Uganda Program Deals With Pandemic as Work Continues
Professor Sally Beach reading to students.
Professor Sally Beach has devoted much of her time for more than five years working to help educate the women of Uganda alongside Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe at St. Monica’s School in Gulu, Uganda.
In fact, Beach was in Uganda from the middle of February through the middle of March while on sabbatical, working with Sister Rosemary on various projects and doing professional development with teachers. They were ready to launch into the new semester. A new member of the team, Assistant Professor Rebecca Borden, was on her first visit to Uganda as she helped to write the oral English curriculum for the schools. The Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education students were prepped and ready for study abroad this summer. And then … nothing.
“It all pretty much came to a screeching halt,” Beach said. “That is the only word I can use. We were literally on a plane home in Amsterdam when I opened up my email to see the letter from President Harroz that all travel was being halted. If we had not left when we did, I may have still been stuck in Uganda.”
In addition to travel restrictions put in place in the United States, Uganda also closed its borders and shut down schools.
“The shutdown has been very difficult for these women,” Beach said. “They live in rural villages with limited access to health care and may not know what to do if they do become ill, or even have access to testing.”
Assistant Professor Rebecca Borden took her first trip to Uganda this past winter.
Food scarcity has also been an issue for everyone in the country and there is also the supposition that, as here in the United States, domestic violence has increased with people confined to the home. This pause magnifies the importance of the work being done by the Center for Peace and Development.
Prior to the pandemic, one of the major projects the center (of which the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education faculty and students play a major role) was working with groups related to peace building, women living with HIV/AIDS and older women. They would work together to create a consortium, becoming a registered entity in Uganda and allowing them to pursue funding around women’s and peace-building issues.
Beach had begun working with the group leaders on a mission statement, organizational structure and committees, which would be taken back to their organizations for discussion. The goal was to gather as a larger group and finalize these plans at the annual Grassroots Peace Conference in June 2020. Then came the pandemic with both the United States and Uganda going into lockdowns.
The JRCoE students that study abroad in Uganda each June play a major role in the conference, which has grown from 110 people in the first year to almost 200 in year two. Students serve as logistics coordinators, greeters, note takers, recorders and facilitators during group sessions. Eight languages are spoken at this conference and with the exception of the general sessions, all other meetings are held in the mother tongue, allowing the women to more freely express their ideas as many do not speak English.
Professor Sally Beach in what serves as her office when visiting St. Monica's.
The first one was held in 2018 and looked at causes of conflict in communities and ways they were being dealt with. The second conference in 2019 centered around the groups discussing what they were doing in their regions related to peace building and advocacy, sharing what was/was not working and coming up with action plans for the next year. In 2020, the groups were going to share what they had been doing from their action plans.
The college also continues its work with the school for women. The school has expanded from one site in Gulu at St. Monica’s to a second site in Atiak at the Sewing Hope compound. The compound also has an orphanage and a primary school. In 2019, one of the jobs of the JRCoE students was to assess women who were interested in enrolling in the school.
In summer 2020 there were to be seven students from the college studying in Uganda, five undergraduate and two graduate students. Associate Professor Kristy Brugar was also going to join the group for the trip. When studying in Uganda, students are involved in observations in the kindergarten, primary and vocational schools, as well as the school for women. They do lessons with the primary students and teach in the school for women.
While the ability to travel to and work in Uganda on the education projects is currently on hold, the Center for Peace Development continues to move forward, thanks to a $175,000 Carnegie Corporation grant (read more here) looking an security and insecurity for women and children in post-conflict countries. Town halls and discussions will take place virtually.
The pandemic also meant Sister Rosemary was unable to return to Uganda from Norman, where she has been splitting time while working on her doctoral degree in education. A repatriation flight in July was cost prohibitive, but she has plans to return on a commercial flight in November. In the meantime, Sister Rosemary finished her general exams in September and her dissertation will involve conducting research with the women in Uganda, looking at how coming to school and learning reading, writing, mathematics and speaking English has changed how they look at themselves as women and members of the community and how cultural artifacts either support or get in the way of their views of themselves. Her goal is to be completed in December 2021 or May 2022.
And someday soon, Beach hopes to be back in Uganda continuing the work.
“Once we are able, our top goal is to continue the work to get the consortium as a registered entity in Uganda,” Beach said. “We are also trying to find funding to get all the curriculum for the school finished and published for the teachers so when school starts again we can do professional development with the teachers.”