A fascination with Kampala

Matilde Ceravolo

MRG’s Fundraiser, Matilde Ceravolo, gets to know Kampala as she promotes MRG’s work in East Africa

In a few days Kampala managed to fascinate me. Our hotel was placed on the side of a hill, and from the second floor we could observe the green ups and downs, with only a few higher buildings emerging in between the trees, and red rooftops all around. The sky is clear and the light is bright.

I must admit my first impression was not remarkable. Nothing new in Kampala struck me. It just reminded of a larger Bangui, a dirtier Kigali, a Bukavu before the war. But as I travelled around the city, its lively greens and bright people started to affect me. The images around me mixed with the stories I was hearing from Jolly, Head of MRG’s Kampala Office, who explained Ugandan politics and life style to me as we drove past the golf club and the national hero’s memorial. We crossed the city from the busy city centre via the large slums to the luxurious villas with a view in our tour-de-force to meet in-country donors.

In London I work in fundraising, so while the participants of the gender training are busy designing their research projects, what a good opportunity to support Jolly and go knocking on doors at the Embassies based in Kampala. Generally they all have small amounts of money to spend in-country, and while our Gender programme is generously supported by Irish Aid and CIDA, MRG has many projects in the region that still need funds.

Human Rights are certainly not an easy product to sell and the results of our work are often intangible. When you build a school or a hospital, it is easier for donors to see where their money has gone, but building the capacities of civil society and preventing conflict are interventions difficult to evaluate.

We are nevertheless satisfied with our visits. We have opened doors, established contacts and found precious allies for MRG’s advocacy work. Jolly will have time to nurture these relationships with the outputs from our research and community projects. We also found some time to visit MRG’s partners and discuss new project proposals.

Back in the hotel, we heard the reports from the country groups. During the four days of the workshop, members of Batwa NGOs from Burundi, DRC, Rwanda and Uganda have been discussing how to frame their research projects on the situation of Batwa Pygmy women and girls in each of the four countries. The groups from Burundi and DRC decided to focus on barriers to education, while the Rwandans and Ugandans will study the causes and effects of violence against women.

The research will be published in March 2009, when participants will meet again to discuss the way forward. According to the findings in each country, specific projects will be designed to respond to the needs of Batwa women. The workshop is over, but our common work has only just begun.

The road to the airport runs past Lake Victoria, offering us a final glimpse of its immensity. Many times I’ve admired it from above but it felt like a dream come true to be finally driving along its shores. A huge red sun is rising and completes this perfect African vista. Our Ugandan adventure ends here and as the captain says “rain swept London awaits us.”

A Batwa woman President of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the making?

Matilde Ceravolo

Matilde Ceravolo, MRG’s Fundraiser, reports back from the first day of an MRG training workshop for Batwa Pygmies and NGO workers from Burundi, DRC, Rwanda and Uganda to combat discrimination against Batwa women in their countries

I will never stop admiring Batwa women. They are the most discriminated against, the most excluded, those with the least opportunities in life… and still they don’t stop fighting, dreaming, believing everything is possible.

It is difficult to imagine the conditions of Batwa women. We all know that people in Africa are the poorest of the poor. Try and imagine a typical rural village: houses made of mud, no running water, no electricity. One primary health point that can only cure minor diseases and the closest school is kilometres away. Children are malnourished and the eldest members of the community are rarely more than 45 years old.

This is not enough. Batwa are even more excluded. They live at the edge of these villages, or in the forest itself. Their children have skin diseases and life expectancy is even lower. They are too poor to pay for education and health care, and if they ever manage to get to schools and hospitals, they are discriminated against. People don’t want to mix with a Batwa, let alone be their friend.

This is not enough. Batwa women live in even worse conditions. They are discriminated against not only because of their ethnicity, but also because they are women. They are discriminated against by outsiders and in their own community. They are the last ones to have a share in the meal, when there is one. If the family raises the money to send one child to school, it will most probably be a boy. They are victims of sexual abuse, because it is said that having sex with a Batwa woman cures men from diseases.

But if that was not enough, nobody knows about this situation and its gravity is not recognised.

MRG has launched a new programme to protect and promote the rights of indigenous and minority women. We are now in Kampala, Uganda for the first event: a regional training workshop for Batwa and NGO workers from Burundi, DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. The participants will design concrete actions to challenge the multiple forms of discrimination against Batwa women in each of their countries.

The event started yesterday, and as organisers we were pleased to see such a varied group of women and men from different countries, speaking different languages, passionate about discussing and understanding the causes and effects of discrimination against Batwa women.

The first session was run by Kathryn Ramsay, MRG’s Gender Coordinator, who explained the system of minority and indigenous rights and how it applies to the Batwa communities. In the afternoon, a Ugandan trainer, Rosemary Nyakikongoro, guided the participants in understanding the discrimination implicit in gender roles set by society. She asked Batwa women to name a wish list of things they would like to do and cannot because it is not viewed as acceptable in their society.

Aline, a young Batwa from DRC, who MRG is supporting to attend University, said that she would like to be the President of the Republic. Why not? At MRG, we will do all we can to enable Batwa women to challenge the prejudices that prevent them from having the same opportunities as others.

In the next few days the participants will learn how to design and implement research projects. When they return to their own countries, they will document the forms of discrimination against Batwa women, so that they can build their advocacy on the results of this research, call the attention of donors and decision makers, and hold authorities accountable.

Each country group will design its own research project. We don’t know what they will come up with, but the result will certainly be surprising.

Read about the conference in French in the Echo de Pygmees newsletter.