Latest news from Uganda by Golda Poni

All the latest news from Uganda written by Golda Poni, Enterprise Officer for CRESS.

This morning was a little tricky after yesterday’s hard work with the Lorena stove making!  Though I woke up at 6:00am,which of course was triggered by my loud alarm, I totally went back to sleep and woke up again at 7:30am.  Then it was the usual getting ready for breakfast and devotions before class started.

Everyone else from the team had the same morning experience as me so we went easy on ourselves and started class at 9:00am. Our instructor this morning was Otema Sam, who is a Send A Cow extension officer and vet doctor. Sam is such a soft-spoken but very knowledgeable young man, so his job today was to take us through the basics of small-scale poultry management.  The major areas he taught on were managing poultry feeds, housing, breeding and diseases.  Our team has very keen interest in poultry because at least three women already have similar projects at their homes.  Yango especially has a larger poultry project and is trying to upgrade her local breed so today’s class was very important for her.  We strongly believe that the new knowledge on poultry management will surely bring a change to all of their poultry projects.

After lunch, Roselyn the project manager of Send A Cow at the Lira office took us through another extremely interesting topic, which covered the Send A Cow corner stone values and the issue of gender while implementing the different projects of Send A Cow.  I must admit that we were very impressed by what SAC has embraced as their values and to know that there are thousands of peer farmers under their projects, working everyday to promote equity, fairness, justice, spirituality and to pass on the gift given to them by Send A Cow was such a blessing to us.

We were deeply taught that it is not just about helping people with training and funds as an organisation, but also helping them understand the best way to live their lives.  They need to know that change starts with them, and then it spreads to their families, communities and eventually to the entire nation.  One very important thing that Roselyn emphasized when she started to speak was that as Send A Cow, they encourage equity among peer farmer families, which is a great tool in encouraging fairness in the division of the different responsibilities that women and men have in a household or community.

In the African culture, it is vey clear that some responsibilities are specified for either men or women and our job therefore is to help these families understand that both parties can fully carry out their responsibilities without either one feeling like they are being mistreated, oppressed or disregarded, which unfortunately is particularly how women in most African cultures, even in south Sudan feel.

Using the gender justice diamond and the challenge resolution tree, Roselyn carefully explained how we can help many people resolve gender issues amicably and still be able to live together in harmony.  As the CRESS team in South Sudan, we are excited to help many families with similar problems and to sow the seed of fairness, justice, love and peace in their lives.  Roselyn tried to finish as early as 5:30pm today because we leave tomorrow and the women want to go to the Lira market to see if they can buy much cheaper food stuff from here for their families back home.

Everyone is really excited about going back to their families, friends and gardens tomorrow but we will deeply miss the great Send A Cow team whom we have come to love.