It feels like forever since I've written here, probably because it has been! Sometimes social media can feel like a chore when your heart is focused on the mission. Nonetheless, I miss writing and communicating with the world more regularly. At the end of the day though, it's what you've built and who you've helped that matters, not how many times you've Tweeted or updated your organizations Facebook page. Are you winning? Is your mission being accomplished? That's all you need to know.
At this moment I am writing from my "10x10" in a town called Nyeihanga. We've planted roots here after giving one of our Ugandan friends the opportunity to fulfill his calling and lead a ministry. That leader, Pastor Jackson, served in Iraq alongside the U.S. military while protecting American installations. He's just the kind of guy that can overcome the challenges of working in a tough environment. Through his initiative, we now operate a primary school for orphans and vulnerable children which also includes adult literacy classes. In addition, we've facilitated the formation of a microfinance partnership with Opportunity International, as well as a separate savings and credit association in order to empower entrepreneurial enterprise as a means to poverty alleviation. Finally, we successfully hosted multiple volunteers and we're now looking at additional ways to interconnect the community and possibly other people/organizations to our work.
Now I wish to build a profile of Nyeihanga for you. My goal is to formulate an effective picture for you that portrays the people and the town's strengths, possibilities, and challenges.
We have referred to Nyeihanga as a village in the past, but in fact it is a trading center with little community connection. Think of it as an exit off of a major highway in the United States - a place to find the essentials and then move on. What we think of as villages are actually in the hills surrounding Nyeihanga and upcountry along the dirt roads just a few kilometers.
Like the fizzling out steel cities in America e.g. Pittsburgh, Nyeihanga was once the booming epicenter for coffee production in Uganda. Following behind coffee was banana farming and sand mining. All three still persist today, but on a much smaller scale (except for sand mining). Sand mining drives most of the commerce now. Back when the town was booming around coffee, it invited plethora of business people, lawyers, passerby’s, government folks. These men would stay the night in Nyeihanga, sleep with the women, and move on. This occurred right around the AIDS breakout in the 80’s. Now Nyeihanga become a catalyst for the AIDS explosion in Uganda. For every home that stands in Nyeihanga, five AIDS victims are attributed to it. Enock, the gentleman that graciously donated his land to Light of the Lord, lost six of his sisters to AIDS alone. The town was ravaged by AIDS. There isn’t one person in Nyeihanga who doesn’t have a friend or family member without AIDS. According to the mid-wife here in Nyeihanga, the infection rate currently stands at 65% - her words, not mine.
As long as Light of the Lord remains in Nyeihanga, AIDS is going to be a characteristic of our operations whether we like it or not. Many of the school children were born by mothers with AIDS who sadly passed it on to them as well. Because of this gross reality, we are looking at how we can implement AIDS prevention/education into our strategy. Even if it’s something as simple as partnering with the mid-wife to provide testing and drugs to the school children.
While Nyeihanga is primarily a commerce center with few signs of unity and other institutions, it is also the lifeblood for the villages. Based on interviews with the people here, the greatest strength of the area is actually Nyeihanga itself, because it provides an opportunity for people to earn money. They say, as Nyeihanga grows up, so will the villages. In the villages just surrounding the town, you will find subsistence farmers and abject poverty. One lady said there isn’t even enough land to properly farm to earn a living. So, Nyeihanga is their survival. The villagers come into Nyeihanga, find what they need, and get out.
From these findings, I believe industry will lead to better prosperity for Nyeihanga and villages. Young men and women who are poor, uneducated, and bored, are naturally going to turn to sex and other fatal decisions without opportunity. There is also no secondary school in Nyeihanga (high school), so when kids graduate from primary school, they are left with no options. Many leave primary school just to work in the sand mines in order to make money. With this knowledge, there are two potential ways in which Light of the Lord can help. One) As we expand our Mary’s Milk dairy operation based in Kampala, we can position one of the collection centers (think supply center) in the town, possibly sparking a local dairy industry. Two) Offer secondary school scholarships to the graduates of our primary school in order for them to advance their education.
Above all else, the most common frustration and problem mentioned by the locals is the lack of running, clean water. As Nyeihanga stands, the people obtain their water from “water fetchers,” men who hike to a water spring, fill 5 gallon jerry cans with water, and return selling the water to the people. Not only is the process slow, the water dirty, and the water limited, but the “water fetchers” have a monopoly on the water, charging outrageous rates just to drink water. When most people in Uganda only make $1 a day, you can see how water becomes the source of many problems. Light of the Lord is not in the business of water, but we are in the business of the people here. We will at the least attempt to be influencers, trying to get the government to step up or try and partner with an outside organization like Charity Water to come in and solve the problem.
Next, I will profile a Nyeihangan family to shine light on the incredible strength and possibilities of the locals here. See you soon.
-Blake
