BLOODY BORDER CONFLICT BETWEEN ADJUMANI AND AMURU DISTRICTS

On 30/01/2012 residents from Amuru district invaded Itirikwa Sub County, in Zoka Parish, Adjumani District and left five residents injured with one nursing a broken leg in Adjumani Hospital.

Mr. Barugo Anthony on his hospital bed in Adjumani Hospital

Mr. Barugo Anthony narrated his ordeal on 6/2/2012 as below.

“I was resting under the shade on the fateful day and found myself surrounded by people who wanted to tie me but when I resisted they started beating me. Due to the spirited resistance I put, one of them armed with an axe hit me twice on the leg, broke it and left me helpless. Those who came were estimated to be around 200 people armed with machetes, axes, spears, arrows and bows and guns. They picked my phone, a carpet, one sack of simsim, approximately two sacks of millet and blankets. They wanted to go with me, but when I questioned where? They replied that I had settled on their land in Amuru District and according to them the boundary is Zoka River.

The attackers then went and set my neighbor’s house on fire and arrested him, they destroyed his passion fruits, pawpaw tree, and raided everything in the house. They demanded that we should register our presence with them since we are settled on their land in Amuru District. What I know is that the border is Soro River which is very far from where we settled.”

Since I was admitted in Adjumani hospital nobody has taken the responsibility of helping me except a friend called Wilson Adu who gave me some money for support. The district officials who visited me said they will first sit for a meeting and see how they are going to support me. Since then, I have never received any feedback.

Action by Adjumani District Authorities

Following the attack, the District leaders and Security operatives held a meeting with the affected community and promised to demand for establishment of an army detach in that area so that security is beefed up while they follow up the matter for discussion in Parliament. In attendance were: Major Abiriga Mahmod, District Police Commander - Adjumani District among others.

CEFORD conducts TOT training for 30 CBOs

CEFORD organized a two days Trainer of Trainers (TOT) workshop in Arua from 23^rd – 24^th January 2012. This was a regional training with representatives from each of the 30 Partner CBO’s with whom CEFORD has signed an MOU to implement the project (Citizens Manifesto in Action) at grass root level.

Mr. Brighton the Consultant facilitating a session

The Participants Expectations

The participants expected to achieve the following at the end of the training workshop; acquire skills in the implementation of the Citizens Manifesto, know the importance of the Citizen Manifesto and skills on how to hold leaders accountable.

Jean, the Executive Director of CEFORD facilitating a session

The Workshop objectives

The TOT training aimed at:

1. Equipping participants with information and knowledge to understand the Citizen Manifesto.

2. Equipping participants with skills for popularization of the Citizen Manifesto.

3. Pre-testing the ToT training manual on the Citizens’ Manifesto

A CBO representative seeking clarifications

The workshop was also used to pre-test the training manual that was being developed to enhance the popularization of the Citizens Manifesto. In attendance was the Consultant responsible for the development of the training manual, representatives of the other CEW-IT partner organizations (ACORD, DENIVA & RWECO), staff from CEW-IT Coordinating Unit and CEFORD staff based at the District Offices and responsible for implementation of the action in their respective districts. The TOT training was facilitated by CEFORD staff, CEW-IT Coordinating Unit Staff and the Consultant. The total number of participants was 48 (11 females and 37 males).

Celestin, CU staff contributing to discussions

At the end of the training, participants from the CBOs came up with action points on how to kick off popularization of the Citizen Manifesto at community level. A feedback meeting was held by CEW-IT partners (CEFORD, ACORD, RWECO, DENIVA) and the Consultant to discuss areas for improvement in the manual before the final training manual is produced.

PRETESTING UWEZO QUESTIONNAIRES

Uganda National NGO forum in partnership with PAC-Uganda conducted Uwezo pretesting of the questionnaires for 2012 Uwezo assessment. The pretesting was targeting the children between 6-16years that is to say children from primary two up to primary seven. The test was basic primary two work and this included reading short English stories, identifying alphabetical letters, simple maths and reading the local language (Ateso). The main reason for pretesting was to develop the national standard questionnaires for Uwezo assessment for the year 2012.The first pretesting was conducted in Ochero village in Asuret sub county Soroti district and the second was done in Kengere ward in Soroti municipality.This was done in orders to evaluate the level of the questionnaire whether it favors both rural and urban schools.Uwezo is being conducted in three countries which include Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In Uganda, Uwezo assessment covers 80 districts per year. The assessment has so far taken two years(2010and 2011). Uwezo is designed to have scale for greater impact to be achieved. It is a nationwide assessment covering 30 villages per districts, 20 house holds per village and one school per village. Nationwide scale makes it more attractive to all stakeholders because every part of the country easily identify with the results and allows for comparison. This is mainly done in order to improve on the level of education Uganda.

Voicing the Silence Campaign- be our companion

Voice the Silence and cry aloud against corruption and poor service
delivery by our leaders and companies.

Save lives from the condemnation of invisible death.
"Rushwa ni Adui ya maendeleo" or "Corruption is an enemy to development"

Are you aware of this:

• 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water.
• 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation.
• 30,000 children die each day due to poverty, that's 210,000 a week, and almost 11 million per year.

And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far
removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek
and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in
death.”


At any given time, half the people in developing nations are suffering
from health problems caused by water and sanitation deficits.



Source: http://www.globalissues.org



Share this with a friend and talk with your leader to change this trend.

Training of Kayoda ICT personel

This is the first post by KAYODA.
KAYODA is a Community based organisation based in Ntungamo.
Its a member of DENIVA operating in Ntungamo.

CEWIT ICT Program Officer and RICNET helped us set up a fully fledged ICT data center for implementation of the ICT project.

Stakeholder Engagement meeting in Moyo

CEFORD organized the second Stakeholder Engagement meeting for participants from Moyo and Adjumani districts on 16th December 2011 at Moyo Multipurpose Hall. Participants included representatives from CAO's Office, LC V, LC III, Police and CBOs. In total 26 participants attended the meeting.

The District Council Speaker Moyo (Hon. Chaiga Martin) in his opening remark said " When you stand as a leader, you have signed a social contract with the people. When you do not live to the terms of the contract, you will be thrown out". To him the Citizens Manifesto in Action is a good project and would want us to evaluate the Citizen's Manifesto at the end of the contract.





The National Coordinator CEW-IT (James Mwirima) and Executive Director CEFORD (Asipkwe Jean Christabel) presented an overview about the project, the Citizens Manifesto and the West Nile regional issues as spelt out in the Citizens Manifesto. The regional issues generated a lot of discussions and action points for follow up on the issues at District and Regional level. Some of the key issues included: demand for clear road map for electricity for Adjumani and Moyo, resolving the border conflicts with Sudan and Amuru district, addressing health staff exit for greener pastures in Sudan among others.

Participants also unanimously agreed that there is a need to have a strong forum of Members of Parliament from West Nile to jointly advocate for West Nile issues and a strong forum for Elders and Opinion leaders in the region be formed to engage in inter border conflicts.

Stake Holders Engagement meeting organised by CEFORD in Arua

CEFORD organized the first engagement meeting for West Nile in Arua at CEFORD Head Quarters on 15th Dec 2011. The meeting drew participants from 3 Districts of Arua, Nebbi and Koboko. The 38 participants included CAO, RDC, LC V, Police, CSOs and CBOs. and RDCs.

During the meeting, CEW-IT National Coordinator (James Mwirima) presented an overview on the Project: Citizens Manifesto in Action: Building a Social Contract between Citizens and their Leaders. He also presented the National development concerns in the Citizens Manifesto. The Executive Director CEFORD (Asipkwe Jean Christabel) presented the West Nile issues in the Citizens Manifesto.


Deputy Speaker Arua District Hon. Christine Debo in her opening remarks said "Leaders and citizens are in contract for 5 years. Many pledges were made and citizens need to check with their leaders on fulfillment of the pledges"








From the discussions, the issues of power in West Nile and slow pace of completion of Nyagak power project, the need to be connected to the National electric grid, environmental degradation among others topped the discussion. A number of action points were generated for each of the issues under Electricity, Health, Education, Security, Roads, Poverty, Leadership and Natural resource management.



The RDC Arua Col. Abiriga Ibrahim (pictured below) in his closing remarks urged CSOs to keep his office informed on their activities and involve him where necessary.

PAC-Uganda in conjuction with Uganda National NGO Forum held Teso anti corruption CONvention in Soroti town.

Public Affairs center of Uganda (PAC-Uganda) a national civil society organisation based in Teso region in conjunction with Uganda National NGO Forum organized a half day public dialogue code-named Teso anti corruption convention that took place on sat day 3-Dec-2011 at land mark hotel. the dialogue began at 12:00 noon upto 7:00pm. the theme of the convention was 'tackling corruption in natural resources governance and mitigating its impact on livelihood of the ordinary citizen, a responsibility for all. This convention was a build up to the planned national anti corruption convention (NACC) slated for the 8-Dec-2011 in
Kampala. The overall objective of the public dialogue was to derive the Teso region in put to the NACC. The chief guest was Hon Gerald Karuhanga the youth mp western Uganda. The public dialogue attracted the general public and this made the participation very vibrant as issues were being raised by different groups of people. PAC-Uganda also invited a panel of lawyers from different law firms namely, Katuntu and company advocates from Kampala, M/S Isodo and company advocates, Munghao and company advocates among others. Other invited participants present were, woman MP Soroti district, Chairperson local v Ngora district, division and sub county chairpersons. political party representatives, election monitors, CSOs, CBOs, church leaders, institutions, cultural leaders and widows who had come to testify how their land had been grabbed by some rich and powerful individuals and local government among others. The vivid example was mzee Ochaloi whose land has been taken by Soroti sub county authority without compensating him. During the dialogue, a number of issues emerged and they included the following. Land grabbing, high costs of paying lawyers, in adequate participation of women on land policies, constitutionality of local council courts, continuous adjournments of cases by courts intensifying wrangles among conflicting parties, distortion of witness statements by some police officers,sexual harassment by some of the local council courts when women go to report cases to their offices

Following a heated debate,the following were resolved and adopted by the house.

To wholly support the constitution petition filed by PAC to compel government to disband local council I and II courts and to hold fresh elections for this important grass root democracy and government structure.

We should support and decorate leaders who fight corruption and denounce those who are corrupt. We should not vote leaders who are corrupt to political positions. PAC and other NGOs should put pressure to political leaders for accountability. PAC should go out to immediate land cases in the villages.
Launch a house to house fight against corruption. Lawyers should select five widows they can support every year freely so as to protect the properties and and livelihood assets of the poor victims. Leaders found corrupt MUST be punished and made to pay all that was lost. Courts should handle cases expeditiously. Vulnerable people should be given access to public offices. In summary, the dialogue went well without any interruptions.

Spearker Soroti giving the youth MP honorary flower for fighting corruption

ARUA TOWN,A PLACE TO BE

It was a bright sunday morning that the RIC-NET team led by the Executive Director, set off for a journey to Northern Uganda to conduct a training in e-platforms and maintenance at CEFORD offices in Arua. A night in Arua was so enjoyable at Heritage Courts where there was a Karaoke night and on top of that it was also a comedy night, despite language barrier we managed to pick few words through the help of an interpreter.


Having had a tremendous night at heritage hotel, early Monday, the team headed to CEFORD office where the training was to take place. The training kicked off at 9:30am with ICT Emma taking members through Uchaguzi ,citizen voice and RIC-NET ED,John silco took members in skype,blogs,how to operate a projector where as Betty took them through computer maintenance tips . CEFORD team was one of the active one as everyone was mesmerized in gaining ICT skills.The training ended late in the evening with Ricnet ED handing over a projector to Ceford Executive Director madam Jean.