The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted November 18, 2009, 11:31 am by Kate Dilley

The tenuous return

These are the raw materials for the roof and door of a hut that will house a once-displaced Acholi family as they return to their home village after years of war. Photo: Kate Dilley/Mercy Corps

Dennis, my driver and impromptu translator, and I walked through the resettlement site towards the grinding mill where we were going to talk with a Youth Empowerment Program beneficiary. We walked past so many huts and I couldn’t help but feel that the camp was too quiet for the number of homes in the area. There weren’t enough children playing or men and women working.

The camp felt eerily like a ghost town.

When we reached the grinding mill, we began to attract a crowd. Children gathered around us playing in the worn down foundation of a hut. Some of the children were naked, others in tattered dirty clothing. Some watched quietly, the curiosity clear on their faces as they crept closer to me and reached out to touch my bag or my skirt. Others played and laughed, oblivious to us, too busy engaged with their playmates to pay attention to the grownup discussion taking place.

We talked with program beneficiaries about life in the camps. Many people are leaving the camps and the resettlement sites for their home villages. The Acholi people or northern Uganda are farmers — they rely on the land for their subsistence. Life in the camps has decimated much of their traditional way of life. They long to be back in their home villages working their land with their own hands to earn a living and provide for their families.

While many people have returned home, the return is not always easy. Having spent so much time in the camps, many people may not know how to farm, or lack the tools or income to purchase tools. Others have lost their drive to be self-sustaining; they are used to the handouts from the aid organizations and are now dependent upon them for their survival.

The finished hut, with a straw roof and a door made from recycled cooking oil cans. Photo: Kate Dilley/Mercy Corps

A cease fire was brokered in mid-2006, but the effects of the conflict are still felt out in the villages. With no final peace deal, many are reluctant to say that the conflict has ended.

As people return home, most of them have to rebuild from the ground up. Their homes have been burnt, and the bush has encroached on their homesteads and gardens. Too many villagers find unexploded land mines out beyond the camps, leaving them dead or maimed. The combination of these challenges and fears creates a tenuous situation, at best, for return.

Despite the challenges and obstacles, many people are hopeful that their lives will soon return to normal. They look forward to getting back to their villages and their gardens. They hope that their children will continue studying in school. They see much opportunity for their lives in northern Uganda. I hope that those who closed the doors to their huts in the camps and have returned to their villages are safe and content to be back home.

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Blog Post Posted November 11, 2009, 10:26 pm by Kate Dilley

What is public health?

One of the things that people often ask is "What is public health?" I used to say, "everything," without much conviction.

As a public health professional I have always been interested by issues that directly affect people's health. In my graduate coursework, this often meant talking about vaccination campaigns for polio and measles, vitamin and micro-nutrient supplementation including iodized salt and vitamin A, and of course access to clean drinking water and primary health care services. Coming to northern Uganda, I thought that I would be most intrigued by these topics.

Yesterday on a trip to the field, we stopped and inspected school latrines and road construction. While at the school (constructed out of tree branches and a thatched roof with UN tarps over it), I heard a little bit about the very successful child to child education campaign that Mercy Corps conducted along with the latrines. It seems to have provided the children — and, through them, their families — with impressive sanitation knowledge. As we stood at the handwashing stand, two children came to use the latrines and both washed their hands thoroughly, without being reminded. They also had to push through a big group of adults to get to the stand, which they did.

Mercy Corps Youth Program Intern Kate Dilley (standing on pile of dirt, digging) lends a hand to build a road in northern Uganda. Photo: Mercy Corps Uganda

We moved on to look at the road that is being built by the livelihoods team. As we stood on one of the bridges, I was told that this road had been completely constructed by Mercy Corps — it had previously just been bush. The road is just about two cars wide, raised with channels running along the sides to drain water in the rainy season, and constructed out of murrum (gravel like soil selected for its stability). As we drove down a (mostly) smooth road for almost 20 kilometers, I kept thinking about the potential for this road — increased opportunity for jobs and trading of goods, making it easier for students to get to school, and easier to transport people and supplies for improved medical care in the area.

For people to be in good health, so many things must be in place. Without access to proper water and sanitation there is no good health. No roads means no access to medical care. Poor agriculture means no food, let alone a balanced diet including fruit and vegetables. And conflict and disaster means a drastic lifestyle change which can lead to poor mental health.

Mercy Corps is working to address all of these issues, in addition to others in its work around the world.

My view of improving people's health used to be so narrow. Like any good learning experience, my time in Uganda has helped me better understand the complexities of life and the issues and challenges that must be addressed in order to "alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities."

In northern Uganda, Mercy Corps is achieving their mission, and I am now further convinced that public health is, in fact, EVERYTHING.

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Blog Post Posted November 2, 2009, 2:50 am by Kate Dilley

Seeing the work first hand

Lucy, an Economic Development Officer, is part of our hard-working team in Pader, Uganda. Photo: Taylor Wegner/Mercy Corps

The work of Mercy Corps in northern Uganda has included an array of projects and activities aimed at solving many of the region's problems. We have a Livelihoods Team hard at work improving road infrastructure and providing jobs for many of the unemployed. Our Agriculture Team provides seeds, tools and trainings to groups hoping to improve their lives with agriculture. Our Water and Sanitation team provides latrines and wells to people in need. There is constant conflict resolution and peace building through a range of activities including building bridges and playing football. Our youth program is aimed at providing two crucial skills to the young people: income generating activities and lifeskills training.

While I had read a great deal about the work that Mercy Corps was doing in the region prior to my arrival here in Pader District, it really hit me on my second trip out to the field. I joined the Agriculture Team as they were passing out seeds to groups in Lira Palwo sub-county. Many of the people living in this sub-country are still living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Those living in the camps are particularly vulnerable to food shortages, as well as lack of opportunity for income generating activities and economic sustainability.

We passed a school where I was told that Mercy Corps built the latrines and provided sanitation trainings for the children in the schools. We drove over a bridge that Mercy Corps built in its Building Bridges for Peace program. Field after field of sunflowers was thriving; seeds and trainings provided by Mercy Corps.

We moved between isolated villages on roads constructed under Mercy Corps guidance and direction. Women walking on the side of the road carrying their yellow jerry cans now had to walk half the distance they were walking previously to get clean water. A well had been built much closer to their homes by Mercy Corps.

It is one thing to read all about the work of an organization. It is something entirely different to see it with your own eyes. It is inspirational.

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