The Life in Africa Context
Outside of Uganda’s capital Kampala, where the eastern border of the city blurs into messy suburban sprawl, a rocky hill has offered 25 years of refuge to 10,000 of the people who fled Joseph Kony’s rebel war in Acholiland, about 400 kilometers to the North.
Known locally as the Acholi Quarter, Kireka hill is also home to one of the city’s largest stone quarries, which offers low paid and back-breaking employment to hundreds of traumatized hillside residents.
Twenty five years ago, the local king of the Buganda tribe offered Kireka hill to the Acholi people who were fleeing from the north, for as long as they needed a safe place to stay. Since the rebel attacks stopped seven years ago, the people here have been
trying to figure out how to scrape together enough resources to move their families home.
In mid 2013, Acholi Quarter residents were informed that the land they are living on has been sold
for commercial development. Though going home is what they have dreamed of, that hope is now infused with the very real fear that these fragile families will once again be forcibly displaced. In recent months there has been some unrest…. whether
they have the money to move or not, it’s now really time to go home.
Once a week for the past several years, 35 women who live in the Acholi Quarter gather at the small
Life in Africa (LiA) community center near the bottom of the hill. They bring in products made from paper beads to fill orders from abroad and to sell at their small community shop. They learn and practice new skills like sewing and learning to grow mushrooms
together, they save small weekly amounts of money together, and they support each other through life’s challenges.
More than anything these days, the LiA ladies plan together for the very complex and expensive challenge of rebuilding their destroyed homes and farms in the empty countryside 400 km away, so they can finally move their families back.
Needed: a new place to call home
The plan they've developed represents these inspiring women’s collective vision and wisdom for how they can best support each other through their individual transitions (with as little interruption of their children’s education as possible), and contribute
as a group to rebuilding their post-war community and culture in the North.
Most of the women own land already, but they'll need to plant food and build homes in order to start living there. The Family Transition Center will give them a place to stay while they do that. Those who don't have their own land (especially the single
mothers among them) will need a place to re-settle more permanently, and would like to develop the Family Transition Center into a longer term center that serves the surrounding community.
The LiA women and many of the group's international allies would like to specifically support the children associated with and living near the Family Transition Center, as they will be facing the most dramatic dramatic adjustments. In addition
to learning how to enjoy and be effective in an agricultural lifestyle, the children will need guidance and social support in adapting to the traditional Acholi culture that they have missed out on growing up in urban and IDP camp conditions.
With thousands of families currently at various stages of resettling in the North, the group hopes to evolve the new center into a
local community education and transition support hub.
To that end:
- The community at Edgeryders.eu has committed to working with the Family Transition Center to host trials of Hi-Lo technology, potentially including solar appliances, biochar stoves, permaculture,
mesh networks, hexayurt relief housing, etc;
- As part of the Ashoka Globalizer program, the founder of Naireeta Services, India has committed to bringing new irrigation techniques for demonstration at the center, which are working
well for Indian farmers in similar arid areas;
- Ci2i Global intends to host a Learn/Share Lab for Co-creative Impact and Innovation at the new center, inviting practitioners in co-creative impact and
innovation from around the world to share knowledge with the local community on nurturing co-designed community driven solutions to local challenges.
Nothing can begin to happen, however, without first buying land.
$4,000 Tipping Point Goal
The tipping point for this campaign is set at $4,000, which will at enable the immediate purchase of 3-5 acres of land to build the Family Transition Center on.
Funds raised beyond the $4000 tipping point will provide a budget to construct basic lodging, provide for transport, buy farming equipment
to share, and establish a small income generating project at the center, as detailed below.
Timing (Urgency)
Ideally, their families will continue to live in Kampala while the women travel in scheduled teams to help each other plant, build and harvest through December 2014, when the current school year in Uganda will end. The families would physically relocate
by February 2015, in time for the children to begin at new schools in the north. The
$15,000 budget the women have developed includes a transport fund which reflects that ideal scenario.
There is, however, the very real possibility that the families will not be able to stay in Kampala through December. Since they already know that the land they live on has been sold for commercial development, they
could be forced to leave their current homes at any moment. There have been cases in Uganda where bulldozers have arrived unannounced to demolish whole neighborhoods or IDP camps from one day to the next.
In case they are forced to leave Kampala before their homes are ready, the Family Transition Center will serve as a temporary refuge for all 35 families for a while, until they can build and move into their own homes. During the war however, the land in
Northern Uganda was completely cleared of human habitation for almost 20 years, so returning now means starting from really nothing. If they don't raise enough funds to build lodging on the land they buy, the women will have to start out living in tents.
Location
After mapping out where their individual lands are and sharing what they know about current infrastructure in the region, the group has decided to locate the Family Transition Center in Kitgum District, within a reasonable distance to Kitgum town. There
are adequate schools there, and the area is central (within 1.5 hours) to 22 of the 35 members' former homes.
Another 5 members' former homes are significantly further away, which means they are likely to stay at the Family Transition Center for at least a 12 month period. Another 8 members do not have their own family land to move back to, and may stay indefinitely
to help develop and run the center over the long term.
What the full $15,000 budget would mean
This campaign's top priority is raising funds to purchase land for the Family Transition Center which is centrally located to over half of the LiA members' former homes. The full budget they are seeking would be used as follows:
- Lodging: The plan is to initially construct two large communal huts (bricks with grass thatching). The women who plan to live at the center for longer periods will need to build their own homes there from their own funds.
- A team transport fund will ensure that every woman involved can make the 400k journey to the north twice between August and December, to participate in the team work needed to prepare the center and the first 22 homesteads in the nearby region.
Roundtrips are necessary because of continued family commitments in the capital during this period, including the need to earn what little money they can to contribute to their families' ongoing daily needs. They will also purchase dried food in bulk for the
work teams to be able to eat during this period, as well as seeds for planting some kitchen gardens and cash crops on the Center's land.
- Oxen and plows will be purchased for the women to share in clearing and preparing their land for planting. The
full budget will
enable them to buy 4 oxen and 2 plows to share.
- A piggery project will be established at the Family Transition Center, with the objective of earning income that can provide for some basic center expenses, especially the ongoing transport needs for teams
to travel and help those whose land is further away. The full budget will
provide for an initial 15 pigs.
The women's share
Even if the entire $15,000 budget is raised, this campaign will not fully fund the transition home for these 35 families. Each family will have to somehow meet the expenses involved in planting their own fields, building their homes, and transporting their
familes and posessions to the North
This campaign will, however, enable them to face the enormous work and logistical challenges ahead together. It will give them peace of mind that they will not end up completely homeless with their children. It will also give them a platform for contributing
the skills, knowledge and experience they've gained in the city, to the newly reforming communities they were forced to leave 2 decades ago.
The wisdom that the LiA ladies bring to the chaos they currently face is inspiring. Their love for each other, their traditional culture and their war-torn community is heartening. The determined excitement with which they speak about the immediate and longer
term Family Transition Center plan is hopeful, in spite of the fear that surrounds their current situation. They are ready to work very hard to help each other and to give back what they can in their local context.
They just need a little help. That's where you come in.
Rewards for your contributions
The women of Life in Africa produce lovely textile and jewelry products which they are offering as rewards to those who contribute financially to helping them make the Family Transition Center a reality.
Scroll up to see which rewards are included at each level of support.
Please contribute what you can today, and kindly share this campaign as widely as possible. These wonderful women don't deserve to be left homeless again.
Read more about LiA's history and some individual member stories at
LifeInAfrica.com
