Today we leave Karamoja. The past five months have passed at a blistering speed, and we can’t believe it’s time to go home. We’re excited to return to North Carolina, our friends and family, and for the weeks of travel around East Africa between now and then, but we’re very sad to be saying goodbye to the place we've grown to love and the people we've grown to treasure. We believe that God called us to take part in His mission here and that He has called us home to North Carolina, but the work goes on. God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, and He is in Karamoja.
Karamoja is a sub-region in the north eastern part of Uganda that has long been blighted with chronic challenges such as food insecurity, poverty and poor infrastructure as well as exceptionally low health outcomes. A sad history of hunger and suffering is actually embodied in the name Karimojong, which translates as old thin men who cannot continue on. A helpless mindset is illustrated by the frequent posture of an outstretched hand with open palm. This pervasive and deeply ingrained culture of dependency, instilled by generations of outside aid, is one of the greatest hindrances to sustainability and self-sufficiency in Karamoja. Men are more likely to be seen lounging on their traditional stools while their women labor than demonstrating initiative in working to improve their circumstances and enhance their future. Participation in aid projects has long assumed some material incentive or handout. Ownership has been a foreign concept. Development projects have failed again and again in Karamoja, leading some to throw in the towel, but we have been amazed to see how God has blessed Samaritan’s Purse’s projects here, against all odds and empirical expectation. God is on the move in this once forsaken land. Hope and progress are beginning to shine through the darkness.
Pearce was able to work on a project that targets the plague of dependency and aims to steadily transform such an unproductive and deleterious mindset. After decades of free handouts, which have contributed little to nothing towards sustainable or enduring progress in Karamoja, the Ugandan government, in partnership with the World Food Program and Samaritan’s Purse, has moved to a system of conditional food transfer, dependent on productive work. This Food for Work program not only seeks to instill the dignity and ethic of working to provide for your family but also massively benefits the community as food beneficiaries contribute to public works projects such as building roads, digging ponds and protecting rich soils from erosive destruction in flooding.
Pearce focused on the budget proposal and procurement plans as well as developing new project management and monitoring and evaluation tools. He also conducted interviews with benefiting communities and wrote impact stories on the project, which has proven highly successful. There are positive signs that the mentality of the population is shifting as the multi-dimensional value of work becomes tangible.
Pearce also spent some of his time assisting the Operations team in supporting projects. This included conducting an internal assessment of how well all operations functions were performing and then pursuing new strategies and protocols to streamline those functions, such as transportation and finance, by implementing new coordination systems.
Chrissy pursued her passion with the Karamoja Maternal and Child Health (MCH) project, which celebrated its first birthday while we were here. The region has notoriously poor health outcomes for mothers, babies, and children under five years of age with many of the deaths resulting from preventable conditions, such as diarrhea, malnutrition, and malaria. The MCH project utilizes the “Care Group Model” in which health promoters train groups of “leader mothers” in the communities who in turn teach the other women in their villages about good maternal and child health practices. It’s been amazing to see how enthusiastic the women are to learn this vital information for the first time and truly be empowered to take charge of their own health and the health of their families.
Where other projects have failed, SP’s MCH project has thrived and cast a ray of hope in the region. In talking with the mothers, you understand that the project represents a fundamental turning point for them – a chance to start a new way of life to which they were previously ignorant. Women talk about how the old norm of children being malnourished or falling sick and dying is of the past. Now, women see that there is hope for their children: their children can grow, be healthy and one day do great things. Even many men and male community leaders are eager to participate in the project, despite the fact that it disseminates enduring knowledge rather than material goods—a true novelty for Karamoja. The transformation we've observed transcends the curriculum as a new way of thinking has incited behavioral changes never imagined by the project and positive feedback loops have gone into overdrive across the population. Husbands have adopted a feeling of hope and now help out at home to ensure that there is food for the children. They've also gained more respect for their wives, reducing domestic abuse. Indeed, the local name of the project, Erot Ngolo Kitete, means “a new way.” Never has a name better encapsulated a project mission and impact.
As one leader mother described it, “Erot Ngolo Kitete has changed us from the old system of life to the new way of life.”
For her part, Chrissy has undertaken two major activities within the MCH project: helping to launch a pilot project of village ambulances and conducting an impact assessment for the MCH project. The ambulance project, described in a previous blog, involved the rolling out of five bicycle ambulances to villages throughout one sub-county. The ambulances consist of a trailer that can be attached to a bicycle or piki and can be used to transport sick patients or women in labor to a nearby health facility. In an area where only 18% of women give birth with a skilled birth attendant present, these ambulances represent an enormous opportunity for women to be able to deliver their babies safely at a health center. Chrissy worked with communities to determine which villages would receive the ambulances, who would drive them, how the ambulances would be maintained over time, and also educated communities about the importance of using the ambulances. Since the ambulances were delivered to communities in early June, they've already been used several times. It was a huge reward to know that one of the ambulances was even used to deliver a sick patient to the health center less than 24 hours after the community had received it!
Chrissy also took the lead in conducting an impact assessment by holding interviews and focus group discussions with approximately one hundred individuals throughout Napak District to ask their impressions of the changes that Erot Ngolo Kitete has had on their lives, community, and health-related behaviors. It was amazing to have the opportunity to hear first-hand how people—leader mothers, community leaders, traditional birth attendants, etc.—felt the project had fundamentally changed their lives.
Both Chrissy and Pearce's projects seek to instill dignity, self-worth and hope in a people that have been spiritually and economically depressed in a broken society for generations. Beneficiaries are encouraged and empowered to see themselves as God sees them, as capable and worthy, not trapped and hopeless.
What is it that has created such revolutionary change in a long hopeless land? Is it excellent project leadership, a well-tailored intervention, terrific curriculum? These are important factors but many projects with those key attributes have failed where these have thrived. We believe God has held his hand of blessing and protection over our projects in Karamoja and has allowed Samaritan’s Purse to be part of His magnificent plan of redemption for this place. Truly, God is doing more in Karamoja than anyone could ever hope or imagine. We have been personally blessed to be witnesses to the light of His transformative power and love expressed in darkness and despair.
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26
We’re leaving a place that today has more capacity, hope and promise than when we arrived. For our first several months here, city electricity was only available between 6pm and midnight, a quarter of each day. Today, the town of Moroto, the economic epicenter of the region, has 24 hour power connected to the national grid. Over the last month, a Chinese contractor has broken ground on a massive infrastructure project to pave the bumpy and treacherous 100-mile road connecting Karamoja to the rest of Uganda and the outside world. Power and roads… two of the most critical foundations for economic growth, development and prosperity. Not only has Karamoja recently been connected to the national grid, it is on the brink of being connected to the global grid and tapping the explosive potential of our globalized world to breathe new life and opportunity into this place.
A new day is dawning in Karamoja. I believe we have witnessed a watershed moment for this region, from empowered minds regarding health and work to new opportunities through electrical power and access to the world beyond its rigid borders. We will return to Karamoja one day, and when we do, it will bear little resemblance to the desperate place we found only weeks ago.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” – Isaiah 43:18-19
God is faithful and awesome. He has done immeasurably more in our hearts and lives through this experience than even our greatest expectations. We will carry Karamoja with us, back to North Carolina and for the rest of our lives.
Until next time, goodbye and Godspeed Karamoja.
No comments:
Post a Comment