals who are so knowledgeable. We're working on a report that will be distributed to NGOs/UN/anyone else who is interested on the research so it was great to hear feedback on our data and initial thoughts on what should be done. I also thought it was so important ...

Coming home can sometimes be difficult. People experience culture shock especially because of the excess of everything we have upon return. I just wanted to talk about everything I’d seen, done, and learned while I was abroad. One of the best parts of doing research is that it gives you a venue for this expression. As I analyze my data, I’ll have the opportunity to share what I learned with many different people. But writing a large report will take time, so I decided I’d reflect a little on the experience now. And so, I thought I’d try to tell a story. Storytelling is good because it is powerful. But its hard these days because everyone’s stories seem to be fabricated into that perfect inspirational tale. I want to tell a different story from my time in Uganda. It starts in a similar way. One of the world’s poorest countries, it suffered from a 20 year civil war that largely affected civilians, and is ruled by a corrupt and sometimes ruthless government. I knew the Northern region...

We left the northern region of Uganda for good on Friday. We’d already had to say many goodbyes throughout the past few weeks to our friends across the region, and now it was time to leave Gulu. The hardest part was when people would ask, “so, when are you coming back?”. Many expect that its not difficult for a “muzungu” to fly themselves across the world, and therefore don’t expect the response “when I get a job, and have enough money to do it all again”. Reaching Kampala, we realized how much we had come to like living in a smaller town and spending so much time in the villages. Kampala is loud, incredibly busy, and expensive. However, it was nice to catch up with some of the people we’d met throughout our trip! The last week has been a bit of a floury of traveling. We left Gulu Friday July 29th for Kampala. On Sunday, we packed up again and left on a 12 hour bus to Rwanda. And now I’m on a 40 hour flight/transit back to Canada. But as always, the traveling was always worth it. ...

One of the best parts of doing research abroad is that it gives you opportunities to travel to “the field” a lot. We’ve spent at least a quarter of our trip outside of towns in the villages. Its an important experience, especially in a country like Uganda where over 75% of the population still lives in villages. The war disrupted village life greatly as people were forced into Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps by the government. This continues to be one of the most controversial strategies of the war, as the practice of displacement seems to have caused many of the most rampant post-conflict issues, especially high rates of alcoholism, domestic abuse, and a changed attitude toward hard work. However, since the IDP camp strategy was a government strategy, it has gone largely un-criticized by both national human rights structures, as well as international groups.  The majority of Northern Ugandans have now resettled back to their villages. Some have been forced to stay in...

We’ve had a very interesting last couple of days in Uganda. I haven’t updated this since we came back from Kampala, but we’ve been very busy trying to wrap up the research. Research trips to the field took us all the way to Kitgum (near the Sudan border) where we spent a week and were fortunate enough to speak to over 100 people there. After meeting a few more communities on the outskirts of Gulu town, we’ve now spoken to over 500 people and have another 100 people between a couple of focus groups and many in-depth interviews. It has been a lot of work but we really think the research is good and can hopefully make a difference in the communities we’ve worked with, as well as other post-conflict areas. Near Gulu, we were privileged enough to be invited by a self-created group of child mothers. Throughout the research process, we have avoided targeting individuals and therefore try hard not to target former child soldiers, or “vulnerable youth”, but rather talk to community members in...

Many international observers have applauded the opening of the Ugandan War Crimes Tribunal’s first case, the prosecution of Mr. Thomas Kwoyelo, as an opportunity to serve justice to the victims of Uganda’s civil war. Mr. Kwoyelo, a former commander of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), stands accused of twelve counts of war crimes. Unfortunately, in this sudden bid for justice, the complexity of the situation on the ground has been lost. Northern Uganda suffered a devastating 19 year war between the government and the LRA rebel group. As is common in many contemporary conflicts, civilians found themselves the targets of both sides. The rebels murdered and abducted thousands and the government forcibly moved the population into concentration camps, in order to offer better protection, but also to prevent collaboration between locals and rebels. War was destroying the lives and the spirits of Northern Ugandans. After three decades of continuous violence dating to the days of dic...

Its been a pretty crazy last couple of weeks and we didn’t have much time to stop and reflect. So I decided to just wake up early today and do just that, with the gospel music providing nice background music. We traveled a lot the last two weeks. After leaving Gulu to spend a week in Lira, we went to Soroti (in the Teso region) for a few days, then took a bus east to Mbale, and from there, boarded a bus for Eldoret, Kenya. After a few days in Kenya, we boarded a bus to Kampala, and from there, made our way back to Gulu. Traveling with public transportation in East Africa is always an adventure. Bus schedules don’t seem to exist, so you may board a “9 am” bus and not leave till mid-day. Never board a nearly empty bus because it is going nowhere despite the assurances of the driver. Buses in Uganda also have a tendency of blaring music, especially Celine Dion. There are also no regulations, or if there are there is no implementation of the law, on rules for where people can sit in the ...

So happy to say that I bought a memory card reader so I can now upload my pictures more regularly! Anyways, I will write an update soon but we just spent a wonderful weekend with my dad in Kenya. We had the opportunity to see the work he has been doing, training medical students and residents in ultrasound at a hospital in Eldoret, and we also went to visit Lake Nakuru National Park. Pictures speak better than words so I hope you enjoy the few I was able to put up!

Hello from Lira! We returned from Atiak exhausted. But we knew we had to continue with our research so we spent the next day walking around Gulu and interviewing staff from different NGOs while planning our return to Lira. In Gulu, we met a wonderful lawyer at a women's legal clinic, who told us about how she attempts to use the law, and cultural norms when necessary, to improve the lives of women and children in Uganda. It was nice to see how ingenious some institutions and individuals are and we could tell that she was truly helping many people. The next morning, we ran to the bus park at 7 and caught the earliest bus. In Lira, we spent an exhausting day trying to talk to as many organizations as possible so we could find ways to the field. Getting to the field can be a complicated process and you can’t just take a car and drive to a village. Normally we try to get in contact with a local elder from the village, parish or sub-county councils and be invited to come for our res...

Dear friends and family, There are many times when people want to help a cause but simply don’t know how to, or don’t know if there money will get to the people they want to help most. Having worked with many aid organizations, I know that money often goes to pay salaries instead of helping the victims. So one of my goals for this trip to Uganda was to figure out what organizations are doing good work, and therefore give people who are interested in helping a good outlet for their aid. I have personally witnessed amazing work of this organization and spoken to the founders, otherwise I would not refer people. Having spent over a month now in the North, I’ve seen an incredible number of NGOs, but a disappointing lack of development in the region. Considering how hard it is to know from the West which of these hundreds of groups actually exist on the ground and do the most work for your money, I thought I’d describe one that I will support myself and think others may be interested in...

I hear its really hot in Toronto today … it is SO hot like that every day here . Except no air conditioning also. Then when it rains, it comes so fast and so hard. Hope everyone’s surviving back home though! Sal is pretty sick today. He thinks he ate bad chicken. So we just did some data entry. We did learn a bit about the healthcare system though. Before my mom left she made us promise to call her friend if we felt sick, so we called him and he told us to go to his clinic so Sal could get some prescription medication. Uganda has a free public health care system (known as the village health centers and town referral hospitals) as well as a parallel private health care system. The problem with the public health care system is that it is no where near the quality as the private system and many procedures and drugs do not end up being free. Anyways, we figured we’d see how much the private system cost. Sal went in for 2 minutes to talk to a doctor - no examination, just talking. He was ...

Hello! Long time since I last updated this. We’ve been doing lots of traveling in the Acholi region of Uganda, but I think we’ll soon leave to spend some more time in the Lango and Teso sub regions of Uganda. We’ve been getting some good data and insights for our research here in the villages and towns near Gulu, especially when we went to Awach last week. Awach is a trading centre that used to be host to one of the largest IDP camps in Acholiland. Most of the IDPs have now returned home, but some chose to stay in the homes they’d constructed and just commute to fields they harvest kilometres away. On Friday, we traveled back to Awach to meet up with the Village Health Team who would help us administer surveys. We spent all day talking to many people and collect 80 responses! Although it was generally a good experience, we also learned a very valuable lesson about field research - never leave those administering your surveys unattended. Unfortunately as we reviewed results back at ...

Just a short post today. We just got back from the field with an organization that provides a lot of rehabilitation support to war victims. Their project is funded by the ICC's Trust Fund for Victims and they do both reconstructive surgery (for victims who's lips and other body parts have been cut off) as well as rehabilitation for other injuries from the war. While they talked to different victims who will be went to Kampala for surgery, we did many interviews with people from different villages. One of the most interesting things we heard was when a man told us in response to which members of society are having the most problems after the war: in some ways, it was better to be an LRA commander than to be a regular citizen in Uganda after the war. This is because Uganda seems to always choose peace over justice. To help bring an end to the war, Uganda passed the Amnesty Law, making it illegal to punish a rebel for their crimes during the war. It also offered many resettlemen...

Just a quick update ... internet cafe is closing But check out the news summary report we made for the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative! http://www.arlpi.org/situational-reports -- the May 2011 report. We'll be updating these monthly and also working on the website. We'll also be documenting their work. They do some very good land conflict mediation and reconciliation work so we'll be sure to put more information about that up on their website. More updates soon! 

Our internet stick is broken :( so no emailing except when we venture out to the Muzungu cafe. Its such a weird place though. I feel like I’m back in Canada… We came back from Lira yesterday and had a very nice time. Lira is a nice town - there are parks near the centre and a lot less NGOs. For this reason, the district of Lira is more dependent on itself, making it highly reliant on agriculture. From talking to people there, it seems that its fertile land, as well as a strategy of community farming, has led to more development than in other regions. What was also interesting about travelling to Lira was the fact that it allowed us to leave the Acholi district and travel to meet the Langi peoples. “Acholi” and “Langi” are two of the 53 clans in Uganda. In the South, especially in Kampala, are the “Luganda” peoples, and there was yet another clan in Bushenyi where we were the first week. Each of these clans speak their own local language and many harbor tensions towards the other cl...

Breakfast is a very slow process at our hotel. But we usually get a nice big meal which is good cause the heat makes you so hungry all the time. People drink a lot of tea here. Its called “African Tea” and tastes like a very milky chai tea. I like it, but with the heat I miss juices and anything cold! We had a good day yesterday. We went to the board meeting of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative and met the people implementing very important reconciliation projects across the northern region. We’ve been working with them on a peace and conflict news monitoring project. The first report should be up on their website soon! On our way out, we saw a children’s nursery and noticed that there was also a vocational centre for women. We decided to stop in and learn more about their work and were immediately surrounded by kids. After speaking to the nun running the centre, we saw how committed she was to her work and how concerned she was about the suffering of the women and chil...

We thought we’d write this post a little differently - hope it still reads well! We’ve each written different sections until Sal gets his own blog. It has rained like crazy the last few days. We got stuck in a huge storm and Sima fell into a lake (or at least a puddle that came up to her knees, which really isn’t saying too much…). “Doctor Mamma” left on Wednesday and everyone misses her. Gone is our fellow card-player, our safety escort, and the only person of us that anyone was ever very excited to meet. We hope the ultrasound machine she left for the doctors and sonographers at Gulu regional hospital will encourage them to help us a little on our research. I miss you but I know everyone at home is happy to have you back!! We’re now looking forward to seeing Baba in Kenya in a month! Research is hard. We came here with a proposal, with contacts, with a survey, and with ambition, but we’ve had some trouble getting out vision off the ground. In some ways, its not that there is no...

So its been awhile since we gave an update - but its just taken longer then we expected to get socialized and become productive… so not as positive an experience so far as we’d hoped but we’ve still learned a lot. Just thought I’d start with a few of my own thoughts. Gulu is the regional capital of northern uganda. First, this means it is a very large town of 150,000 with many hotels, shops and restaurants. There are no high rises or very fancy areas, but it is always bustling, day or night. What surprised us more than the size of the town was the number of NGOs it is home to. The NGO industry currently employs most of the younger population of Gulu as well as police and private security personnel. Having walked around town a lot, we would estimate about 100 NGOs in Gulu, but residents have told us there are over 300, and many more existed during the war. It is absolutely incredible. Some could see this as a very positive thing. People around the world clearly care about the plig...

Sorry this is a few days late - we lose power very often in Gulu. Over 50% of the time there isn’t power and so we need to try to save our computer battery for research work. But here is an update of what we did up till we arrived in Gulu! Update on Gulu coming up soon… Day 8 On Friday we left the South-west district of Bushenyi. We had visited five centres across the district run by Compassion International and met amazing people. The project directors at most were so passionate and dedicated and really cared about the kids they were helping. And the kids were always so happy. These kids really were “the poorest of the poor” (this is an explicit requirement in their recruitment objectives) but the centres had given them a shot at living a normal life. Say what you will about the proper place of religion in humanitarian work, there’s no denying that these kids are better off irrespective of how they’re being helped and by whom. Religion is actually one area in which Uganda is ver...

Day 4 in Uganda. We are currently doing work with Africa Youth Ministries in the Western part of Uganda, in Bushenyi District fairly close to Rwanda. South-West Uganda is very pro-Museveni - he was born in the region - and every store has his picture up and we have eve seen a few kids wearing Museveni buttons. So no protests here. Our trip to Bushenyi was totally unexpected. Sal, who had arrived in Uganda a day before and Mr. Albert Kunihira, Director of AYM, picked my mom and I up at the airport and we had to make a virtual split-second decision whether we would join Mr. Kunihira in Bushenyi rather than travel to Gulu, where we are supposed to do our research. Because of the expected protests/riots throughout Uganda, we decided to delay our trip North. We were off to Bushenyi without even getting out of the car. Having been told that Bushenyi was roughly three hours from Kampala, we went along somewhat reluctantly but with a positive attitude. However, when (too many) women piled ...

A lot of people have asked what I’m doing across the world. Studying peace and conflict studies in Canada, I often feel removed from everything I read and write. This isn’t only an issue academically, but also because one sometimes forgets why the study of war and peace is so important. I met a young soldier last summer who shared with me his experiences as a child soldier with the RUF in Sierra Leone. It was his hope and resilience that left such a lasting impression on me. Reading about the Acholi people of Northern Uganda and some of the work of the organizations there, I was touched in the same way. Development work can have its issues, however I have a strong belief that some problems, especially those outside people’s control and directed towards the most vulnerable populations, need additional aid. With this suffering persisting around the world, caused by war, droughts, disease, I believe that if one has the means, they should attempt to help in whatever ways possible. So thi...

Off to Uganda!