The Network For Africa team returned to the Pader area of Northern Uganda in November 2008, after an initial trip in April. We interviewed residents and community leaders in the refugee camps, and talked to NGO workers about their experiences. Our aim was to assess the local needs and to understand what help was already being provided by the government and local NGOs.

Based on what we learned, our team of 4 psychologists trained local community members in basic, culturally sensitive counseling skills. Once trained, the community leaders were equipped with the tools to help others deal with the trauma they experienced after 22 years of conflict, living in squalid camps.

Our team also carried out training in HIV/AIDS education, income-generating activities, and we helped to form two women’s associations. Overall we taught and trained over 800 people.

We were based in Patongo, a small rural town that until two years ago was completely cut off from the rest of the world, without any NGO presence, because it was considered too dangerous. Only recently have people begun to return to the area, thanks to intermittent progress made in the peace talks with the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Local people believe the government of Uganda has done little for the 500, 000 people living in camps in the Pader area. Everywhere in the north, NGOs have shouldered the burden. However, Pader is unique because so few NGOs are present. It is a truly forgotten and hellish corner of an already forgotten and undeveloped region.

The people we spoke to complained about the disintegration of their traditional social and moral framework, with high levels of crime, rape, early pregnancy, violence and drunkenness. Clan structures are breaking down, and there is a sense of dislocation and fragmentation. In the words of one old man,

“I’m a farmer. I love farming, and we’re proud that we’ve never had starvation here. But before the war my nearest neighbour was 100 yards away. Now in this camp my neighbour is 1 yard away. Our people weren’t meant to live like this.”

The war has created many orphans, mostly looked after by guardians who typically have to take care of their own children with very limited resources. The local government officials we spoke to talked of child protection strategies and planning papers but we saw no evidence of any help being delivered at camp level.

A unique set of problems face those abducted by the LRA when they were children, and who now are returning to their communities and families. Many returnees do not go through the government’s official reception centre, and a large number are not accepted back by their families. Consequently they face a vulnerable existence in child-headed households, where they must cope by themselves.

Some NGOs have conducted ‘sensitization’ work in an effort to get families and communities to accept the former child soldiers. There has been anger that returnees are given meager benefits whereas the people they terrorized are given nothing. NGOS told us their most successful programs used drama and music, rather than lectures to tell people how to behave properly. Traditional reconciliation ceremonies have been effective at bridging the gap between abductees and the community they wish to return.

Another point made by the NGOs and the enlightened community leaders was that when starting a scheme, it is important to allow the locals to choose who will benefit or participate. Also, we were warned not to heavily ‘brand’ our program. In other words, it is important to allow local groups to have ownership and take the credit for the program/project/training class.

Especially traumatized or depressed people have been referred to the NGO Medair’s team of 130 CVCs (community volunteer counselors). When Medair pulls out shortly, they want N4A to take over the training and support. We will start training the CVCs as soon as possible, so they do not feel abandoned.

There is a great need to educate people in the camps about their legal and constitutional rights, and how, by civic participation, they can demand accountability and transparency. A legacy of deference and fear towards those with power, status and money persists among those who are particularly uneducated, powerless, and poor. This leaves corruption unchecked. Therefore, one of our priorities is inform people about their rights using citizenship classes.

In conclusion, the following groups wished us to bring them our psychotherapy training for their community leaders: Medair, Cesvi, Coopi, the village of Lapono (site of a massacre where trauma is a significant issue) and the sub-county of Adilang. Paorinha, an NGO in Patongo will run citizenship training with us, to educate people to understand their rights, to demand accountability and transparency from their officials and elected leaders. They are wish to use our model (already being used in Rwanda) to teach people how to start and run businesses. The aforementioned NGOs and villages are also interested in these courses.

Network For Africa’s team returned to Pader in February 2008, and a report of their progress will soon be online. We will return every few months to assess the needs of those in the communities, conduct workshops and counseling training courses, and to follow up on the progress of the people in Northern Uganda.