#grassrootsempowerment

One can’t help being reminded of the stories of Pied Piper when they see Valeriano play his whistle and dance down the road. Unlike this strange German folktale, however, Valeriano is leading his village to a better future, one without HIV/AIDS.

As an elder in his Aboke village, Valeriano Angweng has seen his community at it’s worst in decades. With the prevalence of HIV and the strain of manual labour, people were barely able to maintain a livelihood, children could not afford to attend school, or were orphaned. Organizations like Aboke HIV/AIDS Women’s Association (AHAWA) began to address these issues, but they had much work ahead of them. Quickly seeing the great value of their efforts, Valeriano spread his enthusiasm, mobilizing people to support AHAWA. His influence as an elder and his unquestionable charm have led countless people to join this grassroots movement that prevents HIV/AIDS and improves quality of life.

CAP/AIDS supported AHAWA’s grassroots efforts by becoming their core partner and providing income generating capital. This capital came in all shapes and sizes: oxen for ploughing, seeds for the farms, piglets to raise and sell, as well as bicycles so that farmers could transport their goods to the market to sell. Valeriano was given an ox in order to ease the physical labour of farming, and piglets to raise. Valeriano is thrilled with the change this has produced in his life and in his community. Dancing around as though he were a young child rather than an elder, Valeriano says, "By the time I started benefiting from the support… I began dancing and praising with happiness and joy, because my pocket there is money and income coming every day."

Valeriano had enough income for himself and for others. He shared his wealth back with his community, giving children the money they needed to go to school. Valeriano's generosity and concern for his community ensure that the development benefits of oxen and piglets continue beyond income generation, to support education and well-being in Aboke. The elation visible on his face and body, Valeriano shouts “that's because with CAP/AIDS I dance!"

We are nearing the end of our six months here in Kampala and we made our final field visit to Lira last week.  The official objectives of this visit were to implement a financial training workshop and to begin the implementation of an empowerment project designed by Veronica and I.  However, this trip also represented the first of many goodbyes as we prepare to leave. 

We were happy to be back in the village with our friends at Aboke HIV/AIDS Women’s Association.  The first day in the village we facilitated a financial management workshop for the members of AHWA.  For this workshop we brought along our finance officer from Kampala, Mary.  It had been a few years since she’d been upcountry and the group was very happy to see her.  She co-facilitated the workshop with our field team leader, Simon.  Our program officer, Tracy also came along for the trip.  The workshop was well received and the group learned how to manage their finances more effectively and how to keep things accountable. 

The following day we traveled around the sub-county to interview beneficiaries for a small project.  Veronica and I fundraised some money from our family and friends, and designed a project to put the money to good use.  Our project, “Empower a woman: educate a generation of AIDS affected children” aims to economically empower the caregivers of orphans so that their children can go to school.  The beneficiaries all have a small business, though many of them are struggling.  With the little money we raised, we are investing the money in these small businesses to increase the income of these caregivers so they can afford to educate all the children they support.   We spent the whole day talking with the beneficiaries and it was very rewarding.  We listened to stories from people who had lost many loved ones, but who were still struggling for something better, to put the younger children through school. 

AHWA is a community-based organization that is driven by concern and compassion for community.  When we approached the members about wanting to use this money to ensure that disadvantaged children had the opportunity to go to school through empowering their caregivers, they already knew who in their community needed this help the most.  They know their neighbours and they take an active interest in their wellbeing.  For development organizations like CAP/AIDS, groups like AHWA are invaluable to reaching the right people in a community.   

At the end of the day, we had to leave Aboke.  It was an emotional departure because the people within AHWA mean so much to us now.  Both Veronica and I have been so touched by the hospitality they have extended to us and the passion with which they care for their community.  We are very lucky to have worked with them. 

The rest of the team went back to Kampala, while I made my way to Gulu.  In my hand, I had a DVD of our World AIDS Day videos to deliver to one of our partners, Two Jonyo Peyero.  Their members helped us with the video and we wanted them to have a copy.  The video takes questions from Canada about HIV/AIDS and answers from Uganda and Tanzania.  To see the videos visit the CAP/AIDS Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdsUzppgSfFYDmQtTYUlwCQ.  Almost all of the members of Two Jonyo Peyero are in our promo “Zero” video which highlights the theme of this year’s World AIDS Day, “Getting to Zero”.

I ended up missing the last bus on Thursday afternoon so I stayed in Gulu for an extra day.  I spent the day with a friend who I had met over Christmas while hiking in the Rwenzori Mountains.  We headed out to the villages for an afternoon football game with a bunch of kids.  It was a wonderful way to spend my last day in Northern Uganda. 

This past week we hosted our first capacity building workshops at the CAP AIDS Uganda office.  We invited representatives from Needy Support Centre (NSC) and Kiyita Family Alliance for Development (KIFAD) to join us for a shared learning workshop geared towards Project Design.  Veronica has been spending the last few weeks putting together the presentations, applying what she has learnt about project design from her postgrad program in International Development.  In turn, I have also been learning a lot about formal project design tools and processes as we’ve pulled these workshops together. 

  We are hoping to accomplish a few different things with these workshops.  Firstly, we want to provide our partners with the skills, knowledge and tools to do their work better.  Both NSC and KIFAD do good work in their respective communities for vulnerable people, especially people living with HIV/AIDS.  By developing their capacity to design and manage better projects, they will be able to improve their work and reach more community members.  In the first two days of the workshop the participants from NSC and KIFAD have shown enthusiasm about gaining knowledge and skills to develop the capacity of their organizations.  

  Secondly, the workshops have created a forum for these two partners to learn from each other, as well as CAP AIDS Uganda.  They are both on the front lines in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and they each have valuable experience.  It is not very often that we are able to bring our partners together so this is an exciting opportunity.  We built time into the workshop for some guided shared learning but it turns out they didn’t need much guidance.  On the second day of the workshop the group talked right through our morning break and we had to eventually cut them off so we could get to bulk of the presentation for the day. 

Santa Mary Enume has been a certified nurse since 1969, working both in her community and in the Aboke High school.The Aboke HIV Women’s Association (AHWA) was born out of an idea formed by Santa Mary Enume, in partnership with three key members. In 2003 AHWA was formed and Santa was elected as the Organizational Chair; the aim of the group being to provide services to those most affected by HIV in the Aboke sub-county. Through a partnership with CAP/AIDS Santa’s vision for AHWA was able to grow. The project provided Santa with training in life skills, income generating practices and counseling and helped her to gain skills in organizational management. With the counselling abilities Santa has been able to reach out to people in a vulnerable state and to efficiently provide needed services.   In 2011, Santa was invited to a shared learning workshop in Kampala where she met with other local from Uganda and representatives from Ethiopian partners where she attended workshops in monitoring and evaluation, with an emphasis on documenting personal stories and experiences. In 2012 Santa received the opportunity to attend another workshop in Ethiopia. In partnership with CAP/AIDS Uganda, they shared the AHWA story and gained new knowledge from the Ethiopian partners to bring back to the project. Santa has no children of her own, but has been a caregiver to orphaned children. As one of the caregivers beneficiaries selected for the Livelihood Support project, Santa was a part of an Income Generating Activities (IGA) group who chose to raise piglets; each member chose to raise the piglets individually. The workshop in Kampala introduced Santa to another IGA group had started piggery instead of individually raising their piglets. This group experienced healthier pigs that were growing in numbers. Santa brought this gained knowledge back to Aboke and introduced the concept to her group.

At 69, Santa remains an active figure in the Aboke Village and in the organization.