Category Archives: Blog

Secondary Schools Welcome Transitional Justice Quiz Competition Challenge

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In April 2013, JRP’s Community Mobilisation department team hit the road to West Nile, Acholi, Lango and Teso sub regions to disseminate information on and to mobilise selected schools for the second annual Transitional Justice Quiz Competition. In 2012, JRP initiated the Transitional Justice Quiz competition for young people in northern Uganda.

The TJ Quiz is an educational programme designed to connect youth from different parts of northern Uganda to build a critical mass around peace building with a special interest in transitional justice in an effort to harness the energy, imagination and initiative of northern Uganda’s youth in promoting a culture of peace. This initiative arose from the realisation that the intensity and impact of conflict on young people is often looked at from a secondary point of view yet young people in actual sense play very primary roles in either sustaining and/or ending a conflict. We at JRP therefore feel that this is a time for the young people in northern Uganda to start voicing and addressing the underlying impacts of the conflict on the younger generation including cross ethnic dimensions of the conflict as they become community leaders in peace building, reconciliation and post conflict reconstruction.

Under the theme ‘Across Ethnic Boundaries’, the 2013 quiz competitions will target the participation of 40 schools from across West Nile, Acholi, Lango and Teso sub regions. The schools have been selected based on their experiences during the conflict in northern Uganda. During the quiz process, the students across the region will get the opportunity to share the different experiences of young people during the conflict, get updated with ongoing TJ related developments at national level and suggest strategies to incorporate young people in ongoing accountability, reconciliation and healing processes.

The JRP team visited the office of the District Education Officers who helped in the selection of participating schools, made courtesy calls to the office of the Local Council Five chairpersons, district councillors for youth and the secretaries for education in all the districts visited. The head teachers for the respective schools were enthusiastic about the quiz competitions and requested JRP to do more sensitisation on TJ related issues to the school administration and the district officials. As noted by the DEO of Adjumani District and re-echoed by the head teacher of Balla S.S, “We have been hearing about transitional justice from a distance but have never got the chance to really understand what it is.” They urged that resources allowing, JRP should conduct dialogues in all the participating schools in order to bring everyone on board.

All the head teachers appreciated that working with young people requires a multi faceted approach with peace building being a central component and that, teachers alone cannot do it. Some schools like Mungula S.S lamented on how their school before the conflict was one of the giant schools to reckon with in the region but were greatly affected by the conflict as it was displaced and lost many of its students to death and abductions, some of whom are still missing up to date.

“It’s important to keep the youth busy with educative programmes like the TJ quiz competitions to avoid them from getting involved in irrelevant activities such as the now popular sports betting,” noted the hilarious head teacher of Adjumani S.S Mr Nobert Ben Oola. Though he had reservations on running programmes through competitions, he stressed sustainability of keeping the youth engaged and encouraged the JRP to continue with the programme even after the competitions have ended through dissemination of information.

JRP will conduct an orientation workshop for all the participating school patrons who will in turn organise schools dialogues and preparations for their school teams this month of May 2013. Within the second term of the secondary schools calendar, the competitions will kick off with sub regional competitions and the winners at sub regional level will compete for the regional title. The winners of the 2012 quiz competitions; Pope John Paul VI will have the opportunity to defend their title in more exciting competitions this year under the theme ‘Across Ethnic Boundaries’. I wish the participating schools all the best.

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Louis Montt’s conviction is a light at the end of the “justice” tunnel

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TJ MONITOR

After decades of suffering and hoping for vindication, the people of Guatemala were relieved on 10th of May 2013 when the Supreme Court convicted the former dictator Louis Raois Montt (1982-1983) for orchestrating crimes of genocide against ethnic Maya Ixil. The ruling was the state’s official acknowledgement that genocide occurred in the 36 year civil war that ended with peace accords in 1996. It was also the first time such a sentence for genocide was ever handed down against a former Latin American leader in his own country. The road to Justice for the Guatemalans was not a smooth one; it was dogged by legal technicalities that led to suspension of the trial for 12 days amid appeals which at times appeared to be headed for annulment. However, as belligerent as it was, the trial bore its desired fruits for the victims/survivors of mass violations.

This trial is a testament of how long international justice may take. Indeed we have witnessed the challenges faced by victims seeking redress for international crimes. Often it takes decades before they can obtain a sense of justice, the trial is then riddled with many legal technicalities which often delay the trial or result to either annulments or stay of proceedings.

This is very similar to our situation in northern Uganda. No one has been put on trial for atrocities committed to civilians in the war between the LRA and the government. The cases before the ICC are pending waiting for the capture of Joseph Kony, Dominic Ongwen and Okot Odhiambo. Since the establishment of the International Crimes Division of the High Court of Uganda no trial has commenced since the Kwoyelo case is suspended due to constitutionally raised issues. In a nutshell, the victims of this war feel like mainstream justice is useless.

However, the conviction of Rios Montt for crimes he committed decades ago, gives rise to hope that no matter how many years have passed, it is still possible to get justice. As human rights activists in Guatemala summed it as a historic moment for victims/survivors of a three decade brutal civil war, now they can feel a sense of Justice, the relief of having had a chance to be heard. This conviction is testimony that no matter the time it takes, justice is still a possibility and victims vigour is required at all times.

A step closer to community-led documentation

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A man reads from written documentation 'Ododo pa Lukodi' (stories of Lukodi) during a Community Led Documentation community outreach in Lukodi, Gulu district. 27 April 2013.
A man reads from the written documentation ‘Ododo pa Lukodi’ (stories of Lukodi) as part of the Community Led Documentation community outreach in Lukodi, Gulu district. 27 April 2013.

Last Saturday, JRP’s Documentation department attended a community outreach on community led documentation (CLD)  organised in the community of Lukodi in Gulu district.

Under Community Led Documentation, communities are given the tools to document their own history and experiences. The objective is to promote accurate, community owned documented material for future generations. Lukodi is the first community that the department is working with under the programme and was documented under ‘The Lukodi Massacre, Field Note XIII’ in August 2011.

The community outreach featured a presentation by the 21 members of the JRP assisted CLD team of a 26 page document written in Acholi as well drawings depicting experiences going back as far as the Idi Amin era. Following the presentation, the community members gave feedback and input on the steps forward for initiative.

Up to 150 community members attended the outreach.

Read more about the Lukodi massacre here.

See pictures of the event below.

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Reflecting on the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence

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Since the 25th of November 2012, we have been observing 16 days of activism against gender violence,   a vice that continues to penetrate our society preying among the vulnerable that are targeted because of their gender. This year I was particularly touched by the plight of one young girl I met during the course of my work.  She represented the challenges women face during and after conflict situations. She made me realize that the battle against gender violence is not over and goes beyond physical violence.   It should include breaking existing structural inequalities that often lead to vulnerability of victims in question.

Mary (not her real name) was abducted at the age of 12. During her life in captivity she worked as a porter and was forced to carry goods for long distances. She managed to escape from captivity after three years and upon returning home she found that her family had already moved to Internally Displaced Camps. While at the camps she was raped by a government soldier who asked her mother when she tried to stop him, why she was not willing to give her daughter to him yet she did so willingly to the rebels. Mary conceived out of the rape, powerless about her situation she decided to stay with the soldier so that he could take care of the child. She lived with him in an abusive “marriage” ending up with seven children, she decided to leave her husband and came back home with her children. Mary did not get a chance to go to school because of the war and neither did she have a source of income, she has to take care of seven children and she has no idea how to do so,  she cannot afford to educate them let alone feed them. She currently earns a living from casual labourer in the village.

Mary represents what many women go through during and after conflict. The Lord’s Resistance Army did not only deny her a normal life but used her as a porter leading to her developing chest pains as a result of carrying heavy luggage. At the same time, the Government failed to protect her, leading to her abduction. While at the camp, the soldier was not a protector but an abuser, she was seen as a person who is readily available to satisfy sexual needs of a man with power at will. With her vulnerability she feared reporting the incident to her abuser’s colleagues rest she receives a backlash. With inaccessible reproductive health services to respond to such an incident, she was not able to stop a pregnancy.   Stigma associated with children born out of wedlock and lack of means to take care of such a child, she opted to get married to her abuser who continued to abuse her and father her seven children. With no social economic empowerment, lost opportunity to go to school or get a skill that can help her provide for the family,  she is left with the option of “living to survive”.

She and many others who have gone through worse experiences are the reason why the battle against gender violence especially in conflict situations must continue.

 

A Successful Referral

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The keloid growth perched on Ochen's ear prior to surgery. Inset: Ochen after the surgery in Kampala.

On 3 October 2012, JRP’s documentation department made one of its many field visits to Burcoro village, one of the many villages in Acholi sub-region that was affected by the conflict. Our aim was to start a  documentation process with the people of Burcoro about their conflict experiences during the civil war that ravaged northern Uganda for over two decades.

 JRP’s documentation chronicles the conflict-related experiences and memories of individuals, communities and victims’ groups to preserve memory, acknowledge loss and promote healing and reconciliation. We also support community-led documentation efforts. Through community and interest group documentation we build on work done over the past years in Atiak, Barlonyo, Mucwini, Omot, Palabek, Lukodi, and Mukura introducing new documentation methods to allow for broader participation.

 Field visits for data collection are both interesting and unpredictable. This is because every village in northern Uganda has a unique story. In a similar light, most of the survivors living in those villages have a unique story about their survival experiences. Field visits are also unpredictable for you can neither know beforehand what exactly you will come across on each trip, nor the people you will meet.

Burcoro

We were visiting Burcoro for the first time. We had information that Burcoro village had been severely affected in 1991 by an operation conducted by soldiers of the National Resistance Army LRA (NRA) as a result of atrocities committed by these soldiers against civilians ranging from beatings, torture, illegal detentions, mass rape of women, sodomy against men, and execution of some civilians. While we knew we would come across victims, we did not know what to expect from them,

On this occasion we came across a survivor with a medical condition we had never seen before. His condition was both scaring and heartbreaking. Standing right before us and gazing vaguely as though there was no hope for tomorrow was  a young boy suffering from a condition called keloids. His name was Ochen. The keloids, that was growing in his ear weighed close to  1.5 kilograms. It was delicately perched on his left ear and covered the most part of his neck. His neck appeared to be giving way to the keloids and as a result his head was tilted to the right. To show that the keloids was far from giving up in its unimaginable growth, there were still fresh wounds forming within the keloids. This emitted out pungent smell and attracted  flies that constantly swarmed around him.

 For a moment we were left speechless, each and every one of us looked at the other in silence as we searched for answers within us. Many thoughts came to our minds as we tried to figure out what had happened to him: Was it an incurable cancer? Was this a birth abnormality? Did he suffer gunshots? How did he manage to sleep in the night? What attention did he attract within and out of this community? Has any medical attention  ever come his way? What could we do about it? It is very amazing how the human brain quickly searches for answers when it is confronted with a complex situation.

Meeting Ochen

As though he had read our minds, Ochen drew closer to us. I inquired of him how he was doing and if he was one of the respondents we were scheduled to meet  that day. He never said a word but  muttered something to himself. This made us even more determined to learn his story.

Ochen is 16 years old and has lived with this condition since the age of three. He told us that one day as he was running around the village, he was accidentally pierced by a tree branch and severely wounded. He was treated but after the  wound healed,  it left him a small lump (keloid) which began to gradually grow bigger and heavier. The growth paused slightly when  Ochen was nine years old, but by then it weighed one kilogram. From then on the keloid did not show any sign of reducing in size but maintained a steady growth. Ochen experienced headache, pain on the ear and neck. He could not freely turn his head without turning the whole body. We also got to know from him that due to the growth, stigma from the community was directed at him, and Ochen dropped out of school.

We asked if he had sought any medical attention in the past. Ochen told us he had been twice operated in Lacor Hospital but the keloids kept coming back for reasons he could not explain.

While we were relieved that at least Ochen had not attained this condition as a result of the conflict that had affected his village, we were at a dilemma about how to help him. The documentation department’s mandate was not only limited to research and documentation, JRP as an organization did not  offer medical rehabilitation. This is a dilemma that researchers are often confronted with when they come across people who need immediate assistance. In Ochen’s case, his condition had not even been caused as a result of a conflict experience The only option  we were left with was to make a referral.

The Referral 

With this in mind, we left Burcoro after having talked to many survivors and victims. We were not sure how we would get help for Ochen.  But Somehow, things worked out faster than we had imagined. A few days after the encounter with this boy, I came into contact with the founder and director of a charity organization called  Empowerment for Disadvantaged Youth and Children (EDYAC) and shared with him the plight of Ochen. He is a medical Doctor, and his organization works to see that youth and children with disabilities realize their full potential. After listening to Ochen story, he asked a few questions and concluded that Ochen had “to  be helped as soon as now”. Within a short time he had got in contact with other medical experts and they agreed examine Ochen.  Their examination revealed that Ochen needed urgent medical attention. On the 23 October  2012, Ochen together with the team from EDYAC travelled down to Kampala and he was admitted at CORSU Rehabilitation Hospital for his surgery which lasted close to eleven hours

Success 

In his own words, “I entered the theatre at 7:00 am and got out of there at 6pm.” For eleven hours Ochen’s life underwent the transformation that he very much needed. And when he finally gained his consciousness at 7:00 pm, he was never the same again. His head had become much lighter, and his self esteem immediately begun returning.

 On the 29 October 2012, Ochen was finally discharged from the hospital and returned to his community. He says, “When I got to Burcoro, I was a hero. All the people who used to dread my presence were the ones who struggled to come close to me. I got smiles instead of the strange stares that I would attract every time I stepped out of home.” Ochen is thankful to JRP for this referral and very humbled by the work of EDYAC.

 As a researcher, the success story of Ochen lifts my spirit high. Sometimes as an individual or institution you may not have the ability or mandate to physically assist but there is always the option of referrals. 

Reflecting on our work

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As the year comes to an end, we at JRP find ourselves reflecting on both our accomplishments and the challenges we have faced in the past twelve months. We are also looking to the future: what will we do next year? How can we improve our work and what solutions can we find to the challenges we have faced this year? Recently, we held our inaugural Dissemination Forum in Gulu where we launched five of our most recent reports and Field Notes. Attended by local traditional and religious leaders, victims’ group representatives, civil society members and members of the media, the purpose of the Dissemination Forum was to provide a medium for the people for whom our reports are written to share their opinions on the reports and discuss the issues that are raised in them. We also used the opportunity to reflect on whether the reports are indeed serving their intended purpose – that is, to be a voice for victims of conflict and to share ideas about how to improve them.

Each report was presented in detail by researchers from the Community Documentation department, presentations which included discussions on the background and purpose of the reports, their research methodology, the findings that were made and the recommendations to stakeholders contained. Following the presentations, the participants in the Forum shared their views on each report. Many participants talked about the value of documenting victim centred views and experiences, while some emphasised the importance of policy makers receiving the content of the reports and initiatives of JRP and other CSOs.

“This forum should look at how we can get the state to understand that they have the responsibility,” one participant suggested. “[Otherwise] we may end up providing a lot of information without reaching the government.”

At the event, we screened a documentary entitled “The Guns May Be Silent, But the Struggle Continues” which examines the struggles that continue to be faced by communities affected by conflict in the Teso and Acholi sub-regions. Specifically, the documentary aims to address some of the most prominent transitional justice advocacy points that victims in Northern Uganda continue to face. The piece will be available to the public in the upcoming months.

The five reports we launched were:

The Day They Came: Recounting the LRA’s Invasion of Teso Sub-Region through Obalanga Sub-County in 2003. This report explores the impacts of the LRA incursion into Teso sub-region using case studies and victims’ testimonies from the sub‐county of Obalanga in Amuria district. This report can be accessed here.

When a Gunman Speaks, You Listen: Victims’ Experiences and Memories of Conflict in Palabek Sub-County, Lamwo District. This report focuses on Palabek’s history from 1986 to the present based on victims’ testimonies and information provided by interviewees. This report can be accessed here.

Paying Back What Belongs to Us: Victims’ Groups in Northern Uganda and their Quests for Reparation. This report serves to illuminate the current state, emergence and development of different victims’ groups and associations throughout the greater north of Uganda and to highlight their activities and demands. This report can be accessed here.

Gender and Generation in Acholi Traditional Justice Mechanisms: This report seeks to understand how traditional ceremonies are helpful to women and youth, and whether such ceremonies are relevant to the unique concerns women and youth face in post-conflict recovery. This report can be accessed here.

The Uganda Reconciliation Barometer 2012: With the Transitional Justice Monitoring Survey as its tool, the UG Reconciliation Barometer measures the attitudes and perceptions of Ugandans in the north on critical justice and reconciliation issues. This report can be accessed here.

See pictures of the Dissemination Forum on the 15 of November 2012 below.

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What It Means to Be A Survivor

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I was invited to attend two days’ conference on Surviving Armed Violence: Comparative Perspectives organized by the Center for Foreign Policy Studies (CFPS) in conjunction with Child Soldiers Initiative and Resilience Research Center at Dalhousie University in Halifax – Nova Scotia. I was asked to make a twenty minute presentation on the importance of storytelling after mass atrocities, and my work with Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) at JRP.

I was delighted to give my presentation as follows on how storytelling helped made a difference on the life of women we work with. This may not be very easy for someone who has not been closely following what we do to understand what I am about to share with you and may want to see a documentation to believe but I tell you, this is real!

There are many advantages of this storytelling to these ladies. We started with less than ten women but later the number expanded. It is not usually very easy for someone who has gone through a difficult situation to just start sharing their painful experiences except when there is trust and confidence among those involved. This is how the story began and made a difference in the lives of these ladies.   At first others were shy and afraid of the outcome of what they may say. But since the storytelling sessions occur in an informal setting, it reduced the amount of intimidation that a woman might feel as she narrates her experience. As she listens to one another’s story, she begins to feel that she was not the only one who suffered but one of many which encourages her to speak more. And the more and more one speaks of something painful gradually that person begins to feel better or get relieved of the burden she was carrying as a result of silence.

In Acholi culture, women are familiar with using stories as a way to communicate. Because women are able to provide peer support and advice to each other, they form a vital community for the women, something especially important for women whose family members have disowned them because they were abducted. Another advantage is that minimal materials are needed to conduct the storytelling sessions. Furthermore, besides using an audio recorder to document the sessions, supplying paper and other craft materials when we draw body and life maps, and sometimes providing snacks and transportation for the women, the costs associated with the project are minimal in comparison to its effectiveness. These are very important in the reintegration process since there is need to have confidence and trust in the people they are going to live with and the community they are going to be living in.

I also shared just one of the many poems called The Things We Carried from a book that I am writing with Julie Bitek called Stories from the Dry Season which is an illustration of the burden girls and women bore during war in Northern Uganda. So many who came to the art exhibition were touched and I believe it gave them a sense of what it means to be a survivor and they learnt what happens to people especially women during war and in particular the one that took place in Northern Uganda.

During the conference, whose objective was  to identify what survival means for those who have lived through violence or understand what survival means, I learnt that in times of crisis and in particular during armed conflict, the affected  people always find ways of surviving the problem, stopping it or seeing that the perpetrators are brought to justice. This is in line with the contribution of survivors both during and after the crisis.

The following are some of the ways in people use to survive violence and how people survive on a daily basis; sleep standby, spend nights together while monitoring what is going on. This helps to reduce the effect of war on individuals. They would also tell stories quietly through the use of all means of communication. When all schools were closed during the war, some people kept one school open through negotiations with armed actors. Engagement in doing something in times of fear like doing exercises helps to overcome fear. I think some of these methods used in pursuit of justice are an example that survivors should follow, even if nobody listens to them today. Tomorrow someone might just like this survivor who I learnt about during the conference in Peru who survived to see the one who killed his son in 1983 prosecuted in 2011

I also happened to travel the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in the fall when the leaves are turning red in preparation for winter season. It’s hard to believe and express that beauty in words. This is a place located along the coast of Pacific Ocean with a wonderful view of snowcapped mountains as one heads to Whistler, one of the most cold places in the world during winter. During my last days in Vancouver I visited Whistler too and went on a plane moving on top of ranges of mountains that have snowcapped and with snows that have lasted for thousand years ago melting when the temperature was 5 degrees centigrade. I could not believe I was seeing the glacial features that I learnt about theoretically in my Advanced Level Geography. When I was over the mountains, I felt humbled as a human being.

The Challenges of Research and Documentation Work in Northern Uganda

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Field Group Discussions are used to garner views at community level.

As a young researcher interning for the past months in the Documentation Department of the Justice and Reconciliation Project, I have come to experience and learn firsthand the challenges of conducting research and documentation work in war-torn communities in northern Uganda. Despite the fact that the reality on the ground in this part of the country has drastically changed over the last years, significant challenges must still be overcome if one is interested in engaging in this kind of work. I should add that as a foreigner who has never lived in northern Uganda before, the challenges naturally become much tougher. It is through the constant help and guidance of local researchers whose deep and broad knowledge of the region and local culture, that I have been able to quickly learn invaluable lessons about working with the Acholi populations of northern Uganda.    

For instance, I have come to understand the relevance of seeking the assistance of local leaders or community mobilizers as we first approach a community. Their broad in-depth knowledge of the community, as well as their capacity to rally victims and serve as a point of communication between the researchers and the people is something that any researcher that does not directly belong to the community cannot compete with. The overwhelming majority of our work is carried out with populations that live in rural areas in which only a small amount of the inhabitants can be found close to a small town or a trading center and most inhabitants are rather located out in the countryside.

In addition, despite the lack of written records, the memories of those experiences endured throughout the conflict often remain deeply engraved in the minds of those that personally experience them. For this reason, I have come to learn how individual interviews then become a key tool that allows the researcher to understand what took place and how those events impacted that person’s life. However, individual interviews are not without their limitations; they are often imprecise and easily influenced by an unimaginable number of factors. In order to counter this, I have experience the importance of focus group discussions in which the participants are able to build on each other’s experiences and make us of their collective memory to clarify their account of an event. In many of these interactions the participants would challenge each other’s recollections of an incident and through this mutual dialogue it becomes much easier to reach points of general agreement.

Finally, I have learned how the long-term work in this region of numerous international organizations and aid agencies has greatly contributed to the development of a ‘research exhaustion’ in many communities. This term refers to those cases in which communities have previously interacted in repeated occasions with other NGOs, but have perhaps been severely disappointed by the results of this interaction and thus feel much more reluctant to engage once again in a new process with another organization that seems to be interested in their experience. As a way to overcome this challenge, I have come to understand the fundamental importance of developing an actual relationship with the community we are working in which there is a clear understanding of each other’s needs and expectations from the very beginning.      

Women 4 Peace Awards – Congratulations Nancy Apiyo!

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Last Friday, JRP’s Gender Justice Project Officer, Nancy Apiyo, was awarded with the Volunteer Action Network (VAC-NET) Women 4 Peace Awards for her contribution to peace and reconciliation and her work with women, particularly the Women’s Advocacy Network. Citing her mother as her greatest inspiration, Nancy promised to push on with the fight for equality and fair treatment to all, regardless of gender.

Nancy is known for her great passion for women’s issues.  “If you want to cross her path just mention something demeaning about formerly abducted women,” Gender Justice Team Leader, Kasiva Mulli remarked.

During the award ceremony, she humbly attributed the award to the women she worked with, many of  whom found themselves returning to a society that has not fully recovered but tirelessly set themselves to work in it to promote justice and reconciliation. The women, she said, were the real recipients of the Women 4 Peace Award.

See photos from the Award Ceremony below:

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WAN – Our Journey

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It is five months since the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) was officially launched.   Since then the Network has been involved in a number of advocacy activities which include community outreach meetings,  holding meetings with various stakeholders to advocate for our issues,  holding regular radio talk shows to create awareness on the challenges we face among other things.   We have also visited similar groups in other part of Northern Uganda to share our experiences and to learn from them.

I am proud of WAN and what we have set to achieve.   I am a victim of this war and I have experienced firsthand what war does to women.   War breaks our spirits, our hopes, our lives and aspirations. I have also seen the strength of the women as they work towards rebuilding their lives and that of their communities. We have realized that if we do not come together, speak out about our issues and seek solutions to our problems then no one will do it on our behalf. We have made a resolution to break our silence and become advocates of our own cause.

This is why WAN is important to us. It gives us a platform to advocate for our rights as victims as well as be agents of peace and post conflict reconstruction. As WAN, women who shared similar experiences during the conflict are able to come together, discuss issues central to us and work around solutions to these issues. We have realized the satisfaction that comes from pulling each other up, knocking a door of opportunity, sharing our joys and tears together. We feel that through this platform we are strengthened and we can achieve what we set ourselves to do.

The road has not been smooth sailing, we continue to face challenges.  Our members are still going through difficult times coping with re-integration challenges which include stigmatization, supporting our children born in captivity, land inheritance, health problems among others.  However, we have also received unlikely support from our communities and stakeholders due to our continued creation of awareness through community outreach and radio talk shows.   Other challenges that we continue to face is communication barriers since most of us can only speak in Acholi and social economic empowerment for most of our members.

But one wise man said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.   Till we get there its aluta continua!

Evelyn Amony is the chairperson of the Women’s Advocacy Network.