women of Kireka — Ethnic Supplies

The women who survived #Kony’s war

March 8, 2012 By idahorner 8 Comments

It is International Women’s Day today and as usual I am in a reflective mood, precisely that what does this all mean for women in Africa. In my first post on IWD over at Africa on the Blog I ask the question

What can we do to ensure that the world of the African woman who has no property rights, access to education, independent income etc, converges with the rest of the world?

Whilst I was still pondering this an almighty row broke out in cyber space regarding an American based NGO called Invisible Children (IC). The NGO posted a video in which they tell the story of the war of Northern Uganda, specifically the abduction of children who were then forced to serve as child soldiers in Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). You can watch the video here

The video went viral so much has been said elsewhere, so it is not my intention to rehash what has been said already. The video has caused so much anguish, shock and disgust from many quarters for one reason or another. The war in Northern Uganda went on for 26 years and injured women and children both physically and emotionally and for this I have questioned the motivation of IC to issue a video that deals with a terrible time in Uganda’s history.

I have seen the pain of those that suffered at the hands of Kony and his Lords Resistance Army and I am privileged to work with some of those women who survived that war. We call them the Women Of Kireka and you can hear one of my conversations with them in this video

These are proud women who have against the odds worked to put the past behind them and forge a new life for themselves in Kireka a suburb or Kampala the capital of Uganda. This is not to say that they have forgotten what they went through, how can they? Some lost entire clans, husbands, children and neighbours etc

Although I have been through a war when our village was under siege for 4 months in the war that brought in Museveni, I can’t begin to imagine what these women went through or how it is that they are not outwardly angry at the whole world for allowing this to happen to them and I will never know what that was like for them.

That an International NGO that should know better has chosen to make people like the Women of Kireka relieve this pain has left me and most Ugandan’s seething with anger. In doing this IC is preventing us from moving on and appears keen on holding Northern Uganda back even though the people of Northern Uganda are working hard to rebuild their lives. I ask again WHAT IS IC’S MOTIVATION?

I also have to ask what we as Ugandans/ Africans going to do about this?

I strongly believe that IC and such like must be stopped from misrepresenting our continent in this way.

I am keen to hear your thoughts on this matter

As suggested by Joanne you can help these women by making a donation. The money will be put towards sewing machines which is something the women are desperate to acquire so that they can expand their business. If you do make donation please use WOK as your reference so we can allocate the money appropriately

Filed Under: African women, Latest Tagged With: Africa, INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S FAY, Invisible Children, Kony, KONY2012, LRA, Uganda, women of Kireka

Women Of Kireka- Uganda’s Internally displaced refugees

September 8, 2010 By idahorner 4 Comments

The current President of Uganda came to power in 1985 in a bloody civil war that saw the end of the rule of Milton Obote’s UPC party. Whilst the rest of the country has enjoyed relative peace for most of that time this has not been the case in Northern Uganda in fact if you visited the North and South a few years ago you could be forgiven for thinking that you were in fact in two different countries altogether. The 20 year war against Kony, he of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) created several refugees within the country and some of these made their way to other parts of the country.

A chance encounter of twitter with @tmsruge last year led me directly to the door step of internally displaced refuges. That you can be a refuge in your own country sounds like an oxymoron if I ever heard one but there we are.

The Women and their children from northern Uganda settled on a quarry in Kireka a suburb of Kampala and thus the name of the project WOMEN OF KIREKA and here is a conversation I had with Tracy Pell founding member of Project Diaspora

The question I put to Tracey was very simple- What is the story behind the quarry, how and why did you guys get involved in this group and how did they end up here?

Tracey: The story behind the quarry is a bit hard to dig up. There are rumors that it is owned by a member of the royal family living in the UK, or that it recently got bought by a large European conglomerate. Neither Teddy nor I have ever gotten a clear story on that. We probably should try a little harder to find out the real story there.

The women ended up there because they were escaping the war in Northern Uganda. Most of the women’s husbands were kidnapped by the LRA and many of them had their villages destroyed. They escaped to IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps in Kitgum. As you know those camps were pretty crowded etc and so they came to Kampala to get further away from the conflict and the relatively less crowded IDP camp in Kireka.

When Teddy was in Uganda a bit over a year ago we learned of the IPD camp and the quarry from several sources. Glenna Gordon (aka Uganda’s Scarlett Lion) an American journalist living and working in Kampala at the time she had worked on a story about the quarry and then Teddy met Siena Anstis (now one of our team members) and she had met Beatrice a woman working for a local NGO Nuwechi. This group works mostly in Gulu with women in IDP camps, but had this single project in Kampala with these displaced women working in the Quarry. They had done some ground work with the women and have an existing strong relationship with them (Beatrice speaks their language and is from Gulu). so we got involved and incorporated them into the Project Diaspora.

The goal of the program is to provide the women with skills by which they can earn living wage, support themselves and their children, without the dangers presented to them by the work in the quarry. The pay in the quarry is also extremely low and does not begin to provide a living wage for the women and their families. Most make about 2000 shillings (70p) a day at most. Here is the story about the Quarry that was filed with AP:

Following this conversation with Tracey I agreed to get involved by introducing the women’s jewellery to the UK. I got to meet Tracey in person when she visited the UK in October 2009 exactly 4 months following this conversation and in December of the same year I met up with Teddy in Uganda who took me down to the quarry to visit the women. You can hear the women’s story on the video below.

The moral of this story was raised by Tony Burkson in his post African needs more Aid, the Women of Kireka found themselves run out of their homes by a war that they did not start and possibly didn’t understand and although an awful lot of money was raised for people such as them it did not reach them and as such they have had to eek out a living on a quarry. This is a typical example of why Aid doesn’t work and other ways of ending poverty are required.

Will there be a time when we don’t have Internally displaced refugees, DARFUR, Somalia or DR Congo

Filed Under: Ethical Fashion, Ethics, Ethnic Supplies Product range, Latest, Popular post, Sustainable development, Women in Business Tagged With: Darfur, DR Congo, IDA HORNER, IDPS CAMPS, LRA, NORTHERN UGANDA, TONY BURKSON, Uganda, WOK, women of Kireka, YOWERI MUSEVENI

First Do No Harm

April 1, 2010 By ethnicsupplies 3 Comments

Today’s blog was inspired by a conversation last night with my good friend Teddy of Project Diaspora this was one of those “catch up” sessions that we have once a week or so.

As we are both involved in the Women of Kireka (WOK), it is often the first point of discussion and last night was no different.

I asked Teddy what was new with WOK and as he run me through what his team was doing, one of the points lead us down an exploratory route. Teddy informed me that they were looking at approaching someone in local government to see how the women’s working conditions at the quarry!

The question we had to explore was whether this was the best way to support the women? Are the women looking for improved working conditions on the quarry or would they prefer to earn an income making jewellery? The answer is here. If that is the case isn’t it best to put the resources that we have in ensuring that the women sell more jewellery?

What if we intervened because we feel the working conditions are not up to our western stands and the women lost their slots at the quarry? Can we afford for that to happen right now when work to launch their brand of jewellery is in its infancy?

We considered the lesson that we could take away from the folk at ICT4D and their experience in Zanzibar where they sought to maximise income for the Seaweed pickers.

We concluded that we have to approach everything in the WOK project with an attitude of DO NO HARM and that this would involved understanding what is important to the Women of Kireka and how their community is organised even consider who has clout in this community and why. Above all that it was more important to be lead by the women themselves.

What was interesting about this discussion for me was how many of us in the west often step back and consider the impact of our actions on the communities in developing world that we seek to help?

Why have expressions such as the “so Called do Gooders” sprung up?

Have you got an example of any of the issues raised here? If so Please share it.

Filed Under: Ethics Tagged With: ICT4D, Project Diapsora, TMS Ruge, Uganda, WOK, women of Kireka, Zanzibar