Slates

UNICEF in Chad, like in many other countries gives primary school kits both to Chadian schools and to schools in the camps for refugees from Darfur, Sudan.   

 

These kits usually contain slates and because of the fact that the ordering is often centralized the kit may contain slates whether the teachers in the receiving country use them or not. As it happens, Sudanese teachers do not have a culture of using slates in their teaching.  However, as a colleague showed me, the slates do not go to waste. Four slates laid flat side by side make an excellent table top and these tables are beginning to be found in the small restaurants in the camps, and doubtless in homes. 

 

In this there is a throwback to the donation of cloth number and alphabet charts by UNESCO-PEER amongst others in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa.

 

They made excellent tablecloths and curtains.    

The dangers of tarmacking roads!

When life started coming back to Juba in 2005 (I was one of the first to arrive there by road) they said the motor-bike boys were the cause of AIDS. Juba had been totally enclaved and had virtually no AIDS at all.

They may have been right.

One of the evening roles of motor-bike guys (who are called 'clando-man' here in Chad, motard in Congo. boda-boda boys in most other places) is to bring the guy to the gal or the gal to the guy. We used them as peer educators in Goma and told them to carry condoms to give/sell (and let's face it, use).

Motorcycle-Related Trauma in South Sudan: a cross sectional observational study.

Andrew Allan, University of Birmingham. AXA615@bham.ac.uk

Abstract

Motorcycle related trauma is a major cause of morbidity in those of working age in the developing world1. One

hundred and sixteen patients involved in motorcycle related accidents were identified over four weeks at the Juba

Teaching Hospital in South Sudan. Of these 84% were male with an average age of 26.7 years. Most male

injuries involved drivers, whereas the majority of female injuries were to pedestrians. The commonest injuries

were lacerations, abrasions and fractures, and the commonest regions injured were the lower and upper limbs

and the head and face.

Forty-four patients were admitted to the ward. Forty six percent of men interviewed did not hold a license,

96.5% of drivers and 91.3% of passengers were not wearing a helmet and 24.6% of drivers were under the

influence of alcohol at the time of injury.

The vast majority of accidents occurred on surfaced roads within Central Juba. This study highlights the need

for tighter regulation of motorcycle ownership, usage and personal safety in addition to wider infrastructural

development. In doing this it might be possible to reduce morbidity and the socioeconomic impact on those

involved in motorcycle related accidents and the families who depend on them.

Significant injuries to the head and face were recorded, but no enquiries were made about cognitive impairment.

Organised rehabilitation of those injured needs serious consideration by the Ministry of Health.

Background

A recent influx of petrochemical and charitable

organizations has turned Juba into a crowded

overpopulated city and brought a new wave of

inexperienced motorists. Many young men are

using their motorcycles as makeshift taxis, often

without licences or personal protection. This

coupled with poor road conditions has created a

perfect environment for motorcycle related trauma

(MRT).

The aim of this study was to determine:

1. The extent of the problem of MRT in Juba

2. The demographics of those involved

3. The method and extent of injury and

4. Contributing risk factors.

These data might help to develop a strategy to

reduce MRT and its serious impact on those

involved.

Method

The study took place over four weeks (15th April –

10th May 2009) at Juba Teaching Hospital at the

emergency surgical outpatient department and the

trauma and surgical wards.

To assess how representative these patients were of

the overall road traffic-related trauma caseload,

clinical details of all patients admitted following

road traffic accidents to the surgical and emergency

wards between April 2008 and April 2009 were

examined.

Results

A total of 116 patients were identified over the 4-

week period and 44 (38%) were admitted. All

recorded cases took place between 7.45 and 22.00

hours with a peak time between 12.00 and 16.00

hours. The percent of the accidents occurring at

different locations were:

 main paved roads in central Juba 70.2%

 outskirts of the city on unpaved road 8.8%

 within 10 miles of Juba 10.6%

The remainder occurred over 10 miles from the

hospital.

Characteristics of patients

Of the 116 patients:

 97 (84%) were males and 19 (16%) were

females.

 The average age was 27.4 years for males and

24.1 years for females

 23 were children (<16 years) and 21 were

unemployed. The remainder were students (≥16

years in full time education) or in paid

employment of which 10 were military

personnel.

 58 were drivers (all males), 23 were passengers,

and 35 were pedestrians.

Found in my old papers! School in a Box

Hi friends and colleagues,

 

There has been occasional controversy on the first use of the term and concept of a ‘School in a Box’. 

 

I found this old article from Refugees magazine in 1989 and I am copying it for those (the Anthonies, Elisa) who were involved when we created this powerful response to the way displaced schools were treated in Khartoum, often being bulldozed at 5 minutes’ notice.   The concept was to have everything in a box – but also, sadly to be able to pack the school back into the box and carry it away to a safe place.  Being displaced in Khartoum then, as now, was a very precarious existence. (Anthony Sebit, Anthony Wani and I wrote the study ‘Creating a Future’  at this time describing the state of education for southerners both in the north and in Juba).   

 

The School-in-a-box was accompanied by the ‘Teacher Assistance Course’, for untrained ‘volunteer’ teachers which was written by SOLU (which at that time also initiated the Foundation course for over-age southerners, a modular self-help course, which was widely used and trialled in JRS evening education centres).  

 

This was an ancestor of the current ‘Bon Enseignant’ and ‘Be  Better Teacher’ (written in UNESCO-PEER in Hargeisa) courses.

 

The SOLU integrated package was carried to Somalia by UNESCO-PEER in 1990.   This then with further development became TEP, which was one of the responses to the Rwanda emergency and has now been widely used and developed for example by NRC, with strong emphasis on the training side.  

 

Of course I have oversimplified and there were many valuable contributions to its development, though in some cases it also lost its flexibility and became fossilised.

 

It developed further in Zambia as the Spark/Zedukit Community Schools project, which is still running.  

 

There have been so many subkits (teacher’s kit, pupils’ kit, school kit, sports kit, science kit – the latter goes back a long way with Michael Brophy now of the Africa Educational Trust being an expert).

 

I am in the process of writing all this up and I wonder if anyone can push the dates back earlier and/or fill in more details.

 

In SOLU we would never claim to have originated the idea of a school kit, but we did claim the name!   As they say there are sometimes ‘many fathers’, but at least one agency’s strange claim in their 60^th anniversary publicity to have invented it in Tanzania in 1994 is forgetful of their own important role in developing the concept earlier than that!  

 

Barry

 

From: Barry Sesnan [mailto:bsesnan@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:29 PM
To: 'Vance Culbert'; dabla toure; 'Eldrid Kvamen Midttun'; Solveig Borgenvik Voll
Cc: 'Eva Ahlen'; Tim Brown (brownunhcr@yahoo.com)
Subject: Found in my old papers!

 

The photos were not provided by me.

FW: For all you ex- or would be- AIDS activists

Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman:
"And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?" the reporter
asked.
She simply replied, "No peer pressure."

Barry Sesnan

Loath

From a report:

NGO officials are loath to put a figure on lives potentially saved or

additional people helped if the money spent on transportation went to

food instead, but one analyst said it could roughly double the number

of beneficiaries based on the assumption that 70-80 million people now

receive US food aid annually.

This must be a record, as NGOs are wont to slap a figure usually with a lot of zeroes onto anything that moves (and doesn’t!).  But we know we are still in familiar territory with ‘roughly double’ and then the estimated figure in millions which means that they were not really loath after all.

A different take ...

A different take ...

 

From:  Veronika Fuest, Changing roles and opportunities for women in Liberia, in African Affairs 107/427

Many women have had to resort to prostitution to survive and / or support their families.  However the question may be asked if all these women are to be viewed as just passive victims, or also as agents with the scope to make choices. While I do not want to deny the extensive exploitation by outright or subtle enforcement of prostitution by kin, it should be mentioned that 'loving business', women's profitable utilisation of multiple partnerships with men, has for decades constituted a regular if hidden feature in the income and networking strategies of many women from all quarters of Liberian society.

While some staff of UN organisations, peace-keeping forces and NGOs as well as politicians and businessmen, have been accused of taking advantage of the girls' economic situation, it may be equally true that many girls are taking advantage of the presence of thousands of unattached foreign men with deep pockets rather than – or in addition to – sweating in the rice fields or in the markets, or depending on kin for support.

--
Posted By Barry to Barry's Book on 6/29/2008 09:21:00 PM

At least for boys ...

GLOBAL: Good early nutrition can make you richer

Eating nutritious food at an early age will not only ensure a source of income as an adult but also better pay, according to a study published in the current issue of The Lancet, a leading British medical journal.

The study, conducted in four villages in Guatemala, found that boys who received atole, a gruel made of skimmed milk powder, sugar and vegetable protein, in the first two years of life earned on average 46 percent higher wages as adults, while boys who received atole in their first three years earned 37 percent higher wages on average. Those who first received the supplement after age three did not gain any economic benefits as adults.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76527

The devil is in the details: Assessment and Certification of Education in Difficult Circumstances

When an education system is set up or restored after an emergency, a war or a major population movement, it cannot be long before the twin questions of assessment and certification arise. Assessment may be to establish the quality or the ‘quantity’ of achievement and past learning. It may be for many reasons, from a loss of certificates to a need to identify the right entry point on a new education ladder.

The demand for this assessment may come from the pupils, students or parents; it may also come from education authorities, education committees (official, or representing the affected community) or from a potential benefactor.

Once assessment is possible, certification is usually needed. However, this in itself may not be sufficient unless it is too ‘local and neither internationally recognised nor ‘portable’.

Frequently, even when a system is actually available there are obstacles, bureaucratic, financial or otherwise, which can prevent the usually poor, and certainly powerless candidate from being able to use them.

To give a recent example, the tripartite agreements signed in 2006 between Sudan, UNHCR and former host country like Kenya all contain a small paragraph stating that qualifications obtained while in exile will be recognised in Sudan. However, in practice when the returnee gets back to Sudan, absolutely nothing is in place to ensure that his or her qualification is automatically recognised. No official has been briefed. It can take typically one year of fruitless, and costly, bureaucracy involving both Juba and Khartoum to obtain entry to university or to a college.

To take another pair of examples, the Kenyan education system insists that everyone, foreigner or national must study Swahili and take it in the examination. No exemptions are granted. The Sudan school system insists that you must be a Muslim or a Christian, but provides the Islamic paper only in Arabic (which most returnees don’t know, havng studied Islamic knowledge in Engish in their host countries.)

Finally, to illustrate that sometimes policies can even be contradictory, Congolese refugees in Tanzania followed the Congolese curriculum with the blessing of their hosts. However the authorities in Congo itself would not allow Sudanese refugees to follow their home curriculum!

A common theme in all of these is how easily these problems could have been solved with some effective lobbying and a little good will on each side.

Equally important though, is the need to follow through. Signing something at well-organised ceremony in front of the cameras is certainly not enough. There must be a mechanism to ‘accompany’ the people concerned.

This paper presents a rough analysis of this practical level as it is perceived by the refugee, returnee or displaced person. It seeks to show that ‘the devil is in the details’.

Refugees

especially if they are

• Unable to prove their level of education before exile
• Not following the syllabus of their host country (e.g. Somalis in Djibouti)
Not willing (or able, usually for language reasons) to use the syllabus of their host country (e.g. Southern Sudanese in DRC who can see no reason to learn in French )
Not using the language of examinations in their home country (e.g. most Southern Sudanese refugees)

Returnees

Who need their education in exile to be recognised when they go back (e.g. Somalis in Ethiopia and Djibouti or Southern Sudanese in Uganda).
• Who, like temporary teachers, or trained on the job health workers, need evidence of training they have done while in exile.

People studying by correspondence or distance education
They are usually adults, such as teachers doing upgrading courses, or health workers, or untrained volunteers in camps or remote areas

Teachers do these courses both for their own reasons and the welfare of the pupils. Upgrading is a tradition in the teaching profession which goes some way to compensation for low pay and difficult work and conditions. This applies to teachers in rural schools, in slum schools and in refugee camps. It also applies to the increasing number of teachers who have never been trained.

Students

• In an area under an authority with no international recognition such as in Southern Sudan (then) and Southern Somalia.
• where there is no authority at all.
• studying alone
• who need certificates in subjects or through languages, not provided by the authority they live under (such as the Southern Sudanese in Khartoum or refugees in Ethiopian primary schools). This also applies in the reverse where students are required to sit for a subject they have no interest in -- such as Swahili at primary leaving level in Kenya.
• Those who require certification of 'interrupted' education so they can proceed up the education ladder without too much repetition, the so-called 'stranded students'
• Those who need a certificate to proceed up the educational ladder, e.g. to certify the end of primary
• Those trying to catch up: Youth out of school, Older people

Certification of teachers being trained in the field
Certification of the standard of English
This is also known to be in great demand for specific types of employment and for entry to tertiary education.
Diagnostic tests:
Enabling students to know their own standard, and placing them accurately on the 'ladder' of the new country are regarded as high priority.

The certification of Single subjects, such as computer, driving or business studies.
Issues
In providing certification there are several issues to be considered:
Portability, Compatibility and External Validity
Many pupils and students are learning in systems that have self-assessment or internal assessment only; no external validation is available. To get employment or to proceed up the educational ladder the students need a certificate which is valid anywhere; this validity will have to be long-term. A method of establishing compatibility with other certificates is usually necessary.

Students who already have certificates need them to be recognised. They may have prior studies which they would like to be assessed so they do not repeat years in school.

All of these imply providing an answer to the question: ‘Will my certificate be recognised universally, especially when going home from exile?'

Lack of knowledge among candidates about examinations and about their own standard
Those working with such students report that lack of knowledge about examinations is a major problem. Many students have an inaccurate picture of their own standard and ability and waste their efforts (and money) on inappropriate examinations.

Certain private institutions in Britain or USA with grandiose names (‘Oxford Colleges of Smallville’) exploit this lack of knowledge.

Accessibility and Flexibility
This can be said to be simply: ‘How to get the candidates and the examination together in the same place’. This includes how to get examination to the candidates as well as how to get the candidate to the examination.

Further there are many constraints to taking examinations, such as

• The rigidity of examination rules and timetables; exam bodies have legitimate concerns about security of their examinations, but sometimes the rules seem too rigid.
• Subjects often cannot be taken separately; a certificate cannot be accumulated in a modular fashion
• There are restrictions, such as age limits or nationality rules, which may not be necessary in the context
• There are no optional questions offered (such as, say home country history) even though this would e a very simple thing to do.

Flexibility
Taking all subjects at one sitting, say in just two weeks, is very damaging to students.
Option papers both in subject and medium.
Reducing the constraints by

• allowing more flexible times,
• allowing the subjects to be taken separately,
• allowing the certificate to be made up in a modular fashion over two or three years.
• allowing options (eg in geography or in medium of instruction)

This includes allowing the candidates to take single subject at a sitting.
Language
Language is a big issue, both in subject and medium, for refugees and others, particularly the language used in the examinations (the medium of assessment) which may differ from the language used in learning.

The will

In many cases the student's desire for a certificate is strong, but there is little will in the system to help. Having a central place to look to will be important.

Cost
Last but not least is the cost of examinations, both in money and time. This can be very high. In the Dungu experience listed below, the cost per student was in the range of $300 for registration alone. The delivery costs were extremely high also.

Validation of existing qualifications
Where examinations are given or certificates have become old.
Security
The security of examinations from source to candidate and of the answer papers from candidate to examining body is of prime concern

Examples of the need and some solutions

Some stories:
Uganda 1990
About 200 refugee students did not sit the Uganda primary leaving examination because no one produced the $100 needed to register them (US 0.50 cents each).

Sudan 1993
When the Sudan government allowed Ugandan refugees to be returned to Uganda by a special airlift, the majority who went back were students who had spent some years in the Sudanese education system. As they lined up at the airport in Juba, security officers systematically removed their examination certificates and other documents and destroyed them saying, 'you will not need those in Uganda'.

They did need them - to establish their place on the educational ladder -- and were set back at least two years in their education, having to be assessed again in the camps in Uganda.

Note: when this started happening well-wishers in Uganda alerted UNHCR in Juba and asked them to accept the certificates before the students got to the airport and 'pouch' them to Uganda. They refused to do this!

Uganda 1992-94
An NGO and the Uganda government set up a simple assessment system to allow Sudanese refugees (and organisers) to know which class in the Uganda system they should enter. This revealed that many intermediate (junior secondary) students would be better off returning to primary schools. Though the students were not happy with this, in the long run obtaining a primary leaving certificate was of help. Importantly, they entered secondary school with a more solid background. There is firm evidence that these students did much better in their final examinations than those who placed themselves in secondary schools at the level they had nominally reached years before in Sudan.

This was analysed as being the result of (a) too many years out of school and (b) the difference in practice (6 years primary in Sudan against 7 years in Uganda a generally longer school day and school year) and philosophy (more practical work in Uganda) of the two education systems.

Congo 1993
Southern Sudanese students in exile in Dungu, then Zaire, set up a self-help secondary school but could not find a certificate to sit for. They had no access to the world and no way of judging what would be most useful for them.

In one year Cambridge Overseas examinations were provided for them by an educational NGO devoted to Southern Sudanese refugees, but it was a very expensive and difficult process, both to pay for the exam registration and to deliver the exams to them. And they all failed, because they had chosen wrong combinations of subjects.

Southern Sudan in the sixties
Pupils from Southern Sudan who were near enough to the Uganda border registered in sympathetic Ugandan schools for the primary leaving examination and marched through the night to sit the papers the next morning. This was repeated on a much larger scale in the 90s and into 2000s.

Guinea '90s
In an excellent example of co-operation the West Aftican Examination Council papers were made available to Liberian refugees in Guinea. It must have helped that W AEC was used to providing examinations' offshore', operating as it does in 5 countries and providing examination centres in London and New York.

Malawi early '90s
Refugees from Mozambique were not fleeing trom the government but from the rebels. It was
possible for the Mozambique government to supervise the education provided in the camps. Therefore the education could be in Portuguese.

Congo 1999
In September 1999 at the signing of the peace accord in Lusaka, the UN flew all the 1997 school leaving examination papers from Kivu to Kinshasa for marking -- thus starting to unblock the way for large numbers of school students stranded on the educational ladder as a result of the civil strife.

My book 'How to teach English' is still on sale, but difficult to find in an ordinary bookshop it seems.

For Teacher’s friend, there is a totally new version coming out. Please contact me for it.

RE: What I wrote once ...

In south Sudan, as elsewhere in Africa, the Church is often seen as
'civil society, indeed at times to represent it. In Afghanistan, as in
Sri Lanka it seems, there is much rhetoric about the 're'(?) emergence
of civil society as a way of securing peace. Yet here in most areas of
the country this means older men whose views are seen to represent
others. Some support the Taliban and very few have any kind of
commitment to the principles of democracy that empowering them is
argued to do.

NGOs in Afghanistan are calling for more support, more funding to civil
society. Yet there is almost no real understanding of what impact this
has. The National solidarity programme, international funding through
the Govt to NGOs, claims to empower civil society and women (two
different things) yet there is no baseline by which to judge any
advance.

Empowerment (whatever that means) seems to neglect the issue of who is
being empowered and what impact that has on other dynamics, especially
at a local level. It also seems to assume that civil society is
homogonous where in reality it is usually polarised ethnically, in
class terms, occasionally (but increasingly rarely) in terms of
ideology which is not necessarily self interest.

I once wrote (but can't find) a piece on meaningless words used by
humanitarian agencies. Did I include Civil society? Probably.

Graham Wood

Humanitarian Consultant
Now in Afghanistan

==

In pre-Tsunami Sri Lanka civil society strengthening became a key
criteria for selection of projects by donors, this based on the
theories that a
peace dividend and increased social cohesion (another famous word here)
would
stabilize the peace process. This was despite the fact that the largest
and
most mobilized civil society groups, including Buddhist movements, were
continuously
demonstrating for a return to conflict.

One could still argue however that they were civil.

Vance Culbert

Seen on Reliefweb, immediately following an advertisement for a job in people trafficking:

Procurement Specialist, South Africa

International Centre for Migration Policy Development

I wonder which meaning of procurement they actually mean …

What I wrote once ...

I am civil society

‘Civil society’ as a phrase has an honourable ancestry in politics. One phase of the evolution of countries post-independence and of the evolution-in-parallel of NGOS and UN bodies has been the gradual emergence of the idea of ‘Civil Society’ as opposed to uncivil society? To military society? To ecclesiastical society? …. Well, that is another question.

This is just to celebrate the enterprising man who not only declared in a coordination meeting that he represented ALL of civil society, but that his NGO was called Civil Society.  Like the Church of God which appears in its name to have monopolised all religious possibilities at least for monotheists, Mr Civil Society presented himself as the unique interlocutor. His only reward though, was to be ignored by everyone.

Barry Sesnan

barrysbook.blogspot.com  ..     ebrealitycheck.blogspot.com

FW:

Voluntarism

Spurred by a UNHCR remark some years ago that: Payment can destroy the sense of responsibility that refugees feel for their welfare. I wrote the following

I actually have a fairly jaded attitude to voluntarism in Africa just now, not about work-camps, joint seminars etc. but trying to get labour for free as we often do in refugee camps. It is complex and coloured by various experiences, including in some work I am doing in Congo just now, where the international NGO pays almost nothing for teachers getting training in the afternoons on the grounds that ‘that is the government’s job’. Since the government doesn’t even get round to paying them a salary, displacing themselves to be trained (with no guarantee of promotion at the end of it – also the government’s job) involves the teachers in significant costs (not able to farm, fish etc on those days).

Why, firstly, asking mostly poor Africans to volunteer when they have no job, no ‘cushion’, no alternative is dubious I feel. In refugee camps teachers and young people are asked to volunteer to get the schools going, and that is fine …. For a year. Then they also have the right to earn some money for their work. Secondly, there is a world of difference between the first world volunteer and the third world volunteer. This is particularly relevant when you think of Red Cross’s fundamental belief in the value of volunteering.

In another aspect of the same thing, when I was doing HIV/AIDS prevention work in Congo in UNICEF one of our partner NGOs (In this case the partnership was like that I have with my small dog who hangs around the table wagging his tale waiting for me to throw him something) rightly identified the bicycle taxi boys as good carriers of the prevention message to youth (like hairdressers and rap singers, for example) and told them to come for five afternoons’ training.

They refused on the grounds that

a) they were being given nothing to compensate for the income they would lose and

b) the NGO was full of fat people who were obviously getting ‘something’ from UNICEF which they were not passing on.

They were right of course.

(I told them to make themselves into a suitable partner we could deal with directly! Thus indirectly encouraging that proliferation of NGOs that is so difficult to handle).

Stayees and the people who have sense

And then, the realisation that the people who suffered most after a refugee crisis lasting many years were actually those who stayed at home (now after years granted their own bit of jargon: ‘stayees’). In Juba in 2005 the Juba people saw themselves as heroes for having lived through 20 years of hell (and it was truly grim) and the SPLM who believe they should be grateful for being liberated (and incidentally should give up their posts and jobs to the incoming SPLMs who ‘enjoyed’ -- according to Juba people -- in exile). The people coming back from 15 years in refugee camps in Uganda were taller, healthier and much better educated than those who had stayed at home. Something which was the case in eastern Congo also where refugees came back who had had no interruption to their education when they were in exile, to live among a mentally, and sometimes physically, stunted (better word xx) population whose schools had all been closed for years.

In another place, aid workers could be heard actually to question whether a water supply or an electricity supply was a good thing. Questions no one would dream of asking in Ghana or Kenya, or in Europe.

And then what about the time when the wars in Congo were dying down and the UN system declared that it was now time for the population to start going back home to Bunia. A whole integrated programme was mounted along the route from North Kivu, way stations provided with water and so on. But no one went. Why? Well once again, no one actually asked the people. Their children were all in school. The school year had three months to run and there were important exams to take. No one was going to move until they were over.

During all this, I wondered how we forgot, occasionally, our common sense. One of the kindest people I know who over the years, by his practical approaches has made life easier for so many people in conflict and post-conflict areas, seriously suggested, after the massacres in Bunia that one way to guarantee a better future would be to make sure that we only aided schools where all the children of the warring tribal groups attended together. This was just months after massacres, when the communal graves were everywhere What parent would take (or send) her child across the increasingly serious line between the factions to make an ideological point?

Numbers ending in a lot of zeroes.

In Southern Sudan there were six million people in the census in the early eighties (including me). Most people believe that by the mid-nineties only 2 million remained in the south, 2 million had fled and 2 million died who shouldn’t have. This number ‘feels’ right, sounds convenient and is very easy to keep alive in documentation. I have used it myself.

Yet, I have always said: Never believe any figure ending in three zeroes, especially if it comes from a UN body or an NGO. It is usually plucked out of the sky.

So what about these figures ending in six zeroes? Well, certainly, it is impossible to verify them. I have a close knowledge of certain parts of the Southern Sudanese population, originating in Equatoria. I taught the parents and now know the children and I have to agree that one third of them have certainly been in exile (probably more), another third are in a strange limbo, sometimes in, sometimes out (it is a border area) but I could not justify a claim that one third of them died. That would mean that of the six hundred students we had in our first year in Juba Day Secondary school, 200 had died. Even allowing for the normal death rate, and for specific cases I know about, such as one executed for some infraction when he became an SPLA officer, and the baby of one of my ex-clerks who died from his father’s drunken neglect, and a group of wild life officers executed by the Arabs in 1992 for suspected sympathy with the SPLA incursion into Juba (which left lasting resentment, as the SPLA didn’t follow through, so many people who had revealed their sympathies were punished by the Arabs when the SPLA withdrew). I cannot say that I know that one third died.

In Congo, through knowledge of people I work with, the ‘extra deaths’ theory would seem to be more plausible. The mother of one of my trainers was the only one of nine Hema women captured by the Lendus one day who was not hacked to death. There are huge areas where there has been no modern medical care for years, even preceding the war. Still, three million ….

Often when we find that an NGO is reporting devastation in ‘its’ area, if we examine a little deeper we find that a good part of the population didn’t die, they just fled. Goma went from 50,000 people to 500,000 people in ten years. Much of the increase was of people flowing in from conflict-ridden rural areas. Schools closing in rural areas were matched by heavily overcrowded schools in the town And this urbanisation will 'stick'; not everyone will go back, ever, whatever we in agencies think should happen.

I am civil society

‘Civil society’ as a phrase has an honourable ancestry in politics. One phase of the evolution of countries post-independence and of the evolution-in-parallel of NGOS and UN bodies has been the gradual emergence of the idea of ‘Civil Society’ ... as opposed to uncivil society? To military society? To ecclesiastical society? …. Well, that is another question.

This is just to celebrate the enterprising man who not only declared in a coordination meeting in Goma that he represented ALL of civil society, but that his NGO was called Civil Society. Like the Church of God which appears in its name to have monopolised all religious possibilities at least for monotheists, Mr Civil Society presented himself as the unique interlocutor. His only reward though, was to be ignored by everyone.

Coordination

Coordination is rarely in the interest of the beneficiaries, and not always in the interest of agencies. Discuss.

When there were four refugee camps around the town of Yei in Southern Sudan, managed by four different NGOs there was an interesting ‘market’ for the refugees. It was not long before opinions were clear, while education might be better in camp A, health care was definitely better in camp C. Logically, this should have led to better services all round, but lax monitoring led instead to a different outcome: each refugee family distributed its members over all four camps.

And they got 4 food distributions.

Coordination actually takes away the ‘free market’ element from the beneficiaries and reduces their freedom to choose. It can be seen as a ‘disempowering’ [jargon] act as it takes away some of their possible choices and takes away from the agency the need to provide quality service, because there is no competition. We would not tolerate this in business, allowing people to set themselves up as a sole provider, and with limited provision at that.

While it is clear that beneficiaries do not always benefit from coordination, the agencies are also ambivalent about it. They subscribe to the principle, attend the meetings, but because they are also competing for funding they do not always subscribe to the practice, and may indeed sabotage it. Examples can be cited from any level from grass-roots NGOs (‘these are my people; no one understands them like I do’) to very big agencies (‘We accept coordination of course, but only to the extent it helps us’ – actual quote from a Unicef Representative).

just to show how keen we are on coordination consider this: In Goma in the early 2000s the four agencies in one compound always went to coordination meetings in four cars.

And how many times has a UN house actually contained ALL the UN bodies in a given town?

NGos are nto exempt - often coordination seems to exist only to cover up the fact that the NGOs don't have enough money to do all they want.

Not joined up

UNICEF, like many other international agencies does procurement for all its activities in Copenhagen or Dubai, because it is cheaper. No account is taken of the huge number of small enterprises everywhere in Africa which folded – or never grew -- because of this decision, and the massive unemployment which followed. UNICEF says it is because it is a humanitarian agency, not really a development body. Yet alongside, UNDP and others are busily saying that they are developing.

After the volcano I had a hard time getting permission to have school desks made locally, even though there was no shortage of wodd, carpenters, or saw mills.

However, we should also be a little honest also - sometimes, local procurement is not doing a lot for the locals, because we procure from big Lebanese or Indian compaies, which are actually exploiting their workers (but do provide a cheaper price).

Room for a bit of ethical thinking here, I think. .

A bright idea in the 1980s in S Sudan

An NGO, I think it was Oxfam (usually known as Oxfarm, which seemed more logical on agriculture projects), had set up a good project among the Acholis of Sudan building on the system, widespread in the region, of ‘brigade’ farming. In this system a group of young farmers worked together to cultivate their land. The practical number was around 20 and they would all congregate on one persons land, weed it, or hoe it all day and then in the evening the person they worked for provided the entertainment and food. The next morning, crack of dawn, or even before, they were at the next plot, and so on. This way with their tremendous energy, copious flows of grain-beer (actually fairly nutritious, another problem when the anti-alcohol laws came in) they covered large areas.

Oxfam/Oxfarm’s innovation was to provide oxen, not actually traditional, but which greatly magnified the area covered. There was one snag though. They kept on getting slaughtered by the elders for their next marriage to a young girl. The young men had no say in this (and truth to tell might well have done the same if they were older). So there was simple clash of meaning, as anthropologists might say.

For young Odongo the ox was his tractor; for his uncle Okello it was exactly what was needed to have a good traditional ceremony, and was already in the family so it was free.

Along comes Oxfam’s young agricultural worker who has pondered the situation. He meets the elders and asks them if they have noticed that he injects the oxen every so often, and that the oxen are not actually very productive on the reproductive front. So?, said the elders. Well, said the extension worker, anyone who eats the beef of these animals will probably suffer the same loss of powers.

Problem solved; no animals were slaughtered again!

The following article from a refugee magazine is notable for the fact that it can't actually prove anything. In fact it says clearly that it doesn't know the real facts but still makes strong assertions.

Please note the highlights which all deal with speculation or what 'must be true'.

This style is far too common! It seems that rape is exempt from normal rigour in proof. Yet I know the researcher who did the 2002 work and she was very very careful in what she wrote, with the result that her report was very powerful and chilling.

It reminds me of having to do an 'Orphans of AIDS project ' in Kinshasa. Even though our surveys showed that this population was NOT distinguished as a separate group by the extended families who just saw them simply as orphans, the donor insisted we had to pick out some children to fit their category. It led to quite invidious situations.

Similarly in this article we are asked to be indignant (and we would be right to be indignant) about something for the extent of which actually there is virtually no direct statistical evidence.

I know the area; I know it to be true - rape is rampant - but are we well-served by such vagueness? It would not be tolerated in any other field.

We should also naturally be suspicious of round figures like 100,000. How can anyone prove or disprove this? Out of how many women?

What does not fit very well with what I know is the unproved assertion that rape has become an weapon in ethnic war. In Ituri, they killed pregnant women and unborn babies on ethnic grounds, but did they rape also on those grounds, or just because they were armed men out of control, as in any war?

And has anyone at all done the follow up to find out if there has been an HIV epidemic? There has been enough time to do it.


"SHEER BRUTALITY

HIV may compound the suffering of women raped in the eastern DRC.

Over the past decade, fighters from many different groups have ranged up and down the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo slaughtering people, robbing and destroying property – and also raping tens of thousands of women and girls. Several experts involved with the issue in eastern DRC believe the true number of rape victims in the last ten year to be well over 100,000. Many, including Beatrice M (See previous interview) have been kept as sex slaves for weeks or months on end.

The aim – at least in part – seemed to be to use women as a means to of helping to damage or destroy the entire communities because of their ethnic, tribal or political affiliation: once again – as in Bosnia and Darfur – rape has been used consciously, and with the utmost callousness, as a weapon of war [Conclusion not justified by the evidence given]. A petrified population, deserted villages and what will most probably turn out to be a severe HIV epidemic.

“The conflict itself has made it virtually impossible to obtain reliable statistics,” said Paul De lay, Director of the UNAIDS Evaluation Division, Nevertheless, in 2002, Human Rights Watch estimated that as many as 60 per cent of the armed men roaming the countryside raping, torturing and mutilating women and girls could be HIV- positive, and noted that almost none of the women had access to services and care.

Now, however, medical workers are beginning to get to areas that have been long cut off by conflict. Their findings are chilling.

The NGO Global Rights claimed that just in the province of South Kivu, some 42,000 women were treated in health clinics for “serious sexual assaults” in 2005 alone. Doctors and Women’s groups report that the assaults are notable not only in their scale, but also for their sheer brutality.

One survivor told NGO, Human Rescue: “Sometimes the rapes are so violent that the woman dies… We can be attacked anywhere and at anytime of day or night: in the fields, at the market, on the way to collect water, in our houses… They are destroying us, body and soul.

Aware that they may never reach the majority of the victims, UNHCR and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) have nevertheless been working together since early 2006 to provide survivors with treatment and counseling, by training health-workers how to deal with rape.

Survivors are encouraged to come forward within 72 hours so they can take a post-exposure prophylaxis against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. However, many women continue to conceal the fact that they have been raped because they fear social ostracism.

As part of a regional initiative on AIDS, alongside the governments of Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, UNHCR has also been focusing on establishing comprehensive HIV and AIDS programmes for refugees, returnees, and internally displaced people and local communities in all six countries.

And sensitization about HIV and AIDS is also an integral part of the disarmament. Demobilization and reintegration programme that began in July 2004. The challenge is not just to raise awareness about AIDS among ex-combants, but to try to persuade them to change their sexual behavior.

Participants receive information about the virus, and how it is transmitted. They learn why fighters are a high-risk group. And they are offered voluntary testing and counseling services. But few volunteer to be tested, stoking fears that large numbers of infected demobilized militia will return to their communities and boost the epidemic even further.

....

Sarah Russell
Global Coalition on Women and AIDS.