Melissa Graham 2.July

Meeting new people and just having fun.

18 June to 02 July 2012

I spent this week in Kangole, (Payak District) Karamoja, two hours from Nabilatuk. I spent it with a Vet,  yay!!! It was an awesome opportunity to learn from another CVM missionary who has been around the traps (to say the least) and about what she does here.

Dr Val has seen Karamoja at it's worse, seen Uganda at it's scariest and saddest. Seen it at it's best and been here long enough to have made it her home and to be welcomed by the locals as if it is her home.

She has worked hard to bring peace between warring tribes, bringing a start to poverty alleviation in her community by joining with the people and joining with the church here to partner with what God is already doing.

They strive to equip and empower the cattle people and tribe leaders in effective animal health training and how they can combine improving the health of their livestock, with poverty alleviation for themselves and their communities.

Training select Karamajong to be trainers and train in this way; even passing on the knowledge to pass on knowledge.

In this way the ministry continues without her needing to be everywhere, all the time, so that it is sustainable and avoids creating dependency.

The animal health workers are in an extensive training program, with record keeping of their progress and to keep them accountable of their work as a business. They can treat the common diseases for their communities and when there is a difficult disease case she is there to advise and consult. They are encouraged and empowered to work for themselves without having to relying on NGOs or begging, to survive.

In her past 15 or so years here, Dr Val has learnt all she knows about the local medicines, from the elders of clans and tribes who have been using this traditional medicine all their lives. She had researched the medicinal properties of these plants and researched the research done on these medicines. Together with the local people, the organisation turns the 'crude' forms of the medicines used by the locals into the most effective products they can be. Again, the aim is to give this knowledge over to the local people to own and reap benefits from. It is not about her or the organisation. It is about helping make what is already being used to be the most beneficial for the people that were already using it to begin with. Also, protecting their ownership of it, the intellecual property of the K'jong and enabling the production and sale of the medicines even on an international scale.
So the animal health workers use this medicine as well as incorporating western medicines such as penicillin streptomycin, etc. to treat sick animals in their communities.

While I was with the group there I also learnt the importance of not doing things for people which they can do for themselves. It sounds obvious but there is the real temptation to come in and run the show or assume that it could be done in a better way. The goal should always be joining with the people, allowing them to be participants and also realising the amount that we can learn from them about their own lives, in communities that are in deep poverty.

Other things of the week included

            - making paper beads with HIV affected people in a church group. (microenterprise project)

            - agroforestry (working that hoe)

- visiting local kraals.