WHEN the guns fell silent in northern Uganda, we told our people to leave the IDP camps. After being concentrated in these squalid conditions for over a decade, going home was the best peace dividend. We told them to open their land and cultivate for their own consumption and for the market. Everyone was excited. No more lining up to face the indignity of receiving rations of food from relief organisations.

Heads of households looked forward to reasserting their authority as bread earners by the sweat of their brows. For those inclined to farm for the market, South Sudan beckoned. Our people made the leap of faith and returned to their abandoned homesteads. The lack of shelter did not deter them.

Even though roads, water, schools and health facilities were inadequate, they still moved hoping for the best. With rudimentary tools, they tackled the land that had now become bushy due to disuse. Many of the households that returned home put their faith in farming. But alas, they did not expect the drought that has hit the region. The prolonged dry spell has led to crop failure and poor harvest.

Last week, we received a report of a rapid Food Security Assessment for Acholi and Teso sub-regions from the Food Security and Agriculture Livelihoods cluster. The assessment found that in Gulu, the expected and harvested crop is less than 40 per cent of the normal season’s harvest except for rice, pigeon peas, maize and simsim.

The situation is roughly the same in most of Acholiland. Besides the dry spell, the assessment concluded that the food shortages are due to low food stocks in storage, high market prices, food aid dependency, and low acreage of cultivated land. Other factors include poor crop husbandry (untimely ploughing and weeding), obnoxious weeds, hailstorms, harvesting of immature crops and bush- fires. In normal situations, a season’s crop failure should not lead to an emergency. If crops fail, farmers should turn to what they have in storage. If the stores are exhausted, they turn to their cash savings. If the savings are wiped out they turn to the local government. If the local government fails them they run to the central government. An international appeal for help is supposed to be the last resort.

The fact that one year’s crop failure forces us to appeal for international help means that we live from hand to mouth and our food security situation is still extremely fragile. The current food shortages are thus a wake-up call to the government at the local and national level. It is also a wake-up call to the affected communities. The current state of hunger has created a shock among returning communities. This is more so because the response to the crisis has been very slow. So what is to be done? The measures that the Food Security Cluster recommends range from short-term, intermediate and long- term measures. To deal with the emergency cases, there should be immediate provision of food aid. This should go hand in hand with supply of seeds and cuttings for early maturing crops like sorghum, cowpeas, rice, potatoes and cassava.

There should also be supply of farm tools, especially ox-drawn ploughs and oxen. In order to enable the population access food through the market, there should be conditional money transfers, for instance money and vouchers for work. There should also be an all-round campaign to encourage communities to grow the so-called famine crops like cassava and sweet potatoes.

These measures should be carried out between now and December when the situation is expected to stabilise. From early next year, communities should be encouraged to establish food banks. These can be included in the Food Security Ordinance that we are currently discussing.

The Food Security Ordinance will require each household to have food stores, to cultivate a certain acreage considered optimum and to practise good crop and animal husbandry. Also included will be a commitment to promote water-harvesting and simple irrigation technologies, the diversification of enterprises, promotion of mixed farming, the regulation of the sale of food, the provision of training and extension services, and the promotion of savings and village credit services.

These measures have to be planned and carried out in an intentional manner for the simple reason that the food shortage has had serious effects. The social impact of the famine in northern Uganda cannot be underestimated. Several deaths have been reported. In Gulu two deaths have been reported in the sub-counties of Lakwana and Palaro due to consumption of poisonous cassava. Theft of food from gardens has become commonplace.

Extremely vulnerable individuals who receive food have reported housebreakings by thieves looking for food to steal. Cases of food-related family conflicts and domestic violence have increased. The inability of family heads to provide food is severely undermining family ties. In some areas, there are reports of increase in prostitution by women seeking a means of survival. Young girls have reported that in some cases family members seeking bride price are forcing them into early marriages. In Teso, cases of asset-stripping have been reported. Livestock is being sold at give-away prices so as to get money to purchase food.

In Gulu, the Education Department has reported a drop in school attendance due to hunger among children of school-going age. Cases of malnutrition have also increased, especially among children. At the Nutrition Unit of Lacor Hospital, Dr. Cyprian Opira, the executive director of the hospital, says the number of children being treated for acute malnutrition has more than doubled. At the beginning of the month there were 30 cases. Now the cases are 90.

This is not the first time famine has hit parts of the country. We can either waste time in finger- pointing or put our heads together to seek durable solutions. The situation is very bad and calls for leadership. We can leave the blame game for later when we have the leisure. Instead of cursing the darkness that has befallen our people we should each light a candle.

The writer is Gulu LC 5 chairman

Worldwide, Every Year

• 1.1 million children under five die due to vitamin A and zinc deficiencies
• 136,000 women and children die from iron-deficiency anaemia
• 18 million babies are born mentally impaired because of maternal iodine deficiency
• 150,000 babies are born with severe birth effects due to inadequate maternal B-vitamin intake
• 350,000 children become blind due to vitamin A deficiency
• 1.6 billion people suffer reduced productive capacity as result of anaemia

GLOBAL: Keep those vitamins coming

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

High food prices are affecting children’s nutritional levels

JOHANNESBURG, 12 May 2009 (IRIN) - During the three-year Asian financial crisis in the 1990s, the number of children suffering from anaemia in Indonesia increased significantly as the poor could not afford quality food.

The condition is caused by body tissues and organs suffering a lack of oxygen when there are insufficient micronutrients such as iron in the diet. The percentage of children experiencing anaemia rose from 52 percent in 1996 to 68 percent in 1998, said a new report, Investing in the Future, citing a study.

The research found that among poor households, low consumption of eggs and dark leafy vegetables - both important sources of micronutrients like iron - resulted in an increased prevalence of anaemia in both mothers and children. “The effects were particularly severe for children conceived during and immediately prior to the crisis.”

The global economy is now in recession and children in developing countries are most at risk, warned the joint authors of the report, a group of nutrition advocacy NGOs: Micronutrient Initiative, Flour Fortification Initiative and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and aid agencies USAID, the Canadian International Development Agency, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank and the World Health Organisation.

A World Bank study on the impact of the current financial crisis has estimated that in 2008 alone, higher food prices may have been responsible for an additional 44 million children suffering permanent physical and cognitive setbacks due to malnutrition.

The authors of Investing in the Future, which was released at the 2009 Micronutrient Forum in Beijing on 12 May, urged countries to increase their investments, renew commitments and expand existing vitamin and mineral supplementation programmes.

Micronutrient deficiencies lead to more frequent infections, reduce children’s ability to fight and survive disease, and impair mental capacity. In adults, vitamin and mineral deficiencies can affect general productivity and cause debilitating illnesses and even death. Deficiencies during pregnancy threaten the health and lives of women, and negatively affect their unborn children.

Inexpensive supplements and fortificants are available: the cost of salt iodization is a mere five cents per person per year, while vitamin A capsules cost two US cents each.

According to the report, worldwide, every year:

• 1.1 million children under five die due to vitamin A and zinc deficiencies
• 136,000 women and children die from iron-deficiency anaemia
• 18 million babies are born mentally impaired because of maternal iodine deficiency
• 150,000 babies are born with severe birth effects due to inadequate maternal B-vitamin intake
• 350,000 children become blind due to vitamin A deficiency
• 1.6 billion people suffer reduced productive capacity as result of anaemia

jk/he

Allan Ssekamatte | Kampala

GULU, 25 November 2008 (IRIN) - Poor learning conditions and lack of food in primary schools have forced thousands of children out of class in northern Uganda over the past three months, local officials said.

“The problem has been made worse as displaced primary schools relocate back to their original sites in villages when UN food aid support to primary schools has stopped,” Robinson Obot, Gulu District education officer said.

Some 11,123 children below 15 years of age, he said, had dropped out of primary education in Gulu alone. Most were girls - of whom many had been married off to older men.

“This is a region that has been experiencing war, where families have been displaced in camps and had no means to feed their children,” Obot said. “They [the families] are only [slowly] beginning to grow food.”

In Amuru District, education officer Ben Okwamoi said the school-feeding programme, managed by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) during the conflict, had encouraged children to join school.

WFP provided schools with maize flour, corn soy blend, vegetable oil and beans.

Statistics from the district education office showed a sharp rise in drop-out rates to 6.1 percent in the past few months. “This is a failure [of] the universal primary education programme if something is not done to help address the problem,” Okwamoi said.

Bai Sonkoh Mankay, head of WFP operations in Gulu and Amuru, said the school-feeding programme was stopped because Ugandan government policy provided that parents had a duty to feed their children.

“We were doing this in the past to schools in the hard-to-reach areas because of the humanitarian need,” Mankay said. “We stopped the programme at the beginning of the term in August. Of course [it] had helped improve attendance and enrolment but there is nothing we can do.”

WFP, he added, would instead support initiatives to help people produce their own food and become self-reliant.

Local leaders in the region expressed concern over the situation. “In some schools in villages like Mucwini, Agoro, classes are empty with no children attending,” said Aturu Abraham from Kitgum District.

At Odek primary school, headmaster Ochola Augustine told IRIN that enrolment had slumped, with only 308 children attending class out of 1,200 who enrolled at the beginning of the year.

Government policy

Gulu District Commissioner Walter Ochora said it was a policy that parents provide food to their children and all children should be in school under the government’s universal primary education programme.

Some parents, however, said that while the government policy was good, they were unable to adequately feed their children because most of them had just left camps and had not started producing food.

Mankay said WFP was carrying out an assessment to find out the exact number of children who had dropped out of school after the end of the school-feeding programme.

ca/eo/mw

Theme(s): (IRIN) Children, (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Education, (IRIN) Food Security

SOURCE: IRIN NEWS

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 3/11/09 3:12 PM EDT

President Barack Obama invoked the travails of women in his family as he signed an executive order on Wednesday establishing a new interagency panel devoted to the concerns of women and girls.

“I sign this order not just as a president, but as a son, as a grandson, a husband and a father,” Obama told a mostly female audience of activists and lawmakers in the East Room of the White House. “I saw my grandmother work her way up to become one of the first women bank vice presidents in the state of Hawaii, but I also saw how she hit a glass ceiling-how men no more qualified than she was kept moving up the corporate ladder ahead of her.”

Obama credited his wife, Michelle, for “juggling work and parenting with more skill and grace than anybody that I know.” But the president said he was also aware that those burdens often weighed on his wife.

“I also saw how it tore at her at times. When she was at work, she was worrying about the girls. When she was with the girls she was worrying about work,” he said.

Obama said the new White House Council on Women and Girls would be chaired by his longtime friend and senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett. The director of public liaison at the White House, Tina Tchen, is to serve as executive director of the group. “It will meet on a regular basis,” the president said, without elaborating.

The panel’s mandate will be to make sure that all federal agencies take into account how their policies and actions affect women and girls. “We need to take a hard look at where we’re falling short,” Obama said.

Source: Politico

Eve Mashoo | Kampala | March 4, 2009

African Cultural Awareness Fair: Experience Africa ~ See, Hear, and Taste

Saturday, February 21, 2009
10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Regis University – Lowell Campus, Denver
3333 Regis Blvd. Main Hall-Room 333

Download Event Flyer (PDF)

Team Africa “The Ties That Bind” Fundraising Event
Tickets in advance or cash only at the door
Adults $15 – Students $8 – Family $25
Representing Uganda, Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, Burundi-Rwanda and other countries

~ African Drums and Dancers - Joda & Friends: www.afrikandance.com

~ Food Tasting

~ Personal Stories Shared & Much More!

“Come and increase your cultural awareness so you can give voice to
those who have none.”

Proceeds to support Community Peace Building - after over
20 years of war in Northern Uganda:

For more information, please call: 303.321.0274

A Team Africa fundraiser at Regis College.

[Episcopal News Service] Bishop Nelson Onono-Onweng of the Anglican Diocese of Northern Uganda told the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference March 10 in Boksburg, South Africa, that education is at the heart of rebuilding his conflict-torn region.

Among other priorities addressed by the diocese, Onono-Onweng said, are providing shelter, vocational training, counseling, medical infrastructure, and evangelical outreach.

Most importantly, he said, people need education in order to stabilize and rebuild their lives.

“When children don’t receive education, the community is being destroyed and has no future. When young trees are being cut down there will be no forest,” he said. “Therefore we need to provide education for leadership for young people. A strong community is like a thick forest.”

The diocese has established a foundation specifically to address educational needs. “Through this, people can study and become leaders of tomorrow,” he said.

The conflict in Northern Uganda began soon after the then-National Resistance Army (NRA) of former President Museveni took power in 1986. Remnants of the previous government’s forces fled into northern Uganda and southern Sudan and formed the Ugandan People’s Democratic Army (UPDA). Several splinter groups emerged out of the UPDA and the story of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) began.

The LRA’s grim trademark has been the abduction and forced subscription of children, which have been turned into killing machines and sex slaves.

The Ugandan government has been engaged in negotiations with the LRA since August 2006 when a landmark truce was signed following peace talks in the south Sudanese capital, Juba. LRA leader Joseph Kony has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, the eight-month ceasefire lapsed in the early hours of March 1 because of mistrust by the conflicting parties, fuelling fears that northern Uganda could be plunged into violence yet again.

Despite the efforts of the church, Onono-Onweng identified serious limitations in implementing their programs. “Ninety-five percent of parishioners in my diocese are displaced,” he said “Where can we get money from? The people right now live in chronic poverty.”

Other issues involve lack of coordination and effective communication among church members, he said. “The people are being crippled and destabilized. Education will enable them to reconstruct their lives and live a life of dignity again.”

A bishop for eight years, Onono-Onweng is the recipient of many awards and the founder of several NGOs that have been actively involved in brokering peace in Northern Uganda. He showed participants gathered for the TEAM conference a video, “Rise Up and Walk: Northern Uganda emerges from gunfire,” that documented the challenges of living in the context of war.

The documentary noted that for 20 years Northern Uganda has known only terror and destruction, and that statistics cannot convey the magnitude of devastation.
The number of civilians’ lives claimed by the war totals 300,000 — mostly women and children — and at least 1.8 million people are displaced.

The HIV/AIDS prevalence is 11 percent, twice the national average, and 15 cases of suicide are reported each month.

At least 250,000 children have grown up without education so they find it difficult to find jobs.

Jacqueline Aber, featured in the documentary, was abducted in August 2001 at age 13 and only managed to escape the clutches of the LRA in 2005. She fought alongside the rebels and later was married to a rebel commander. She gave birth at 14.

Milly Amono was abducted in 1997 at age 14. The rebels took her and her father who was later killed and his body chopped up while she watched. Amono escaped from rebel captivity in September 2005, pregnant and with another young child.

At least 45,000 children commute every evening to sleep on the streets of certain towns in order to avoid abduction, the documentary noted.

The Diocese of Northern Uganda has been at the forefront of addressing not just the war, but also providing hope to a bruised people.

Through the Social Mobilization of Women Affected by Conflict (SMOWAC) project, women have been provided with heifers and ox-ploughs, which enables them to work and raise money to educate their children and meet basic household needs.

The diocese has also embarked on a project to deliver healthcare to the areas where it is most needed.

The Rev. Solomon Okeny, diocesan health coordinator, said in the documentary that the Anglican church assists up to 2,000 children every month who are infected with HIV/AIDS and/or malnourished.

Thousands of children are displaced from villages and come to the towns to find education.

Martina Kilama, who works in women’s development in the diocese, said it is crucial to teach former child soldiers basic economics and how to read and write.
“As people return from the camps they are in dire need of help for shelter, clothing and basic household items,” she said. “They need medical facilities and support and counseling.”

Onono-Onweng broke down the educational needs of his region into five categories: gospel of freedom and recovery; education for livelihood; vocational training; health education; and education for leadership.

“Jesus Christ has power that enables people to rise up and walk,” he said. “People have been crippled by war. A person who knows Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior has the Holy Spirit, which keeps teaching this person to be wise and make sound moral judgment. Let us preach the gospel of freedom and recovery.”

Education for livelihood, he said, needs to be carried into the field. “We have found it more useful to go and work with the people. We have demonstration plots in the community and plant a variety of seeds. We give extension services. We need to train good, modern practices if we want them to rebuild their lives.”

More information about TEAM is available at the conference website at http://www.team2007.org/. Continuing ENS coverage is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_23466_ENG_HTM.htm.

© UNICEF/2006/Sekandi

In Uganda’s camps for the displaced, learning is a challenge – especially for girls who are the hardest hit.

By David McKenzie

The government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have resumed talks in Juba, Southern Sudan, to end the 20-year insurgency that has left over 1 million displaced. Here is the first of a two-part special report about the impact of the conflict on Ugandan girls’ right to education.

PABBO CAMP, Acholi Region, Uganda, 19 December 2006 – Christine Lawil remembers vividly the day that the LRA came to her village near Pawel, Uganda. “My husband was working in our garden and the rebels attacked the village,” she says. “They beat him and then killed him.”

The lives of Christine and her three daughters were in tatters. They travelled the 30 km to Pabbo, a desolate and sprawling camp for internal refugees. They have stayed here for the last five years.

1.6 million displaced

The decades-long conflict in northern Uganda is considered one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. Humanitarian agencies talk of silent emergencies. This human catastrophe has registered barely a whisper.

But the numbers alone speak volumes. There are 1.6 million displaced people living in over 200 camps across northern Uganda. Children and women comprise 80 per cent of the displaced.

All the hallmarks of a stable society have disappeared here. Sanitation is abysmal, and health facilities minimal. The areas surrounding Pabbo are empty and farms lie fallow, so food needs to be brought in by aid agencies.

Learning despite the odds

But perhaps the biggest impact is on the girls.

Ms. Lawil’s oldest daughter, Katherine, lives in fear of Pabbo Camp. “There are many problems in the camp,” says the 15-year-old. “There are problems of the boys harassing girls and raping them.”

In her crisp pink-and-blue uniform, Katherine walks past the idle men in the alleyways of Pabbo that double as streams of sewage. Anecdotal testimonies suggest that rape is endemic here.

© UNICEF/2006/Sekandi

Uganda’s Acholi Region has suffered two decades of war. Thousands displaced by conflict live under harsh conditions at Pabbo Camp.

But despite the odds, the girls are learning. At Olinga School 6, several displaced schools were collapsed into one host facility. The classrooms are overcrowded, but the chatter is cheerful.

“I like mathematics,” says Katherine, “I want to stay in school so that I can know how to manage my future.”

Why girls drop out

The collapse of the social structure has put pressure on families. Girls become wives as young as age 12, leaving school in the process. They also often drop out when they reach puberty. Many schools here don’t have separate sanitation facilities for girls and they are embarrassed to continue.

At Olinga, however, the classroom noise is punctuated by the small construction site where a team is building latrines for the girls.

Ms. Lawil will probably not be able to afford to send Katherine to secondary school, as the costs are prohibitive. UNICEF and other groups are now pushing for the costs to be brought down to help ensure that all children, and especially girls, finish their schooling.

Since a historic truce was signed between the LRA and the Ugandan Government in August, there are signs of improvement in the Acholi Region. There have been virtually no reports of abductions, and a trickle of people are starting to return home.

Ms. Lawil and her family are desperate to leave and if the brittle peace holds, perhaps they can. “There is no good life in the camp, especially for the children,” she says. “I pray to go back home.”

Peace and development

The second Millennium Development Goal target is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education.

Unlike other goals, the second development goal was supposed to be met by 2005, not 2015. In Pabbo Camp and other parts of Uganda, this goal hasn’t been met. Worldwide, recent statistics show that for every 100 boys out of school, there are still 117 girls in the same situation.

Like UNICEF globally, UNICEF Uganda is committed to promoting gender equity in education. The country promotes early childhood development sites and provides school books and education material throughout northern Uganda. Numerous efforts are under way to keep the children of Uganda protected.

But long-lasting peace would have the biggest impact of all.

SOURCE: UNICEF