Ochan Self-Help Alliance

Late June, 2009:  Women farmers of Opac Village in northern Uganda, having survived a bloody war waged by the LRA rebels against them and having endured years of squalid living in war-displacement camps, are now back home battling global warming.  Their lands are threatened by floods and droughts as well as by acute poverty that necessitates the cutting of trees for quick trade in firewood and charcoal.

While the U.S. Congress currently debates the merits of a Clean Energy and Security Act that would curb carbon pollution, Ugandan environmental agencies have issued recent reports on the rapid pace of deforestation due mainly to “expanding farmland, rapid population growth, and increased urbanization.”  Their grim prediction based on the accelerated pace of deforestation in the last 20 years is that the forests of Uganda will be gone by 2050 unless immediate measures are taken to reverse this trend.

Opac women farmers are already taking strong measures to preserve the land of their ancestry.  With the support of donations from Ochan Self-Help Alliance in April at the start of the rainy season, 200 women farmers each planted 10-15 pine seedlings along with Sunflower crop seeds, a cash crop which after harvested will yield money to boost their home economies.  2,000 pine seedlings are in the ground right now to aid water retention and prevent soil erosion.  These small, soft baby pine trees mean so much to the women farmers that some have planted a few in the courtyards of their homes to nurse and to protect them against theft!!

Your timely donation to Ochan Self-Help Alliance goes directly to the frontlines of the environmental battle in Opac. There are 4500 households in Opac.  Imagine if every household could plant 10-15 seedlings (@$1.75 per seedling)!  A little can go a long way to make a big difference!!

In April, these women of Opac were among 200 women farmers who received pine seedlings. Right to Left: Luci Elerm (blue blouse), Keti Erem (grey blouse), Maria Ading (holding basin), Faibi Olila (back left, pink scarf),

June 7, 2009:  The setup:  Now Sunflower is blooming and singing to Tree which is threatened with the ax of poverty.  Thanks to modern technology, we can listen to their song. 

 First, Sunflower (with help from the great voices of Sam and Dave) sings encouragement: “Hold on, I’m comin…”

Then Tree, in the impassioned voice of Frankie Laine, sings back its gratitude:   “ I believe for every drop of rain that falls…”

First sunflowers visible in early June. Farmer turns one to the camera while the rest face the trees.

En route back to their ancestral village of Opac after years of squalid existence in Internally Displaced Persons’ Camps, rural people carry a longing for stability that their village life once offered:  a place to set down their roots again, a place with a door to close against the bitter experience of forced displacement.  They long for a hub to attach all the spokes of their lives:  in short, they long for a regular place called home.  They know the homes they fled during rebel attacks on their village have either been burned down or degraded over time by nature, so they plan to rebuild their traditional thatch-roofed huts using fresh wood, reeds, and green grass.  4500 households are on the road back home with such dreams in mind. 

 Your thoughtful donation will enable Ochan Self-Help Alliance both to serve returnees and to rescue their local environment through the purchase of Hydraform, a machine that offers an eco-friendly strategy for building affordable and more durable homes.  This machine does not use firewood or wood-based products for hardening mud bricks; instead, it compresses a mix of 95% mud and 5% cement into interlocking bricks which then are air-dried before use in wall construction. Hydraform will not only enable the villagers make sturdy homes but will also help to safeguard their sub-Saharan environment from becoming a wasteland. The device is not so costly as would be the devastating long-term climatic effects if this innovative building strategy is not adopted now.