Inter-NGO politics

Inter-NGO politics is a common problem in NGO saturated Africa. One must not encroach on an NGO’s turf. “This is our turf. Not yours. No, you can’t set up a school here. Yes, yes. We know it’s needed, but you were not listening. This is our turf.”

It is a little frustrating and quite the opposite of my experiences in the Philippines where I worked quite closely with a – technically speaking – competitor. We shared resources and both benefited as a result. We were both working for the betterment of the Filipino people so there wasn’t a conflict of interest.

One tries to be “above all this” and keep the welfares of Africans firmly at the forefront of one’s mind.

This was put to the test recently when a NGO^* moved in on Grassroots Uganda’s turf. Grassroots Uganda is an NGO I set up in 2006. It has about 170 ladies involved and raised about $US 20,000 last year. One American lady liked the organization so much that she decided to – well, these no easy way to put this – butt in on two of our women’s groups and try to take them over. She has stolen logos and text from Grassroots Uganda for her own NGO. She even disbanded one of our boards and then immediately reformed it as her board!

This is frustrating. I’ve turned a blind eye for the most part as she does sell an enormous amount of merchandise. She is helping to empower African women, which is the reason for which Grassroots Uganda was set up for in the first place.

But things recently took a rather sinister turn. As I reported over here, one of the Grassroots Uganda ladies – Flavia – was hideously attacked with a machete by her former partner. She was lucky to survive. Grassroots Uganda along with some good souls from around the world, have raised about $US 2,000 to help Flavia cover her medical expenses.

Pretty cool, huh? Who could object to this? A victim of a horrific domestic violence incident gets the help she needs.

Turns out the previously mentioned infiltrator does object. We are apparently “stealing her thunder” and “she’s mad that Grassroots Uganda is helping her” (as one of Grassroots Uganda volunteers put it). Incidentally, she has contributed nothing to the rehabilitation of Flavia

The possible reason I can think of for such behavior is that she’s really not interested in empowering African women, but is more interested in the glory of being seen to be helping African women.

So what is one to do? She is hindering us trying to help Flavia: Local volunteers are walking on eggshells. They want to help Flavia, but don’t won’t to offend the aforementioned lady for fear of losing an income stream.

We can’t really stay “Say the hell away from our groups!”, as she has her glory-sinking tentacles entrenched firmly inside the groups.

This sorry tale reminds me of the recently concluded talks in Copenhagen. The outcome from the talks was lukewarm: Too many countries and ill-informed interest groups pursuing their own selfish agendas. The sooner we realize that we share this lifeboat called Planet Earth, and that our fates are closely tied with the less fortunate, the better off we will all be. This applies equally well on a global scale, smalltime inter-NGO politics, and the fate of one poor victim of domestic violence.

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^* Name withheld to protect the guilty.

Electricity Woes

Here's a good idea: Design a whole lot of cool systems that'll empower a group of impoverished people in many ways.

Get some literacy programs together - both English and computer, get an online shop together to sell their crafts, work with local health officials to begin the fight against HIV, and bring in some international volunteers to help you.

Then all you need to do is rent a house, flick the electricity switch, and you're away.

Flick the switch. Ugh. Flicking the switch has taken four weeks.

The Heart of Uganda programs - that have been patiently designed over the course of months - have all been delayed for four weeks due to ongoing power nightmares.

Our initial time in Uganda was spent targeting an area in which to start our programs. We settled on the Sironko district as detailed here^*. We found a gated compound in a little village called Chino. The house had all the right electrical connections inside the house and a power line running right outside. All we had to do was "connect it up".

To recount the entire tale of woe would take another four weeks. For brevity's sake, here are some selected highlights:

• We arrived on a Tuesday. People assured us that we would have power by Wednesday.
  
  
• The guy who was going to install electricity dieing (seriously).
  
  
• Giving a guy 80,000 shillings (about $US40) to come early and connect our house to the main electricity line.
  This proved to be pointless as the main electricity line wasn't on.
  
  
• Hiring a retired electricity worker to come to the village to tell us what the problem was.
  The place where the main electricity line connects to the village line was disconnected along with a transformer.
  
  
• The landlord failing to sign the electricity agreement for three weeks.
  
  
• The electricity company refusing to connect the power until we had organized a community meeting to discuss safety issues.
  This is fair enough. Many people die in Uganda every year as they try to illegally connect their houses to the grid. Just a few days ago, a ten year girl died after stepping on an illegal line that had fallen off her house.
  
  
• At said community meeting, the electricity company representatives shuffling their feet, and gazing into the middle distance.
  I didn't know it at the time, but shuffling one's feet and middle distance gazing means "Give me a bribe and I'll connect you now."

We have another community meeting organized for this week. The electricity reps will almost continue their "zig-zagging ways" (as they say here in Uganda). I'm not going to bribe them.

Once we are connected, we will be the only (legally) connected house in the parish.

On the plus side, some kind hearted souls have donated a generator to Meaningful Volunteer. Not only will this help us to get over our initial power problems, but it will also help to keep us operating during the numerous "normal" power outages in Uganda.

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^*Seems slightly tragic now that one of things we liked about Sironko was that its electricity was "quite reliable".