FIELD JOURNAL: July 2013
Ongoing Field Reflection
Arrival in Gulu, Uganda:
After arriving in July, my first priority was to make myself comfortable by
finding a house and a phone and getting to know Gulu. Luckily, I was able to
connect with my colleagues from Kroc who had arrived a few days earlier. Dr.
William Komakech was instrumental in orienting us.
During my first week, I explored my
neighborhood, learned about the people, and figured out the distance between my
home and the office. Dr. Komakech helped us find places to hang out and shop and briefed us on safety and security in Gulu. He also provided information
about the local culture and the Northern Uganda conflict.
On Thursday, I went shopping at the local
market with my colleague David and his family. We bought foodstuffs, and I
enjoyed the attention of David and his family.
Gulu is the largest town in northern Uganda
and is home to many ex-pat NGO workers. It was once a war zone, but now life is
back to normal. Many NGOs and social entrepreneurship ventures have set up shop
here, making life expensive. Despite its tragic history, Gulu is a small town
with a lot of resilience. The weather is perfect, and the language widely
spoken is Acholi.
Acholi culture is distinct from other
Ugandan cultural practices, and they maintain their cultural heritage by
observing strict traditions. They respect their elders, which is different from
my own cultural practices as a Kenyan.
My house is about 3 km west of Gulu town,
and my neighbors' houses are grass-thatched and neatly arranged like in an
African village. It's a peaceful suburb that reminds me of life in my village
years ago.
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Over the weekend, I visited various places in Gulu, the largest town in northern Uganda. It is home to many expatriate NGO workers, second only to Kampala. Unfortunately, Gulu is infamous for being the base of Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. Until five years ago, Gulu was a war zone where the LRA would raid families and abduct thousands of children. This resulted in nearly two million people being displaced into camps. Although the situation has improved, it is estimated that over 100,000 people still reside in these camps. Many individuals continue to bear the physical and emotional scars of the unimaginable destruction caused by the LRA.
 A street in Gulu town |
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A village near my house. Most of the
families were displaced during the war and are yet to return |
Week 2: June 8-12: Settling In at TASO
TASO, the organization that I work for, helps people who have been affected by war and HIV/AIDS, a
place where many people have experienced war, terror and trauma, and where the rate of
HIV/AIDS is higher than the national average. TASO provides services such as counseling and psychosocial support. They focus on helping
people who live in Internally Displaced Person Camps. Even though they help
victims of violence during the war, they also provide HIV care, support, and
prevention to everyone in the community.
My Experience with TASO
When I started working with TASO, I was
worried that I wouldn't learn much because they focus so much on HIV/AIDS. I
was also concerned that my background in counseling wouldn't be useful.
However, I quickly realized that I could still learn a lot and contribute to
the Care and Counselling Department.
TASO is a popular place for interns,
especially those who are interested in learning about how to combat HIV/AIDS.
However, the organization is quite bureaucratic and has many different
departments. This can make it difficult for interns to get involved in
meaningful work. Often, interns are limited to administrative tasks.
Tones of Interns, little work to do
TASO being the
largest local organization addressing HIV and IADS in Uganda naturally attracts
tons of interns, mostly undergraduates from the local and international
universities, all interested to learn about approaches to combat HIV and AIDs. It is also obvious that the organization
itself is bureaucratic, with many divisions (departments) each focusing
specifically on certain Issues. The decision-making process is slow and the staff is quite busy. They also seem to have a poorly managed program of interns and
volunteers, often limiting them to undertaking administrative roles.
Nothing much
happened during this week. This week coincided with the visit by TASO Executive
Director (ED), from HQ in Kampala. The news was that TASO was undergoing
restructuring and downsizing of its operations due to the change of approach
taken by the donor. The new USAID approach
was that of a consortium. A couple of other donors had also indicated that they
favored the consortium approach and that some of the services currently being
implemented by TASO would be transferred and shared among other member
organizations in the consortium. Naturally, this did not sound like good news
to the staff and it caused anxiety among the staff who felt their jobs were at
stake.
Equally, the
week was a busy one for the staff in the Center with numerous ongoing training for different participants. There was a Counselors training, caregivers
training on TB and Malaria as well as weekly clinic days for HIV screening,
Child PMHTC services, and provision of Anti-Retroviral Therapy services. I
participated in the TB awareness workshop for staff.
Week 4: July 22-27: Counseling work at the Hospital Clinic
It is a
Wednesday clinic day at TASO. I asked the Counselor in charge if I could help
with the counseling. The services offered
at the center were broad involving counseling, social support, medical and nursing care for
opportunistic infections. The counseling bit is important for it helps the
clients together with their families to cope with HIV and AIDS, after revealing
their serostatus. They are also encouraged to consistently use condoms and make
plans for the future.
My observation is
that there is a high level of acceptance of people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs)
by families and the community and those who come today are women. It would seem
to me that women are the ones who mostly provide care to PWAs at home given
their large numbers at the clinic. Many of the girls and women I encountered were
sexually assaulted during the war come and were seeking treatment at the Center
to overcome their situation. Many of them had ended up as commercial sex
workers in Gulu town. It is likely that this situation has been aggravated by the
prevailing poverty situation and low income. The majority too have a low level of
education and lack business skills. Seems there are also few incentives and
economic opportunities available for them to exploit.
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Community
Visit with the Care & Counseling Team
On Thursday, I
accompanied the Counseling and Care Team to the field to monitor and distribute
kits to the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in various schools. We
visited 5 primary schools in rural places in Gulu including a Vocational Training
school where OVC receives support. The pupils receive school fees, uniforms,
and scholastic materials to meet their
educational needs. The pupils who received assistance that day are orphans and
come from very poor homes. Those who are single parents should be
listed in the TASO’s care and support program and receive treatment at the
facility.
There are
obvious needs in the community. Most schools we visited are located in very far
remote areas with poor infrastructure. They lack essential services such as
roads, water, health care facilities, and so on. Homes and schools are newly
renovated, a sign that life is beginning to come back to normal after years of
war. It’s hardly 5 years since communities returned and hundreds of huts have
mushroomed in the nearby villages. More families
are working to rebuild their lives even though memories are still fresh in
people’s minds.
 \ Me, helping out to distribute scholastic
materials to orphans in one of the schools |
From the school
compound, we saw devastated but very resilient children. They narrated stories
of how their schools were attacked by the LRA rebels and turned into a training
camps for the abducted children. However, many years have passed and signs of
life are beginning to emerge as families flock back and get involved in small-scale
business enterprises, hoping that LRA mayhem will never visit them again.
I observed that
most of the children identified for assistance through this program come from
very poor backgrounds. Most of them lack basic items to use in school such as
good clothes, books, and other essential items. TASO’s approach emphasizes direct implementation. This is where beneficiaries are identified through a
participatory process, that involves the community, teachers, local leaders, and
the agency. To promote accountability
and to ensure the support reaches the beneficiary TASO staff provides assistance
directly to the beneficiaries who personally sign for them.
Initially, I found it odd that TASO would
ignore delegating this role to teachers to local contacts since it is time-consuming and extra work. I, however, came to learn that that was the best
option as many accountability systems have failed in the past.
On Friday I attended a workshop at the Dove Nest Hotel, Gulu on Transitional Justice (TJ). The workshop was organized by the Refugee Law Project (RLP) in collaboration with Oxford University, UK. The theme was “Researching on Transitional Justice: Ways of knowing after atrocity.” The discussion aimed at generating a common understanding of Transitional Justice mechanisms in Uganda, particularly in Northern Uganda, a region that has had some of the worst atrocities committed against the local civilians by the LRA rebels.
I met many participants
from various CSO sectors including the media, government, human rights groups,
academics, and students. It was interesting to listen to some divergent views regarding
the subject matter as they evaluated the merit of each approach. Some
participants, especially lawyers, took a strong view in support of the prosecution, particularly the current issues surrounding the International Criminal Court
(ICC) process that require the LRA rebel leader Joseph Kony to appear before its Hague-based court. This was
obviously going to be an emotive issue as some strongly supported the local process
of encouraging traditional justice that gives recognition to forgiveness of the
perpetrators through granting of amnesty. This, was argued, would be a
sure way to bring healing and reconciliation.
From my short stint here in Gulu it became clear to me that
Transitional Justice issues were a priority here. This is because the Northern
Uganda region is now emerging out of a more than a decade-long conflict and
energies are being spent to rebuild the community and address the aftermath of
the conflict. At the moment, there is a raging debate as to whether the TJ process is
adequate to address all the emerging issues including judicial or non-judicial
processes, truth-telling, delivering reparations, institutional reform, and/or
national consultations. All these need to be considered. However, it seems this
is an urgent need and obviously the community should be involved in the
process. Some have also argued that it should as well conform to
international legal standards and obligations.
RPL’s current programs are geared toward advocacy for the adoption of an appropriate approach that takes into account the root causes of the Northern Uganda conflict while promoting the rule of law. Since I am soon moving to RPL, I feel this initiative is appropriate and should form part of by Peace Initiative as well as my research.
There are specific areas in which I am particularly interested in this topic. For example, I will be seeking to understand the strategies used by RPL and other stakeholders to address the monumental challenges and complexity of the violations that occurred during the LRA war in this time of peace. As earlier noted this seems to be urgent, as calls for healing and reconciliation for the victims intensify. Some of the proposed strategies include forgiveness and trauma-related work for both the victims and the former combatants.
For now, I am not clear about the direction I will take with regard to this initiative since I am not fully into the organization. I have, however, begun conversing with RPL through Stephen Oola and with participants who attended the recent RPL workshop at the Dove Nest Hotel (Human Rights Watch, Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies, Gulu University, Radio Rupiny, ARLPI) to get their views on the subject matter.
I am also interested in the role of media in the Transitional Justice processes and community response.
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