For those of you who are wondering what in the world I am talking about, The Hunger Project is an EPIC non-profit organization that works in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America to give communities the tools to empower themselves to end their own hunger and poverty on their own terms. Aka coolest organization ever. In the U.S. there is another incredible organization called Feel Good! Where across the country on college campuses students are social entrepreneurs and sell gourmet grilled cheeses where 100% of the profits go to the sustainable ending of chronic persistent world hunger IN OUR LIFETIME....yea. i know. At UVM Feel Good we partner with The Hunger Project so we invest in them, while FG World and others (like you) invest in us! Just to give you an idea of our impact, if we sell two sandwiches or $8 we end someones hunger for a year. Guess how many we sell typically in a day? I'd liiikke to say near 100. (hehe) Feel Good itself has raised almost a million dollars for the sustainable end of hunger sicne 2005...check us out at feelgoodworld.org and join the movement!
Now that I'm done with my Feel Good/Hunger Project schpeel, hopefully you get an idea of why I was so excited when I saw THP in Kampala. Now what's even MORE exciting is that for the last 6 weeks of my time in Uganda each student does their "practicum" which is basically liek a senior thesis (oy) with any organization they want, on any topic related to Uganda and development they want. So ooobbviouslly THP was first on my list. Yesterday I met with our Academic Director, Charlotte, to talk about potential study ideas. She (luckily) really like the various ideas I came up with for THP and said they'd be doable so now she just needs to pull those strings to get me in there!
Some of the ideas were...
a. Go to different Epicenters of THP to compare how each ones geography, culture, past NGO experiences, and specific characteristics to their region influences their ability to keep on track with the THP 5 year self-reliant Epicenter program. What challenges do each face? What commonalities do each have? These epicenters are located in the southern part of the country from East to West.
b. Look at the “Animators” or change-agents that work for THP and determine what makes them each effective facilitators. Are they local? What is their educational background? How long have they been in that community? What personal characteristics do they each have? Are they all very similar or very different? Do they have different styles of facilitating empowerment? Which ones are more effective and why?
c. Focus on the commonalities of all the various epicenters in Uganda to prove the theory that we are all connected. We are the human family. How does the idea of being part of the human family influence peoples daily decisions as individuals? As communities? As global citizens? Does the THP program help such peoples to realize this connection and does it empower them?
d. Talk directly to The Hunger Project and ask them what they need someone to look at specifically so it can directly benefit their organization. Go from there. I think the director of THP Uganda used to be connected to SIT/World Learning.
e. I’ve heard from many people, including Prof. at SIT who say ,“there is no hunger in Uganda. No one starves, BUT there is a huge nutrition problem.” I could look at the difference between those two, what their root causes are, and above all conclude whether or not Uganda really has no “hungry” people since I find nutrition and hunger to be very interrelated.
For the last idea the reason it popped up there was because since I've been here my homestay family and even some of the academic lecturers from the University that speak to us have been saying "Oh you can't stave in Uganda." "There's no hunger in Uganda, BUT we have a huge nutrition problem." And 1. I've been like WHAT? are you serious?! No way. and 2. I've been very confused because 70% of those employed in Uganda are in the agricultural sector, but that sector has been declining significantly and is now only 40% of the GDP of the country so how in the world can there be "no hunger" in Uganda, especially if there's a "huge" nutrition problem, since i feel as though they are both so interconnected! I was thinking maybe they just each define hunger differently or I was wondering where this nutrition problem stems from. Is it because of their culture? Meaning they don't eat certain foods so their deficient in some nutrients and what not? OR is there a nutrition problem because these people lack ACCESS to certain foods? If the latter is the case than that problems stems from the same root cause as hunger...poverty! We also had another lecturer yesterday who said that the median voter in Uganda only has two meals a day, if that. I spoke with my academic director about the contradictions I keep hearing and she said that it really depends on who you are talking to and what their standing is. For example, if you talk to someone who has food on their kitchen (like my family) than they'll probably say there's no hunger. She also said that it depends on the "magnitude" of hunger we are talking. I sort of agreed with her on that, but at the same time my gut was like well hunger of any kind still dimineshes the human spirit so people can't reach their potential in the human family, so iiiiiii don't know. Hopefully my practicum will allow me to get some concrete answers and figure out why there seems to be such a perception that it's impossible to starve in Uganda when poverty is so prevalent?
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