Our first week of research in Salem and Woodburn, OR is about to begin! JoJo, John, Stefan and I met at the Portland airport today, and drove out to Salem, where Tim joined us. For the week, we are staying in the basement of Salem’s United Church of Christ. It’s a wonderful location: directly underneath Francisco’s CAUSA office, and within sight of the Oregon Capitol building. We talked briefly with Francisco about the upcoming week. We also met his student intern Ted Richardson, who will be accompanying us to our meetings this week and will be part of the delegation to Oaxaca next fall.

Tonight we settled in and prepared for our meetings. I am so excited to meet with Julie Samples, Santiago Ventura, and Valentin Sanchez of the Oregon Law Center tomorrow. Hopefully, all of the reading and research we have done will begin to pay off, as we meet the people whose projects have inspired our own.

Peace,

Kristen

Gauri, Kailey, Tim, and I arrived back in Walla Walla last night after a two-day trip down to Woodburn, OR to meet with Francisco Lopez and have our first appointments at the Mexican consulate and two Oaxacan leaders. We arrived Thursday afternoon and saw the PCUN office for the first time. It was a spacious building that was once an old Methodist church and had probably functioned as a house as well at some point in its rich history. Francisco told us many times in the course of a few days that he keeps telling the union to sell the building and get new offices: “They won’t do it!” he says; it has “too much sentimental value.”

After talking briefly with Francisco in the office about the basic operations of PCUN, CAUSA, and their sister organizations, he gave us the grand tour of Woodburn. We saw fields and restaurants, the Oregon Law Center, the town square, PCUN’s radio station, and the new and still under-construction farm labor housing the union had such a strong hand in building. After the tour, we returned to PCUN’s conference room and hashed out more project details, as well as went over who we were meeting with the next day and our objectives for each meeting. We came up with a to-do list of both short and long-term goals, and the most detailed timeline for our project yet. Naturally, the most exciting part of a very compelling meeting was when we discussed our trip to Oaxaca, scheduled for January 2010. Francisco talked about how “then we would see and really feel” the reasons for this project of empowering Oaxacans on both sides of the border: simply so that they can create better lives for their people.

The next morning we drove up to Portland to meet with Ursula Rojas at the Mexican Consulate, who heads the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME) in Oregon. She told us the institute exists to foster a close and beneficial relationship with Mexican communities abroad and to allow the diaspora to influence public policy back in Mexico. Since IME is part of the Mexican government, it was fascinating and informative to here the government’s take on Mexican immigration to El Norte. She also talked to us about the government’s 3×1 Development Program, where Hometown Associations (HTAs) put up 25% of the cost for a project that could range from infrastructure construction to planting trees or starting businesses, and different levels of the government provide the other 75% of funding. We learned that there are seven known Oaxacan HTAs in Oregon, which was very exciting news. Approximately 11% of the counted 350,000 migrants in Oregon are Oaxacan, and the Portland Consulate is 5th in the nation in the number of registered Oaxacans.

Also present at the consulate meeting was an enthusiastic Oaxacan immigrant named Donaciano Garcia who founded Generacion Barranca 2006. Barranca is Garcia’s hometown, and the organization, though not exactly an HTA by an academic definition, is very similar (I have a feeling it will become apparent quickly that there is no exact model for Oaxacan HTAS, which may actually be beneficial to the project. It just means the different groups will have that much more to offer each other). Comprised of friends and family members, GB2006 sustained itself through $50 a month dues and fundraisers like car washes and “adopt-a-child” style programs at Garcia’s church. The organization believes that the children of Barranca are the future; hope so that one day, “none of us will have to work in the fields anymore.” They are investing as much as possible in the children’s education, and have delivered five new computers to the school, as well as 70 bicycles so that students don’t have to walk so long to get to school, or to Oaxaca City to do their homework, and also planted 120 fruit trees. Some future goals are so modest as to be humbling: Garcia wants to get to two water fountains so that the children don’t have to risk getting sick from drinking out of the same bucket with one cup anymore. Others are ambitious and accomplish the exact same thing: “It is my dream to see a university there one day,” he says, beaming. Garcia’s passion for his work was evident and contagious. When we told him we were visiting Oaxaca in January he graciously invited us to come visit Barranca. “Together, we will walk,” he said, showing us a picture of the winding dirt road leading to the village with children running ahead of the camera, “and you will see.”

For the last meeting of the day the WDA team and Francisco drove back to Woodburn to meet Carmen Ramirez for lunch at Luis’s (Obama stopped there for lunch on the campaign trail; we had to try it). Carmen is an Oaxacan immigrant who organizes for PCUN, as well as volunteers her services as an indigenous translator for both the consulate and the Oregon Law Center. One of her largest projects right now is fighting sexual harassment in the fields and workplace through educational campaigns aimed at both men and women. She told us, with Francisco and Kailey doing excellent translation work, of the discrimination that the indigenous Oaxacans face in the larger Mexican community in both the U.S. and Mexico. Furthermore, the language barrier often prevents migrants from knowing their rights, or that they have any rights at all anywhere along their northward journey (most Oaxacans migrate slowly northward in step movements, working and saving money as they go for the eventual border crossing). She told us the story of a single father and friend whose young boy lost an arm to a reckless rancher’s son in a pickup in Guerrero, Mexico. They were refused health care several times for being poor and indigenous. The father couldn’t go to court because he doesn’t speak Spanish, and the pesos the rancher gave him aren’t even enough to buy a prosthetic limb. “It breaks my heart,” she says, “and there are many like this. It makes me feel and this is why I help my community . . . I am a mother, and this is no tragedy any parent should have to suffer.” She also explained to us many facets of Oaxacan culture and how the indigenous community inherently runs up against the established system, the one-time colonizer. “And it’s even worse when they don’t speak the language,” she tells us, “so hard to survive.” Finally, she explained the frustration she feels with the Mexican government and the current migrant condition: “They say Mexico is fine, we won’t be affected by the crisis . . . This is wrong. We indigenous people, we are being hurt the worst. They can lay us off without a reason, without any compensation, and we are in the street with nowhere to go, unable to apply for benefits, unable to feed our families.”

When we questioned all three of the kind people that spoke to us about the role WDA and CAUSA could play in assisting Oaxacan organizations, all three spoke of the need for greater collaboration between Oaxacan groups and involved institutions. Carmen pointed out that most migrants want to help, to try to make things better, but they aren’t specialists and don’t know where to start. “You will see,” Francisco told us, “they all want the same thing. They just need a little push.”

Today, Tim explained why he felt the trip was so important and why WDA is on the right track:

I think this trip was especially valuable because, in a relatively short amount of time, we were able to see the complex diversity of perspectives and priorities of the various community partners we will be working with to form a network. These differences illuminate how one of the main challenges of our project may be identifying and emphasizing the common agendas that can serve as a foundation for collaboration. The fact that hometown association goals and projects may be somewhat fragmented in their current state of autonomy also points to need for bringing the various parties together for constructive dialog and cooperative planning, as this project is designed to do.

Gauri also talked about the personal benefits of the short trip for her:

This trip really helped ground the project for me. Everything from revising and finishing the concept paper to meeting people who had worked in the fields really helped get me excited for the project. The fact that Garcia’s organization had plenty of members and human support, but struggled putting together material and developing a logo, while we have an abundance of material but were struggling with membership until recently, made me realize that we have a lot to learn and a lot to offer too.

Before this trip, I think many of us in WDA were struggling with the feeling that this project didn’t have as much of a human aspect or wouldn’t have as much of a direct impact. After spending only two days actually looking at places where migrants live and talking migrants and those who work with them, that feeling is no longer a problem. The talks we had with Ursula, Garcia, and Carmen were inspiring, intentional or not. We’re very excited that the project is finally taking off and had such a good start.

Peace,

John

Immigrant communities face a variety of problems, including a lack of social, economic, and political security that has only been exacerbated by the recent economic downturn. They face problems such as discrimination, atrocious working conditions, legal issues, and difficulty finding housing and jobs, and they have few or no means of redressing these problems. Furthermore, these challenges extend back to the communities of origin, where people suffer from economic stagnation, lack of educational opportunities, poor health care, and a shortage of the technology necessary to move upward in the world.

This year, WDA decided to embark on a project that would work to address these problems, based on the guidance of the communities themselves. Through discourse with Francisco Lopez, the head of the immigrant rights group CAUSA, we discovered that while there are many extant organizations that serve the needs of immigrants, they are often working in isolation or only in conjunction with a few other local groups. The groups we talked to wanted to discover and establish connections between the current hometown associations (HTAs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the governments themselves, and a variety of other charitable, educational, and legal institutions that are highly involved in immigrant affairs. Such connections are eminently important because they allow groups to work together while increasing their capacity to serve; empowering them politically, socially, and economically; and allowing them to concentrate not only on development in countries of origin but also on integration into US communities.

WDA and CAUSA developed a project that will address this need for connection in the community of Pacific Northwest HTAs, NGOs, and other organizations working with immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico. The project has two main components. First, WDA will map all the Oaxacan organizations in Washington and Oregon, both based on their areas of origin and on the services provided and projects undertaken. This will occur both in travel and meetings throughout the Pacific Northwest and in a research trip to visit sending communities in Oaxaca to gather information on the impacts of HTA and NGO projects in January 2010. We will also gather input on the role WDA and CAUSA can play in assisting these organizations, how cooperation between involved organizations would manifest itself, and how they would like to see a cooperative network structured. This research will be followed by the organization of a summit of leaders of HTAs, NGOs, and Oaxacan communities, along with representatives from both governments and other organizations. In this summit, the creation of a federation of these groups will be formalized by the creation of bilateral agreements between Oaxacan leaders and the associations in the Pacific Northwest, linking them all together.

We chose this project for several reasons. Hometown associations are a relatively untapped resource for integration, and most studies concentrate more on their development work in Mexico. Harnessing this potential could allow HTAs to increase their capacity to assist their communities in a variety of ways, such as helping them access legal aid, aiding with translation in Spanish and the large variety of indigenous languages spoken by many immigrants, providing youth and adult education, linking them to health care, and helping migrants stand up for their rights against discrimination in the neighborhood, workplace, and legal system. We specifically chose to work with Oaxacan HTAs and NGOs because they are already well-established, although not well-connected, and thus the creation of a network of these organizations would work well as a template for further networking in different areas of the US and Mexico.

To find out more about the Transnational Community Development Initiative, we strongly encourage you to read the concept paper, which describes the project’s background, timeline, and impact in greater detail. We also encourage you to visit the websites of our partners in this project: CAUSA, Oregon’s Immigrant Rights Coalition; and PCUN, the union of Northwest treeplanters and farmworkers.

In many ways, this benchmark signals a close on our work on the Sadhana project, at least for the time being. The Sadhana project was an ambitious and ultimately successful undertaking, and I would like to congratulate and thank everyone who supported the project. We could not have completed any part of the project, including this report, without the significant hard work and dedication contributed by everyone who has been a part of the WDA team over the past several years. We owe you all our deepest thanks, and it has truly been a pleasure to work with each and every one of you.

- Tim Shadix

This is a very exciting benchmark, especially as we begin our next project, the Transnational Community Development Initiative.

I’m also pleased to report that we’ve been working hard on setting up our new project, and that our fundraising auctions on October 24th and 25th went very well. Many thanks to everyone who donated items and services, and to all those who bought something at the auction!

- Kailey

But I should pause and fill in the newcomers with a brief description of this year’s project. In the Trans-Border Initiative, WDA will be conducting research among the migrant Latino populations of Eastern Washington in an investigation pointed at an eventual project that works to fight economic stagnation in migrant’s home communities in Mexico. Work will begin in earnest as soon as everyone gets back on campus and settled in.

Besides the new project, there is much currently going on with WDA. Look for us at the Student Activities fair on the Cordiner Side Lawn at Whitman on Monday, September 1st from 12-3pm. We would love to have some new faces to start off the year. Also, as I mentioned before in the last May post, for the first year ever WDA will be working with a Board of Advisers to plan for the future, get advice on the project and finances, and to have central, organized access to a wealth of knowledge and experience. The board is made up of volunteer faculty members and we are excited to announce this productive addition to the organization.

Also, WDA is looking to revamp its website in the near future, and is on the hunt for a student web designer who would like to join the organization and work with us on designing and launching a new site. Of course, we would love someone who wanted to work on the project as well, but I wouldn’t call it an obligation at this point. Please email me at johnloranger@whitmandirectaction.org if you’re interested or have someone to recommend we contact.

That’s basically it for now. Look for much more in the near future!
Peace and Love,
John

Creating this publication was by no means an easy endeavor.  After more than one missed school assignment and a couple of all-nighters in the library working tirelessly with Jessie Conrad, Jyotsna Shivanandan, and the rest of the WDA Team to get the book ready for publication, Tim Shadix had this to say about the effort:

I feel the small sacrifices we made were more than paid off in seeing the final product published.  It is immensely satisfying to have a concrete object, a book that I must say looks pretty smart, to present for all of our hard work.  The greatest goal and the most rewarding achievement of the book has been to provide both a forum for NGOs to share their experiences and, we hope, a catalyst of conversation and collaboration. All of the speakers at our Mumbai conference were experts in their own right on a particular aspect of the water issue, but so too were the members of the audience representing many NGOs that have been diligently tackling the issue for years.  In addition to giving our speakers a venue to share their knowledge, we conceived of the Water Book as another forum in which the rich experiences of the NGOs and the many lessons they have learned could be brought to light.

Producing this publication was largely a community effort.  First and foremost, we would like to extend a warm thanks to all the book’s invaluable contributors.  Thanks to the publisher, Smaran Advertising, who was so cooperative with us about getting the book off the computer and into print at such short notice.  And finally, a special thanks goes to ASWC, the Asian Studies Office, and to all those whose effort helped tremendously to make this resource a reality.

The Water Book contains the following chapters, for reading online or download.  We encourage you to check it out, and leave your comments at the end of each:

• Chapter One - Experiences of ARTS in Providing Irrigation Through Small Water Harvesting Structures to Rural Poor in India - ARTS: Action in Rural Technology and Services
• Chapter Two - A NGO’s Initiative on Community Participation on Water Management - Vigyan Vijay Foundation
• Chapter Three - India’s Water Future: Secure or Scarce? - Sudhirendar Sharma
• Chapter Four - Safe Drinking Water Scheme in Villages: A Sustainable 4P Model - Byrraju Foundatation
• Chapter Five - A Case Study of Three Villages under the ‘Pani Thiye Panjo’ Programme: A Multi Institutional Decentralized Solution to Drinking Water Scarcity in Abdasa Taluka, Gujarat - Arghyam
• Chapter Six - Water Security in Thar - GRAVIS
• Chapter Seven - Providing Potable Water to Millions of India’s Rural Poor: Creating Models for Sustainable Development - Bala Vikasa
• Chapter Eight - Clean Water by Riverbank Filtration - Dr. Thomas Boving
• Chapter Nine - Household Water Treatment: A Summary of Methods and Techniques - Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST)

We encourage you to share this resource to colleagues and friends.  Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

We’ve had a few meetings since then, mainly dealing with structural issues and picking a project for next year. The board of advisors, comprised of faculty members, WDA is currently forming is one change we are super-excited about. We believe having a diverse group of mentors is going to be extremely beneficial for everyone involved and future projects alike. Tentative positions for people within the group have also been set. They are to ensure that “the ball is never dropped,” not to limit people to one or two certain jobs. Everyone is expected and expecting to play major roles in the actual project itself, as well as helping out with the dirty job of fundraising. The positions are as follows:

• WDA Co-Coordinators: Tim and Jessie
• PR/Technology Coordinator: John
• Grant Writing: Alisha and Melissa
• Budget Coordinator: Dave
• Faculty Communications Coordinator: Gauri
• External Relations: Aisha
• Fundraising Coordinator: Rotating Position
• Project Head: TBD

It should be noted that several members were unable to attend the meeting these roles were assigned.

Perhaps the biggest news to report is that WDA has tentatively decided on its latest project. I am not going to give too much information, mainly because of the uncertain nature of the project at this point in time (it doesn’t even really have a title yet), but we plan to conduct research among the Latino immigrant population in Eastern Washington about their relationships with the communities they come from in Mexico and what they believe would help fight economic stagnation there, with the ultimate goal of implementing a project to that end in a home community in Mexico. Once again, this is a very basic and preliminary project outline, but we’re all eager to immerse ourselves in this venture. Work for the summer has already been set out. Goal number one: Learn Spanish!

Before I go, I would like to mention that we have three seniors leaving us who graduated today, Jyotsna, Yukta, and Joseph. No words I could write have the ability to describe how absolutely wonderful these three are in every single way. So instead of trying, I will only say that they touched every single person in WDA’s life in so many ways and that their contributions to WDA, Whitman, and the human community will live on long after they leave this place. On behalf of the group, congratulations. You will be missed.

Peace and Love to all,
John

This is just a little update for those who couldn’t make it to the meeting yesterday. We discussed our project ideas a little further, but, obviously, came to no conclusions.

The Ashraya proposal is still on the table. We’re thinking if we pursue it, we will probably take an adult literacy/education program approach or a YDI-style approach, either targeting youth or adults within the slum, or both in the slum and in the city of Pune. See the Google Doc on our conversation with Daniel (our contact with Ashraya) for more details. If attempt to integrate city-dwellers into our program, we anticipate caste-conflict issues. This is something we thought we might look at more closely this week.

We talked a bit about the Northern Uganda Microfinance Initiative, and John said he will be learning more about safety hazards and possible looking for a new location this week.

Tim introduced a few new ideas, and plans to make them a little more concrete by the end of this week. They involve immigration issues and may incorporate a domestic research component and abroad implementation.

We spoke about grants and thought we should get the ball rolling on that since there are some grants available that don’t require us to have nailed down a project. I plan to contact the Grants and Fellowships office before I leave and get some helpful materials.

Finally, we had some thoughts on activism. The following questions were brought up:

• Does WDA want to provide basic needs (like food, water, shelter), or are we open to secondary needs like literacy?
• Is literacy/education a secondary need?
• What systemic factors contibute to an environment in which basic needs (like food, water, shelter) are not being met?
• Is meaningful activism about attacking the largest problems, or is it about using your resources in the most appropriate way possible?

At the end of the meeting we though each member should think about these questions, think about, based on his/her idea of meaningful activism, which project is most enticing. We hoped we could regroup this Friday for further discussion and perhaps some more direction for the summer.

Hope you’re all enjoying the last day of finals!
Melissa

After hundreds of hours of volunteer work, WDA members Jessie Conrad, Tim Shadix, Jyotsna Shivanandan, Yukta Kumar, Daniel Bachhuber and Dr. Raechelle Mascarenhas utilized these funds to travel to India and work directly with the community members and NGOs their project aims to help.

John Loranger
Melissa Rhodes

Location

Northern Uganda - Acholi internally displaced person (IDP) camps; re-inhabited rural Acholi villages

Time & Duration

Summer/Fall 2008 - Initiate research, establish relationship with partner organization
Summer 2009 - Travel to Uganda (on-site surveying, implementation)
Summer 2009-Fall/Spring 2010 - Wrap-up work, publication/distribution of study

Potential Project Partner(s)*

COVOL Uganda, BRAC Uganda, Life in Africa

*Though we believe in the potential for reliable relationships with these organizations (only a few from a long list of possibilities), we should point out that we do not have any contacts with them (Jyotsna?)

Type of Project

WDA will travel to northern Uganda to research the financial service needs of the rural poor, either in Acholi villages being reinhabited and rebuilt after a twelve year exodus, or in one of the clusters of internally displaced person (IDP) camps in the region. We will most likely be working in either the Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, or Lira districts of northern Uganda. This month or so of research will help us to adjust/perfect our approach toward ultimately collaborating with our partner organization to provide two types of microfinance services to the Acholi people: individual microcredit loans and solidarity group revolving loan funds (RLFs)*. Ideally, WDA will provide the impetus and initial groundwork for this organization to open a sustainable microfinance center in the chosen location.

The question remains: What can we, as Whitman College students, uniquely offer? John and I have just been struggling over this. It seems that the project outlined above is a strong one, but could be performed by almost any service organization with proper funding. We’ve thought of the following element that might make our efforts particularly meaningful: In addition to an appraisal of the financial service needs of the rural poor, we will provide an intimate look at the human rights issues involved and an academic assessment of the cultural, political, religious, and social inhibitors to this type of aid in the region to be distributed among NGOs (we realize this idea sounds SHOCKINGLY similar to the study currently being compiled for the SCWP, but we think it might be equally appropriate here). We recognize this piece of the project to be most in need of deliberation.

*About Revolving Loan Funds (RLFs):

The Process of establishing a Solidarity RLF Group

Introducing the RLF Idea
This is gathering support and educating / training the community about what the group is and how it would operate. Usually this is done through meetings that inform the community about what an RLF is, how it works, and the long-term benefits to the community.

Forming a group of participants
This group forms voluntarily out of interested and willing members of the community. The advisors do not pick the group, they encourage its organic formation by individuals.

Loan Applications
After the group is constructed, a few members are chosen by the group or advisors, who then fill out the loan application, most likely with assistance from the advisors. The group then selects one or two applicants to receive the first loan(s).

Training
?

Amount
The amount is extremely dependent on the current financial situation of the applicant, as well as the amount of funds we have raised and number of loans we are giving out.

Interest Rates
The interest rates on the loans is usually set at or above local levels of commercial banks.

Loan Repayment
Repayment plans are dependent on many variables: the economic situation of the loan recipients, the type of business and time frame (the agricultural cycle, for instance), and the recipient’s current income.

New Loans
New loans applications are reviewed and funds dispersed by the group only after all outstanding loans have been repaid.

More details will be added to the Establishing RLFs section above over the next few days.

Established Need For Project (Background)

Uganda was a British colony until 1962. During the period of colonial rule, the British focused heavily on political and economic development among the southern Baganda people and used the northern Acholi people primarily for manual labor and the armed services. When Uganda was granted independence, a large chasm existed between the northern and southern peoples, and there were coups and counter-coups for a decade, with no group able to establish an effective government.

In 1971, Idi Amin seized power through a military coup and ruled Uganda with an iron fist. He is known for political repression, expulsion of Indians from the country, ethnic killings and persecution (especially of the Acholi and Lango peoples), torture, and numerous other human rights abuses; estimates of the dead range from 100,000 to 500,000. He was deposed in 1979 and the first Ugandan president, Milton Obote, was restored. He ruled until 1985 when Tito Okello took power in a coup and ruled for six months, until Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Army took power.

Museveni, a southerner, has been in power since 1986. In 1987, the Acholi guerilla leader, Joseph Kony, founded a group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to fight against the Ugandan government with the goal of establishing a theocracy based on the ten commandments and Acholi tradition. It is important to note that the Acholi population of northern Uganda did not support Kony; they wanted peace. This is one of the main reasons Kony and the LRA have abducted around 66,000 children to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves in their ranks, not to mention thousands of adults. The LRA felt it was betrayed by its own people and waged a brutal campaign of terror against the Acholi.

President Museveni, in an attempt to protect the Acholi, forced the population into IDP camps in 1996 in the wake of massive abductions and massacres of Acholi men, women, and children, by the LRA. Another major factor was the Museveni government’s belief that the Acholi might cooperate with the LRA, and wanted to separate civilians from rebels as much as possible. However, the camps have proven anything but safe. LRA massacres and abductions have occured inside the camps, devastating and deadly fires are common due to the grass roofs of the closely spaced huts, disease runs rampant, there is barely enough food, little work, limited educational opportunity, and overall horrid living conditions. Many of the people living in the camps are orphans.

In recent years, the situation has improved due to international aid relief efforts, especially in the areas of food, clothing, medicine, and more educational opportunities. Still, the situation remains dire; many starve to death or die of disease, there are not enough teachers or schools to educate close to all the children, and if there were, most couldn’t afford to pay the school fees. Security has also improved due to the military success of the Ugandan government, and in 2006 the government told the 1.7 million people in IDP camps they could begin returning home to the war-ravaged villages that have been empty for over a decade. While some people have begun to return home and begin the overwhelming task of rebuilding, hundreds of thousands still remain in the squalid camps.

A ceasefire that is the cause of the current peace expired April 10, and Kony has failed yet again to come in and sign a permanent peace accord at the ongoing Juba Peace Talks. The latest deadline was April 15th. Because Museveni refuses to sign the peace accord before Kony does and the ceasefire has expired, the chance of lasting peace weakens each day. In other words, the people that have returned to their homes may not be there long. This means we should leave the option of providing microfinance within the an IDP camp open. The 21 year civil war has most seriously affected those populations least responsible for it. Families are destroyed, a generation is left irreparably scarred, northern Uganda’s environment and economy are devastated, and civilians continue to suffer incredible human rights atrocities.

This is an extremely brief and basic history of post-colonial Uganda and the current situation. If the history of this sadly underreported situation is something that you would like to read more about, please visit resolveuganda.org/history. This is one of the most extensive sites we have found.

Rough Cost Estimate

TBD?

Implementation

Members of WDA will travel to northern Uganda during Summer 2009 to work with a partner organization to survey the specific financial needs of the community, build ground support and interest within the target population, distribute loan applications, and, in addition to awarding individual microcredit loans, construct a solidarity group RLF. We will eventually release funds to both the successful loan applicants and the RLF group, effectively establishing a new microfinance center in the region to be operated by our partner organization.

Expected Impact

While hundreds of thousands of Acholis remain in IDP camps, many are returning to their home villages. These communities, facing daunting reconstruction, are some of the most lucrative settings for microfinancial aid. By providing essential, otherwise unavailable financial services, we hope to assist the Acholi people as they emerge from years of gross abuse and attempt to start anew. We hope to engage with the cultural, political, and social climate of this region in the most conscientious and unique way possible and provide regional/international NGOs with critical insight into this long-ignored crisis.

Things to Consider

• Should we consider providing business training for loan recipients/RLF groups?
• Is this a stable enough environment work in?
• Are we spreading ourselves too thin?
• Is a “study” really something that regional/international NGOs need?
• How can we “engage in the cultural, political, and social climate of this region in the most conscientious and unique way possible”?

On his first trip to India, Tim Shadix may seem like an average American tourist. But this student of politics major in Whitman College, Walla Walla, US, has come down with a purpose, a social one at that. And he is not alone.

Read the whole thing on their website!

For coverage we’ve received in the past, please visit our pressroom.

Travel: The trans-continental flight was dreadful as usual. One would think that a person would get used to these 24+ hour flights, but they prove to still be extremely agonizing. This time around the flights were a little more fun because of the company I had… almost missing our Seattle-Paris sector - not so much fun.

Day 1 - Monday: After our Air France luggage catastrophe, Tim and I set to work on the Water Book for about 12 hours straight. We formatted and edited and formatted some more to get the manuscript in time to the Mr. Anand Narsule, our publisher. I do not want to elaborate much more on this day partially because of the horrible memories but also because I figure Tim will be writing about the long, bleary-eyed hours that comprised our first day here. We were scheduled to leave for MUWCI the next day at noon with all the luggage. Ahh… sleep.

Day 2 - Tuesday: Early during the day Tim and I went out to hit the ATM machine up after attending to WDA emails. We needed to pay my father for the Worli Guest House accommodation for the rest of the team. We stopped by the mall next to my house to buy a prototype for the conference folders that will carry our Orientation packet. Tim also bought some formal clothes for a steal. We came back home to find out that the misplaced luggage would not arrive today, but would come the following day. Okay, one more day in Mumbai. This actually came as a boon to me because I realized the previous day that I had a tonne of conference logistics to still take care of. This included booking hotels for the travel scholars, arranging for a banner to advertise our conference, ironing out the food details, buying pens, notepads and folders, arranging for a photographer and videorecorder, etc., etc. Tim was a little disappointed at having to stay another day away from the project down in Kolwan. But, he was great help to me as I needed some help with the conference (Yukta was in MUWCI at this point).

The afternoon consisted of calling up a bunch of hotels to make reservations for our travel scholars. After speaking to a string of extremely rude reception desk workers, I realized that we could not make reservations on the phone or via the internet. I guess it was presumptuous for me to think that it would be possible to do so here. I also was quickly learning that finding hotel rooms was more difficult than I thought. Rooms get booked here long in advance. Okay, so Tim and I put on our WDA faces to hunt for rooms in Mumbai. Having my father send us people from his office was a REAL help. We first went to the Andhra Mahasabha which was a hall with attached boarding. This place had very attractive prices, but the only deal was that it was a dormitory set-up which would not roll with the travel scholars comprised of men and women. I cannot imagine co-ed sleeping arrangements rolling very well with our NGO attendees from obscure little towns in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh! The double rooms available were not sufficient in number. So, we took the recommendation the manager had for us to look for another boarding lodge a couple of blocks down. Tim, I and company arrived at the South Indian Concerns Ltd. at around 4pm. After much confusion regarding the exact number of people we needed to book for March 18th and March 19th respectively (oh how we wished Yuks was with us) we got all the bookings done.

We came home and found ourselves with a moment to breathe. Tim and I thought it might be fun to watch a movie, I was ready to take him on a 4 hour long Bollywood soujourn, but alas there were no appropriate show timings…I think Tim was secretly glad about this.

Day 3 - Wednesday: I woke up real early to see if our bags had found their way to my house, but in vain. Only Yukta and my bags were here. Tim and Jessie would have to wait another day (?) or so for their bags to get here. After consulting with Tim, we decided that it was time for us to leave for MUWCI, bag or no bag. My mum offered Tim a few of my dads huge t-shirts and off we went.

We got to MUWCI around noon to reunite with the rest of the team. I do not think WDA members have ever been this happy to see each other! I decided to accompany Daniel to the villages for water testing. It was a real trip down nostalgia lane for me to be visiting my old high school and all the villages in the surrounding community again. After organizing the needed water testing equipment, Lifewater testing kits included, we set off into the dusty valley at around 2pm. We hit one water source in around 5 villages. With the help of Hasmukh, a Sadhana Village worker who was helping WDA as a translator, we managed to cover one water source in 5 of the villages in Kolwan. Quite an educational experience on and all. I learnt quite a bit about the water scene from talking with Hasmukh.

We got back to campus with enough time for me to have a shower and a ten minute unwind session with Tim and Yukta at the library lawn (my favorite place in the whole wide universe) before we grabbed dinner at the cafeteria. Never before has MUWCI food tasted so good to me! The WDA team assembled back at the lawn for our “marathon meeting” at 8pm. We needed to give each other updates and have a general talk since this was the first time we all were together in India.

I think our meeting served us in an excellent way for everyone present to get a clearer idea of the agenda for the project that we were already knee-deep in. Arguably, the most important WDA meeting this team has had… Sleepy time.

Day 4 - Thursday: The whole team and I assembled for breakfast at 8am. Afer a bit of fooling around, Daniel brought us down to business. Tim, Jessie and Daniel needed to sketch out their day. Yukta and I were going to stay back on campus, to take advantage of the fast internet connection, in order to attend to conference logistics.

Our 9am meeting with Dr.Wilkinson, my high school headmaster, went smoothly. He basically wanted the low-down on WDA and what we were up to in the Kolwan Valley. This was basically a great opportunity for us to thank him for the hospitality and comfort the school has shown us. Being an alum now, I was allowed to peek into the fabulous lives that can be lead in MUWCI guesthouses (for a thorough run down on the resort-esque feel that MUWCI has, please reconfirm details with Yukta and company who fell in love with the pool).

Yukta and I spent about 3 hours just attending to WDA emails. I am now hit with the fact that I need to buy a business class ticket for Suresh Prabhu to speak at the conference. Ouch! Hopefully, I can try and get this money reimbursed. Thankfully, we have not tapped into our speaker budget as yet. We left immediately after lunch. I arrive home 5 missed calls from our not-so-happy publisher. The fact that I did not have mobile phone reception in MUWCI did not allow me to follow up with him and put a delay on the proceedings of the book. It’s all good, we are still scheduled to have our book in time. Mr. Anand just wanted me to look at the revised manuscript before he starts to publish all 220 of them.

I was a little shocked to see that he had taken the liberty to completely re-do the cover of the book. Sorry Joe! I know you put in a lot of work into the cover, but he said that it was of lower resolution and would not look as great as the new cover. The fact that he printed them left me with no choice but to okay it.

Day 5 - Friday: I met with the printer at 9:30 am to look at the physical copy of the book. It actually looks very professional. I cannot wait to have the rest of the team look at it. Yukta and I hitched a ride with my parents into town as we had to meet the conference hall manager. We arrived at the Nehru Centre at 11:30 to re-check the hall settings, arrange for registration tables, look at projector-laptop compatibility etc. We also spoke to the caterers to fix the lunch menu. We have now reduced the number of lunch plates from 200 to 150. This has been done after consulting Yukta, who has managed the invites for the conference. We have also added a much needed “tea break” in between lectures. We are still committed to $1,500 and the rest will be taken care by a sponsor found by my dad.

In honor of Yukta’s birthday today, my parents treat us to lunch in my favorite Chinese restaurant- Ling’s Pavilion. Oooh, the mud cake…!

We get back home in Thane in time for me to add rooms for more travel scholars that Yukta informed me of recently…

On and all the conference is talking shape, but I am constantly run down with taking care of small details that I did not foresee. It’s going to be a tough couple of days ahead. Over and out.

Enough stating the obvious. We’ll see what we can cover in the short weeks we have.

I arrived on Saturday to the warm hospitality of Anat and everyone else at MUWCI. My travel plans apparently weren’t communicated clearly, yet they quickly sent a jeep down to Paud village to come pick me up. A couple of hours later, another mixup of times and appointments, I rode back down the hill with Maya and Samir of the Comm-d team to meet with Medathai of Sadhana Village.

Our meeting went much better than I expected, maybe again because I didn’t know what to expect to begin with, and conversation flowed, well, like water. The first topic was on how well the survey groups went, and then we drifted towards designing the focus groups like a ship to rocks. The challenge was not a conflict of opinions, rather it was a lack of understanding of the valley. On my part. I could not voice what groups we wanted to include in discussion nor what answers we hoped to come of the meetings.

The following couple of days were then partially dedicated to developing a plan of attack. We needed questions which would preferably follow up on issues raised during the survey but would also provoke discussion, not responses of two or three sentences. Our goal was and is to inspire passionate debate about water access.

For the most part, the focus groups have been a mixture of both, a nice broth of success I could’ve guessed would happen. In order to ask the bigger questions about a community dynamic, we need to first understand how the community works. How it functions. Where they go for their milk. The format to achieve this, or at least what we’ve learned over the previous two days, is as follows: the participants, a Marathi speaker to lead discussion and ask questions, a few note takers, and a couple more observers to create inane questions to ask. In all honesty, the afternoon sessions we’ve conducted have been thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. The villagers appreciate us asking about their water situation, and we wonder at the marvelous insights the responses offer.

A question has been raised as to whether we are actually conducting focus groups or just holding interviews. For instance, the very first conversation we had was with the pipe manager from Chikalgaon. He is paid to turn the pump on and off every morning. To begin to understand the issues faced by the village, we had to first know how the distribution system works. The bulk of our discussion with him revolved around these specifics, as opposed to questions like, “How do you rate water issues compared to kid’s education, healthcare, women’s rights, etc?” Yet, at the same time, we gained far more practical, useful information from the dialogue than if we had forced an abstract subject. It illustrates the most pertinent issue, too; because water access in the valley is an everyday challenge, the things the villagers are most worried about are the simple details.

When I met with Ashwin of Gomukh on Monday, we spent a bulk of our two hours talking about the project’s established focus, the “cultural, social, and religious constraints to Appropriate Water Technology.” His argument, if I can try to paraphrase and summarise it correctly, is that the sentence itself seems to imply there are faults within Indian culture, society, and religion themselves which are the sources of issues related to water access. In this hypothetical scenario, for instance, religion would say only specific castes should have access to a certain water source. In reality, this is not the case and it is the complex social institution I am at no liberty to try and describe which causes these injustices. Seeing his point, I now realise it is difficult to delineate between his reading and our intended presentation. I think this type of misunderstanding will be the topic of a few pages for the report.

The dirtiest task I’ve had to take the lead on while at MUWCI is digitizing the data we’ve collected. Results from 141 surveys need to be painstakingly hand-typed into the ad-hoc spreadsheet we’re using for storage at the moment. As I write this, there have been two Comm-d students working beside me for the past hour on one a piece. Needless to say, it is somewhat of black hole. They aren’t the only information which should be put online either, there are now pages of notes from the focus groups in good ol’ fashioned handwriting. After finishing Natural Capitalism, I’ve prided myself in being able to look at systems and find easier and more efficient ways to achieve the same aims. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a method of dodging grunt work.

And to think the rest of the team was worried they wouldn’t enough work to do. The next week and a half will be filled with even more discussions, testing, and data compilation than the past few days. I guess we’ll write the report when we have time, eh?

Although I can’t speak Marathi, I still feel I’m learning something from this experience. Firstly I learn a lot about doing surveys, with that I mean, assessing who to approach, being aware of how you pose a question (the surveyor for instance has to understand the purpose of the question to be able to pose it) and also discovering the thin line of what you can and can’t ask sometimes, addressing the taboos without offending anyone. Also when doing the survey I found out the importance of knowing the communities well, that otherwise there is a big chance that your questions might be misinterpreted. Even more this experience has taught me a lot about the daily life of the communities in Kolwan Valley because although one might say the glasses of water they drink per day is not really going to give you an isight in to their lifes, partly it did. Collecting water is an important part of their daily routine, similiarly with other questions I did feel I got a better view of what their day actually looks like.

During the water surveys I usually had the task of writing down the answers to the questions, a task that seems simple enough but actually wasn’t. Except for the obvious difficulties of having to try to distinguish in the fast conversation between English and Marathi it was also trying to get the answers of the people down as accurately as possible. Again lost in translation-related issues, but also sometimes selecting what is relevant to the survey (is it important enough to mention that the Sacred Grove nearby is annually used for an animal fair?!) and what is irrelevant.

Lastly, I learned where their water is usually from and how they get it and was therefore able to compare it our situation here, and my lack of knowledge on that. Just to compare:

(village) From the river Muslhi in to a well, add tablets to well, have pipes from well to water pump, go from house (10 min) to well with three buckets between specific two hour period that it is open, walk back with 60 litre of water on head

(us) Walk outside the door and open the tap

Written by Ernestine, Comm-d Group

As hinted to in previous writing and correspondence, Mahindra United World College of India is literally on top of a hill. Not a lumpy thing, its sides slope upwards quite steeply and the campus is accessible by a 5 KM road winding up from the nearest village of Paud. The hill itself is in a valley boxed in by ridges much like the Portland to Walla Walla drive, maybe a wee bit higher. The college is on the side of the millton (hill/mountain) facing Pune; the basin in the opposing direction, behind MUWCI, is the Kolwan Valley.

From my vantage point near the top earlier this evening, it looks as though there is one major river winding through the basin. Most areas surrounding the water are green rice fields and browning bald spots. As you look higher up on the sides enclosing the valley system, it becomes increasingly more and more barren. Oddly enough, there are patches of trees scattered here and there. I also heard, in contrast, that the entire area is a bright green in the months following the monsoon. Unfortunately, there is very, very little rain during the 8 dry months.

Involved with implementing the survey are 20+ MUWCI students. Teams have been going out every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 1430 and return at 1700. One source of difficulty is that few of the community development team (”com-d” for short) speak Marathi, the local language. The implementing teams can usually talk 2 to 3 people into going out each afternoon, but it does not consistently mean the same surveyors with the same experience.

We went out this afternoon to a village called Kalmuli (spelled phonetically) which is just near the base of the hill. Since Ashwin of Gomukh has graciously offered to help us survey the Kolwan Valley, teams from MUWCI will now take villages within a 10 KM distance and social workers who are friends of Ashwin will help procure results beyond that point. Upon arriving at the village, we looked for the contact we had on the list of villages but could not find him. I believe if we had he would’ve been able to point to which households should be queried and the like. Apparently not finding the contact is common. Our survey respondents were then found by splitting into two groups of three and wandering the village randomly.

The first person we came in contact with knew how to read Marathi. We left the survey with him and moved on to find another household. At the second household, we interviewed a woman in her later years. From my observations, it seems as if almost fifty percent of the questions require some form of follow up statement to either clarify the question or clarify what we want in our response. Since we are now using Gomukh’s version of the survey, I am unsure as to whether this confusion is because of the wording of the questions or the topics themselves. At a com-d meeting this evening, we decided we would stick with this version of the survey all of the way through so that we don’t have yet another one to contend with when compiling results. Any questions we would like to clarify on we will do so during the focus groups.

As I’ve mentioned before, these are the constraints MUWCI has come across so far:

• Not having enough people who speak Marathi to translate
• Not having substantial time to implement the survey
• Questions which are vaguely worded or have unclear objectives

I’m sure there are more but I am blanking at the moment. I will let others clarify in the comments.

From here, the tentative plan is to:

1. Continue implementing the survey for the next ten days
2. Start typing and compiling results in that time period
3. Start planning how we will schedule the focus groups in that same time period
4. Implement the primary round of focus groups with MUWCI during the 1st through 6th
5. Implement secondary round of focus groups with Sadhana and Gomukh beyond 7th
6. Work on compiling other necessary materials for report beyond that date
7. Stakeholder meeting on either 16th or 17th to discuss results and implication of survey

All of that being said, it is hot, dusty, and pretty ballin’. I’m excited to see the tentative results of the survey because I haven’t yet already. There should be some pretty interesting stuff we come up with.

One Love,
John

Designing the media for this even has been my job. It was a huge undertaking that I got done in just a few days and I am extremely happy with how everything turned out. We have big posters, table toppers, flyers, mailbox stuffers and brochures. In addition to this media, the Kappas are sending out e-mails on all their list servs, making a facebook.com page, and spreading the event via word of mouth. We are also trying to get a Pioneer (Whitman’s campus newspaper) article written.

I have recently stepped back from the rest of the fundraising endeavors quite substantially and I am excited to see who steps up as a main leader to make this event happen well.

Agenda/Minutes [More →]

Start time: 8pm
Location: Reid

Add anything to the agenda? Ask around - 2 minutes

Report on previous action items - 10 minutes

• Conference application and travel scholarship adden-didi-dum
  • Review and set mailing date
• Hella-legit Letterhead

Conference - 10 minutes

• UWC, WDA, Sadhana to give the introduction speech during the morning
• Report on lunch situation: Find new location (refund conference hall deposit?)? What will be cheapest: relocating or busing people to lunch?
  • Best case scenario: Nehru cuts lunch costs
  • Second best scenario: Relocating to a place where the conference and lunch can be in the same place
  • Worst scenario: Splitting the group up and busing to other restaurants
• Report on confirmed speakers/speech topics and titles
  • Ajit Nimbalkar: “Water Scenario of Maharashtra and the Regulatory Framework”
  • Raechelle Mascarenhas
  • Shyam Divan: “Water Rights and Jurisprudence”
  • Suresh Prabhu:
• Report on confirmed attendees
  • Indicate on SCWP spreadsheet
  • Look at asking more people from Maharashtra to attend (esp. because we have a speaker addressing the region)
  • Subscribe to IndianNGOs.com
• Afternoon workshops
  • CAWST (Successful Technology presentation Bio-Sand Filter)
  • Urban Rainwater Collection: Tim’s contact
• Closing Session: Give the run-down on the water book

Travel Scholarships

• Reimbursing NGOs if they can produce receipts?
• App. Question: What are they doing to raise money in order to participate in the conference?
• Hotels?
  • Joey will research prices

Study group - 10 minutes

• Report on survey draft
  • Jessie and Tim: Review and give Joey feedback
• (Daniel) Where do we stand with Vasant?
• When will UWC begin issuing the survey?
  • UWC resumes on January 19th
  • Schedule WDA call to UWC later this week (Joey will email Anat to find time)

Water book - 15 minutes

• When will we send it out?
  • Showcase the book online before the conference
  • Hand out hard copies at the conference
• Publish in India
• Define scope: Will we stick to NGO chapters and/or include speeches and a directory of NGO contact information
• Report on NGOs who’ve agreed to write a chapter: 4 NGOs confirmed
  • Indicate on SCWP spreadsheet
• To split, or
• Outline structure
• Resources to include?
• Timeline/ list of todos

Outside advisory - 4 minutes

• Mr. Lal has offered to help, what questions should I ask?
• Perhaps he can facilitate invitations
• USE OUR NETWORKS! We should start asking our contacts in India to invite other NGOs

Study Abroad Approval- Future on-campus grants - 5 minutes

• We have approval which gives us the go-ahead to pursue funding on campus: Bob Carson/Presidents Office
• Are there other grants we would want to pursue?

Budget

• Revise and Redo!: Joey/Jessie/Tim
• $448 for the conference hall

Joe’s Role: Yep

• Building a board of advisors, work study funded through presidents office, write WDA handbook, etc. = codify WDA’s scope

Fundraising status - 10 minutes

• Near future projects: Date Auction 7th/8th
  • Assign project leader to coordinate with Kappas
• Take Action! Grant

January Retreat?

Meeting Time for Core Group

• Once per week: 11:30 on Fridays, 12:00 this coming Friday
• Rotate Core members attendance at Fundraising meetings/Fundraising leader to attend Core members meeting

Daniel’s Itinerary

• WDA to reimburse Daniel’s VISA
• Leaving Feb 5th, will be in Pune on the 2nd

End time: 945

Action Items [More →]

• Background research (Everyone)
  • read Melissa’s findings!
• Write formal invitation: Yukta
• Revise Applications: Tim and Jessie
• Meet with Raechelle to determine flights and purchase tickets
• Secure Visas ASAP: Use Traveldocs.com
• Schedule meeting on Saturday to talk with Fundraising group 1:30 pm
• Joey to figure out lunch situation

• Tim Shadix (via telephone)
• Jessie Conrad (via telephone)
• Daniel Bachhuber (via telephone)

Agenda/Minutes
Conference problem with lunches

• Lunch is going to cost us $13 a head which comes out to an extra $2700
• Options
  • Cut conference in half (i.e. only have a morning session)
  • Take people from the Science Centre to somewhere else
    • Networking sesh/get to know each other on the bus, dynamic seating arrangement at lunch

Application we want to create for NP’s to attend the conference

• One application for the conference and an addendum for a travel scholarship
• Conference application includes
  • Basic contact info
  • Paragraph about the NGO
  • Paragraph about the region they operate in
  • Paragraph about their keystone water projects
  • How many people they want to send/ interested in attending
• Travel scholarship application includes
  • Location
  • A paragraph about why they need a travel scholarship (or some way to demonstrate need)
  • What sort of travel conditions/ accommodations they are willing to accept

Travel scholarships

• Our budget says we have $2500 for these, but then again our budget needs an audit

Restructuring the water book

• Jessie’s idea (more of a directory for conference attendees)
  • Part one: name of NGO, paragraph description
  • Also include text from speeches, or essays from speakers
  • Text and synthesizes of workshops
• If we have time: massive case study book
  • Initial content will be compiled before conference
  • Interviews of the NGOs involved at the conference
  • Editing and publication in the two months after the conference
• Conclusion: go forth with first idea and, although we like the second idea, we need to discuss it with WDA

Action items

• Letterhead for formal invites (Jessie)
• Conference NGO application (Tim)
• Travel application addendum (Jessie)