"In it for the people" -- by Erin Bernstein

Over 200 nongovernmental organizations have congregated in northern Uganda—in Gulu, mostly. The work they have done and continue to do has saved millions of lives and has helped rebuild this war-ravaged region, but as northern Ugandan political and religious leaders have observed, these organizations can also make work more difficult for local leaders. In fact, by instilling their beliefs on how to “fix” the conflict situation in Uganda, these organizations can make matters worse.

When over 200 aid agencies are pining for the same funding, resources, and even prestige, it is quite common that they step on each other’s toes. Many work for the same goals, but instead of combining their efforts to make more of a substantial impact, they compete against each other, lessening the effect they intended to have.

I have noticed the same trend in my research. An unnecessary tendency to feel territorial and competitive about my resources and informants has risen in me recently, which is so unlike me. Just like these NGOs, I find myself getting so caught up in the competition that I lose sight of why I came to Uganda in the first place.

I am not here to make a project out of poverty, nor am I here to intellectualize humanity. I am here to learn about a situation, expose my observations, and work with my informants on creating sustainable solutions. I am here to put to use my helpful heart, passion for people, and willingness to serve.

So how do you conduct research without making objects out of human beings and without turning a real life situation into an academic work? You must reinstitute the human compassion that academics often tell you to get over in order to truly analyze the situation and compose a scholarly piece of work.

Granted, if you dwell too much on the injustices you see, it can be difficult to shake your anger and sadness. But a certain dose of empathy must remain to ensure that your work is for the people, not for you.

In my first visit to an internally displaced persons camp this past July, I was overwhelmed and took pictures of everything I saw—the malnourished children, the unusually small huts, and the indication of “subhumanness” between the people distributing the bags of food and the thousands of people waiting in line to receive their monthly ration.

After a while, I put down my camera. I could have rationalized my taking pictures by saying that I needed to show people back home the devastation I witnessed, but honestly, that’s all our media portrays anyway. Africa equals despair. In reality, that’s not the case everywhere on the continent. In northern Ugandan IDP camps, however, they hit the nail on the head.

I cried myself to sleep that night and have withheld my tears after my many camp visits since then. The people I see have not become less human. Rather, I have become stronger and more motivated to use my experience and resources to help restore justice in their lives and recognize them as human beings instead of the photo-ops and documentary features they have become.

Surgeons must refrain from viewing their patients as life-size dummies, just as they must learn how to cope with the emotional difficulties in their work. They perform surgeries to save lives. In the same sense, researchers must refrain from objectifying people, just as they must learn how to not let their emotions hinder progress in their work. In northern Uganda especially, they should be in it for the people.

Erin Bernstein is a junior at the University of Tennessee, designing a major in the comparison of post-conflict education in Northern Uganda and education in inner-city Knoxville. Her passion for serving people has brought her to Hungary, Romania, and South Africa through the Rotary Club of Knoxville and to Botswana, Uganda, and back to South Africa through the Knoxville Jazz for Justice Project, which seeks to music as healing in war-torn Northern Uganda. She is currently in the middle of a two-month stay in Uganda for an internship at the Ugandan Parliament and to work on an art therapy project with young women in the north. Read more from Erin at her ongoing blog of her trip: Uganda 2008.

"The Bishop Masereka Medical Centre -- best practices for medical care in Uganda" -- by Dr. Christiana Russ

I have spent the past three weeks in Kasese, a town in western Uganda. I was a guest of a retired Anglican bishop Zebedee Masereka and his wife Stella. They invited me to come do some pediatric work at their health clinic – the Bishop Masereka Medical Centre, which functions under the umbrella organization called Bishop Masereka Christian Foundation.

I have a tendency to rant about the quality of health care provided in places which display a cross and are purportedly Christian. In far too many of these clinics you find poor staffing with inadequate training, insufficient supplies, too much dirt, and a level of ‘care’ that would inspire anyone but the most desperate person to stay home until knocking on death’s door scares them into seeking help. They come too late, there is little that can be done and adequate interventions at that point are very expensive. When they succumb their family and friends remember only that medical care didn’t help and cost a lot, and thus the grisly cycle continues.

At the Bishop Masereka Medical Centre (BMMC) I have seen a model of how things can be done differently. First, and perhaps most importantly, the Bishop and Stella urge their staff to treat their patients lovingly. Isn’t that, after all, how we as Christians are to be known?

The BMMC also strives to provide excellent medical care. They have hired a physician, Dr. Daniel, who recently graduated from medical school in Uganda. He pushes the staff to make decisions based on evidence. He encourages people to think of other causes of fever besides malaria. He insists on treating each patient well – so much so that when a 13 year old girl was diagnosed with TB and lost to follow up, he went into the town to find her so she could begin her treatment. The staff counselor then met with the girl’s family and community to teach them about TB. A few days later a woman came in with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy which is a surgical emergency. Dr. Daniel not only ensured that she was referred to a hospital with an operating theatre, but he also went several hours later to make sure they had done the surgery quickly and that she had stabilized. This is evidence of medical care, true care, and this is also why the number of patients at the Bishop Masereka Medical Centre is increasing rapidly.

Dr. Daniel and the Bishop are working hard to raise funds for their clinic. They hope to move out of their cramped, rented rooms and build a small hospital replete with operating theatre, full lab and radiology facilities. They are chasing down local businesspeople seeking donations and are planning to take out loans as needed. The care they provide isn’t free, but it is quality care that is worth the cost, and they have some donor funds that assist in running the clinic (such as the physician’s salary).

It is my prayer for Africa that health facilities such as the BMMC will continue to spring up in small towns like Kasese, where they are most needed. I pray additional dedicated and smart doctors, nurses, counselors and other staff will be trained well and will invest in improving the health care in these communities. When the quality of health care that is offered improves, and when it is given with love, people do come. It is astonishing and miraculous to witness the dramatic healing that can sometimes happen then.

Dr. Christiana Russ is a pediatrician doing her residency at Boston Children's Hospital, currently working at an Anglican mission hospital in Kenya through a joint arrangement with Children's and the Diocese of Massachusetts. She is also chair of the Executive Council Standing Commission on HIV/AIDS.

"Growing up too fast in Northern Uganda" - by Erin Bernstein

I have seen more children during my two weeks here in Gulu, northern Uganda than anywhere else in my entire life. Interestingly, though, I could say just the opposite: I have seen very few children since I arrived in the north.

How is this possible? Since the civil war began in 1986 and hostilities ended in 2006, children and teenagers in northern Uganda are just now learning what peace means, and for many of them, life in squalid internally displaced persons camps is all they know.

They grew up too quickly—the girls, especially. They had no choice. Rarely do I find a young woman without a baby on her back, and rarely do I find a girl my age or younger who will talk to me without looking away in discomfort. I have noticed that girls and women are more reserved than men in this culture, but the timidity in these young women is more evident than in the ones I met in Kampala and areas in southern Uganda.

Trauma, I have learned, is the contributing factor to this unusual behavior in children, causing several local education organizations to move their main focus from supporting high academic achievers to intertwining psycho-social support into the curriculum. Due to staff shortages, however, they have to train teachers in this field. Teachers become the trauma counselors, but they are teachers first, and above all that, they have their own trauma to conquer before they can help others.

Poverty presents another challenge. Availability of teachers is running low because funds to pay them are running low. Fewer teachers are willing to work for the current salary, which means that schools have more students than they would normally have per teacher. Quality of education thus decreases, making northern Ugandan schools even less nationally competitive than they already are.

Poverty in the north also affects the young people who want to attend school but cannot afford it. Last week, I met a boy who could not go to school because he did not have a uniform; it cost four dollars. I understand that schools have their rules and regulations, but I couldn’t believe that they would reject a child—an orphan living with his siblings in an IDP camp—wanting to learn because he didn’t own a uniform. The north is trying to rebuild itself. Recovering from over 20 years of war will take just as long, if not more. Why, then, deny the future generation of northern Uganda the chance to receive an education?

Even some families prevent their children from going to school. Many poor families force their daughters into early marriage so that her dowry will bring wealth to the family. These young girls do not typically return to school after marriage because their responsibility is now to their husbands and children, but what about the ones who do? They return, perhaps with their babies in the classroom, and present the message that it is okay to leave school to get married. A girl with children, though, cannot progress academically. Family is the top priority.

Whether because of trauma or poverty, children in the north are already marginalized and are at risk of permanent inferiority to their countrymen. A traumatized person, spending more time battling emotional issues than engaging in her studies, is less likely to perform well. A child who does not perform well is less likely to receive scholarship funding. A child who is neglected as a high achiever is less likely to maintain confidence, and a child who lacks self-esteem is less likely to stay in school.

Those who do not complete their education, though, are doomed to poor and mediocre jobs, widening the economic gap between the north and the rest of the country. Trauma, war-induced poverty, and education go hand-in-hand now. Schools are places for acquiring knowledge, but now they must serve an additional purpose. They must become safe environments for addressing mental health issues and sorting out the memories that run amok in people’s minds. They must encourage people to talk, and they must facilitate healing.

Erin Bernstein is a junior at the University of Tennessee, designing a major in the comparison of post-conflict education in Northern Uganda and education in inner-city Knoxville. Her passion for serving people has brought her to Hungary, Romania, and South Africa through the Rotary Club of Knoxville and to Botswana, Uganda, and back to South Africa through the Knoxville Jazz for Justice Project, which seeks to music as healing in war-torn Northern Uganda. She is currently in the middle of a two-month stay in Uganda for an internship at the Ugandan Parliament and to work on an art therapy project with young women in the north. Read more from Erin at her ongoing blog of her trip: Uganda 2008.

"One Humanity" -- by Erin Bernstein

Whenever people learn that I am going to Africa, they either praise or criticize me. Those who praise me revere me as some kind of savior who braves the dark exoticness of the third world and performs a tremendous good for humanity. Those who criticize me often question my line of reasoning in choosing to “risk my life” by “helping people” in this faraway land.

Well, friends, this entry is for the “praisers” and critics alike…those who think too highly of people like me and those who brush me off as a naïve, idealistic college student.

My first trip to Africa was in July 2006 to South Africa (which is a country, not a continent). I
went to find service projects and lived for a month in a mansion that overlooked the Indian Ocean as it sat atop a coral-colored cliff in a private nature reserve protected by three guarded checkpoints that delayed the entering and leaving of its residents.

To be honest, I began my trip as a naïve American, a novice traveler, your typical do-gooder. I went with the intention of “changing the world,” of making a difference, and I left with the reality that I did nothing in that month that those people truly needed.

I learned a harsher reality in July 2007, when I traveled to Botswana, Uganda, and again to South Africa. Northern Uganda is currently recovering from a recently ended 21 year-old civil war between the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The atrocities of the war have physically and emotionally destroyed the lives of millions of Acholi in the north, which is now jam-packed with “muzungus” (outsiders) who feel they know how to heal the deep wounds of these traumatized people.

Yes, I suppose I was one of these “muzungus,” and yes, when I return, I will once again join the masses of Westerners drawn to this region of the world. But why am I drawn there, and why do I question my presence there?

Over the summer, I wrote in my blog that I always knew suffering existed. I had seen pictures of the internally displaced persons camps. I had read about the IDP camps. I even went to a small IDP camp earlier in the trip, but all of these things either kept me removed from reality or seemed like a dream. One camp in particular, however, changed the way I looked at humanity. I had never experienced anything so real.

It was the first time that I questioned my methods. Who did I think I was with my camera in hand, taking pictures of their sick children, their sad faces, their sorry lives? Who did I think I was photographing them as they lined up in the hundreds, herded like cattle into lines to receive the food rich people far away brought for them in big trucks? Who did I dare think I was crouching close to the ground with my fancy camera so I could capture the young children collecting every fallen pea or kernel of corn before the goats got to them? I was ashamed of myself and knew that if I lived in Pagak IDP camp and had visitors come take pictures of me, I’d resent those foreign saviors and the life I was forced to live.

Since my trip to Uganda over the summer, I have struggled everyday with whether or not I am meant to be there…whether or not I am even wanted there. These thoughts are scary, especially when you’re designing a major revolving around this part of the world, but I prefer to embrace these thoughts as invitations to learn—starting points that will allow me to lead by example and open the eyes of the people carrying the so-called “white man’s burden” to “civilize” the third world. I used to say that the white man’s burden was to clean up the mess he made through colonization, but if I spent all my life picking up after my ancestors, I would not create true progress.

Progress, I have learned, lies in empowering the many competent locals I met in Uganda over the summer. Was I surprised to find capable Ugandans? Absolutely not. They are just as much human as we are. Just as intelligent as we are. Just as deserving of peace and justice as we are. My calling, I suppose, is to enliven the human element in a place where Western confidence dehumanizes the locals. By doing this, you achieve one humanity. When you’ve acknowledged one humanity…well, that’s when you’ve truly achieved something praiseworthy.

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Erin Bernstein is a junior at the University of Tennessee, designing a major in the comparison of post-conflict education in Northern Uganda and education in inner-city Knoxville. Her passion for serving people has brought her to Hungary, Romania, and South Africa through the Rotary Club of Knoxville and to Botswana, Uganda, and back to South Africa through the Knoxville Jazz for Justice Project, which seeks to music as healing in war-torn Northern Uganda. She will be living in Uganda for two months beginning in March for an internship at the Ugandan Parliament and to work on an art therapy project with young women in the north.