Today we are on the way to Nalijiri community group which have a few days training on. Each group is supposed to get at least one if not two trainings per year for capacity building and also as a motivational tool. We cross the main dirt road and onto the smaller road that leads to Nalijiri’s Groups hall which is situated on the side of a hill. When it comes in sight I note that the track to the little hall is obliterated such as it was and so Henry just takes a turn up a non visible track and straight through someone’s compound!
Peeping over his head on the back of the motorbike all I can see are rocks ahead and so I wisely ask to get off and let him bump over himself. Nalijiri Hall is a small mud hall which they built themselves and there we find 20 of the 30 members already started their Training. The absent members are either sick, at funerals or doing ganyu (casual labour )somewhere. I was happy to see all the old faces and to see how the trainers (themselves upgraded volunteers) are managing to conduct the Training.
The Training is a conglomeration of different sessions from an Aids Education session, a session on Home care and a session on Capacity building and leadership. Billy (one of the Trainers) has been a volunteer since he was 13 years of age and has worked his way up to being in charge of 3 groups…no mean achievement for someone with only Primary education! The Training seemed to go well and for me that’s really gratifying since it’s a sign of empowerment for these poor village people.
The Groups were originally formed to try to combat the spread of HIV/ AIDS and to care for those infected. This of course is still a necessity but the good news is that most of our patients are now on antiretroviral drugs and so can keep well for most of the time apart from lapses. Since this is the present situation these groups can now transit to the alleviation of the continuous poverty of their lives…..and so we have added a 3rd day to the trainings to teach on small business and accounts.
All of the Groups have been working Revolving funds ( micro finance) for several years and so we are lucky to have this basis for going forward into trying to get them into better circumstances and hopefully extend to patients. The small businesses are usually just buying and selling sugar or tomatoes, making doughnuts or beer and so we need to get them to expand the ideas.
I’m quite in awe of these volunteers since they really get little for their efforts but we do buy goats into each Group, top up the revolving funds and give bicycle spares when funds allow. They live such harsh lives ( I saw several of them with the firewood on their heads this morning) coming down from the mountain ) and still they fit in the time and effort to be a volunteer – would I in their position?
Most of the groups are predominantly women and they are the ones who do most of the households work as well!. Work is strictly designated between men and women’s roles. However the bigger lot is a woman’s ! If women had the chance of education here what a place this country would be.! When we had funds to run Literacy circles…the participants were of course mostly women, women with babies on their backs and toddlers in tow, old women who couldn't even see the blackboard … but still they came!
This great spirit of resilience has most likely been honed from hardship and uncertainty and given that they cant afford to think into the future people tend to "live in the present" Of course all the other human circumstances are there as well..the sufferings, griefs,loneliness insecurities etc. that we all face and they are all borne so well by a people who live as no one should nowadays in our world, by a people living "on the edge of survival".
Peeping over his head on the back of the motorbike all I can see are rocks ahead and so I wisely ask to get off and let him bump over himself. Nalijiri Hall is a small mud hall which they built themselves and there we find 20 of the 30 members already started their Training. The absent members are either sick, at funerals or doing ganyu (casual labour )somewhere. I was happy to see all the old faces and to see how the trainers (themselves upgraded volunteers) are managing to conduct the Training.
The Training is a conglomeration of different sessions from an Aids Education session, a session on Home care and a session on Capacity building and leadership. Billy (one of the Trainers) has been a volunteer since he was 13 years of age and has worked his way up to being in charge of 3 groups…no mean achievement for someone with only Primary education! The Training seemed to go well and for me that’s really gratifying since it’s a sign of empowerment for these poor village people.
The Groups were originally formed to try to combat the spread of HIV/ AIDS and to care for those infected. This of course is still a necessity but the good news is that most of our patients are now on antiretroviral drugs and so can keep well for most of the time apart from lapses. Since this is the present situation these groups can now transit to the alleviation of the continuous poverty of their lives…..and so we have added a 3rd day to the trainings to teach on small business and accounts.
All of the Groups have been working Revolving funds ( micro finance) for several years and so we are lucky to have this basis for going forward into trying to get them into better circumstances and hopefully extend to patients. The small businesses are usually just buying and selling sugar or tomatoes, making doughnuts or beer and so we need to get them to expand the ideas.
I’m quite in awe of these volunteers since they really get little for their efforts but we do buy goats into each Group, top up the revolving funds and give bicycle spares when funds allow. They live such harsh lives ( I saw several of them with the firewood on their heads this morning) coming down from the mountain ) and still they fit in the time and effort to be a volunteer – would I in their position?
Most of the groups are predominantly women and they are the ones who do most of the households work as well!. Work is strictly designated between men and women’s roles. However the bigger lot is a woman’s ! If women had the chance of education here what a place this country would be.! When we had funds to run Literacy circles…the participants were of course mostly women, women with babies on their backs and toddlers in tow, old women who couldn't even see the blackboard … but still they came!
This great spirit of resilience has most likely been honed from hardship and uncertainty and given that they cant afford to think into the future people tend to "live in the present" Of course all the other human circumstances are there as well..the sufferings, griefs,loneliness insecurities etc. that we all face and they are all borne so well by a people who live as no one should nowadays in our world, by a people living "on the edge of survival".
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