HIV AWARD

To commemorate the World AIDS Day, December 1, The New Vision, in conjunction with the parliamentary committee on HIV/AIDS, will award individuals, who have played a remarkable role in the fight against HIV in their communities. Profiles of the people nominated by the public will be published.


RUTH Mbabazi, 35, a mother of one, says she in 1998 had taken to drinking and smoking and every time she drank, she had an overwhelming desire for sex. This put her at the risk of acquiring HIV because she had sex with any man during her drinking sprees.

Mbabazi, a resident of Kijenga in Kabarole district, says she contracted HIV because of her reckless lifestyle.

When she started getting constant fever, stomach aches and pneumonia, she did not think of going for a test because she was sure she had HIV. “I knew I was positive,” Mbabazi says.

Asta Kanyunyuzi, a neighbour came to see her and encouraged her to test for HIV. “I went to Yerya Health Centre and the results were positive,” she recalls.

In 2005, she again went to Virika Hospital and Buhinga Regional Referral Hospital in Fort Portal for more tests, which all turned out positive. The doctors gave her septrin until 2007 when she was given ARVs.

Mbabazi says at that time, her lungs were in a poor state. The doctors would remove about two litres of puss everyday. “I was vomiting blood, had a horrible stench and I thought of stopping the treatment but Kanyunyuzi urged me to go on,” she says.

Despite her condition, Mbabazi did not stop drinking alcohol and smoking. “When ever Kanyunyuzi came to find out how I was coping with the treatment, she found me drank. She counselled and told me to choose between alcohol and my life.”

Cephas Murungi, 49, a mother of seven, says in 2004, her husband was diagnosed with cancer. After his death, she was worried she would follow suit.

In 2006, she developed skin rashes and Kanyunyuzi urged her to take an HIV test since she was not sure of what her husband had died of. “She encouraged me that even if I was HIV-positive, I still have a chance to live,” She told me she was HIV-positive but I doubted her because she looked healthy,” Murungi says.

Kanyunyuzi’s husband, James Magambo, a retired army officer, says he never wanted to go for a test but she convinced him to.

He was afraid of knowing his status, having seen Kanyunyuzi bedridden. Magambo, who is also taking ARVs, says they decided to publicly declare their HIV status to save others from contracting the disease.

“We want to encourage others to test and know their status. We also want to sensitise them on how they can avoid contracting the HIV virus,” he says.

Magambo says his wife has done well in fighting the epidemic. He says: “She visits the patients in their homes and tells them the importance of having a balanced diet, eating green vegetables, fruits and drinking boiled water to boost their immunity.”

Asta Kanyunyuzi, says she got to know she had HIV in 2002 after being diagnosed with TB. “I was persistently sick and lost my hair. I thought I was bewitched,” she says.

Being semi- illiterate has not stopped Kanyunyuzi from fighting the disease. She formed an organisation, Nyantabooma Tweyimuhukye Group, to sensitise people living with HIV and those on ARV treatment to adhere to their drugs and follow their doctors’ instructions.

The 400-member group sensitises the public through music, dance and drama.

Kanyunyuzi says she would have died long ago was it not for ARV drugs.

She says whenever she is travelling, her drugs are the first item she packs.

Kanyunyuzi also says she declared her status to stop men from asking for sex, though most people don’t believe she is HIV-positive.

“When you take ARVs and feed well, people can not believe that you are sick because you always look healthy,” she says.

She appeals to the health ministry to strengthen the sensitisation programmes on voluntary counselling and testing and also encourage those infected to abstain or practice safe sex to avoid infecting others. She also wants the Government to make ARVs accessible and affordable for all those in need of them.

ICT Participants Awarded Certificates

Youth who have been under intensive training in ICT have finally accomplished their training with the a ward of certificates. there is now no doubt that a Telecentre has added some value to the community.

The graduates have acquired the skills in the following packages ;

1. MS- Word
2. Spread Sheet
3. Desk top Publishing
4. Communication skills
5. Trouble Shooting
6. Repair and maintenance
7. Web browsing
8. and Typing skills.

The Center is using a National Curriculum and a locally generated training manual which is integrated with HIV/AIDS tips. The center works with a USA Peace Corp Volunteer to implement the curriculum.

The most interesting thing is that one of our graduates, shortly after the training she opened up a secretarial bureau in the Trading Center and the Business is progressing very well.

The center hopes to enorole more trainees from April to June as our second lot this year.

MAKING HIGH QUALITY PRODUCTS FROM CASSAVA

Cassava is predominately known as one of the traditional food to the local farmers in Uganda.
many communities have been growing cassava just for food and not for income but they have been taught by some experts from Nigeria that cassava can earn them some good income.
cassava is a drought surviving crop which is easy to grow and very simple to harvest . All parts of cassava are valuable . cassava leaves can be used to make soup or as feed for livestock, the stems can be used for planting more cassava, for mushroom production or as firewood, the root can be cooked and eaten fresh or processed into flour. cassava can also meet industrial needs such as the production of bio-fuel and starch for use in paper- and drug-making industries.
high-quality cassava flour is made within a day of harvesting the root. it is very white, has low fat content, is not sour like traditional, fermented cassava flour, does not give a bad smell or taste to food products and can mix very well with wheat flour for use in bread or cakes.
what you need to make high-quality cassava flour, you require:

• space for processing the cassava
• a store
• a facility for safe disposal of waste materials
• cassava roots
• processing equipment (knife, bowl, drying platform, grater, press and milling machine)
• trained machine operators along with casual workers for peeling, washing, grating, pressing, drying, milling, sifting and packing.

You may be able to hire a press and grater locally. local fabricators of processing equipment are also availabel in some areas - ask your local extension officer or agricultural research station.
Accessible markets include bakeries, millers and paper industries, schools, hospitals, shops,kiosks, hotels, restaurants and local famine relief agencies.

Nakaseke Telecentre is collaborating with Mifunya Credit Cooperative Society (SACCO) together with Tropical Crops Initiatives -Uganda and a group from Nigeria to introduce Cassava growing skills to Farmers.

Wireless solutions to Internet Sustainability in Rural Telecentres.

Telecentre managers and Students from Makerere University testing wireless equipment in the lab before installation in Kabale.

For along time there has been a general challenge in all Telecentres to sustain their internet. At the inception of these projects it was believed that Telecentres will manage to sustain their links by paying a monthly rental bill of approximately 250 USD. For 64kpbs of which we are not sure of getting form the IPS. Because most of them don't allow clients to monitor their up link and down link!

Technically this was impossible especially after the pilot project where by aTelecntres had to foot 80% of its operation costs.

In addition to that, the Internet technology services were new in the minds of the rural poor peasants who could not even afford to pay 30/= per minute. The few who had the capacity to pay for the services they could hardly access internet on their own! Therefore, much of the time was spent on trainings and also sensitization campaigns.

A few from the civil society who had some knowledge on how to use the service independently could not access internet regularly due to the distances between them and the Telecentre.

IDRC therefore, found it necessary to create a viable solution to these challenges and CWRC was given the mandate to forge a permanent solution among Telecntres with a wireless link. (VSAT)

The solution was to ensure that Telecentres shares their bandwidth with their neighbors through creating Internet Access Points (IAPs) to bring down the high rental bills and achieve sustainability.

The project is also aimed at build capacities of all the Telecentre managers to maintain and technically trouble shoot and monitor the networks.

Successes have so far been registered in Lira Telecentre under CPAR, Nabweru Telecentre, and Kabale – Kachwekano Telecentre.

Nakaseke Telecentre is also benefiting from a similar project funded by ITU through and it is being executed by the Ministry of ICT – Uganda. So far nine sites have been connected such as

1. Nakaseke Hospital
2. Nakaseke Core Primary Teachers' College
   
3. Nakaseke Sub-County headquarters
4. Nakaseke Parents primary School
5. Nakaseke International College
6. Mazzoldi College Kiziba
7. Nakaseke Seventh day Secondary School
8. Nakasangombe Secondary School
9. and Nakaseke Telecentre is the main hub for all. Band width is going to be shared among the sites to make internet more affordable.
   

The Role ICTs in promoting Agricultural Development in the Rural Society

ICTs are generating an information revolution, which is changing the way we live, work and learn. The convergence in communication and computing technologies, the rapid growth in networking and the sharp decline in the cost and price of information processing are driving the information revolution.
This revolution is pervasive in it’s impact and is transforming existing social and economic relations into an information and knowledge society, and is one of the key driving and main vehicles for the process of development. Information and communication are significant factors in the performance and growth of economies and their importance is relevant in accelerating growth in the agriculture sector. Both traditional and modern ICTs offer promising solutions to strengthening and delivering information to rural communities. The Internet alone has a host of services including e-mail, voice telephony, e-commerce, teleconference, Tele-education and
Tele-medicine among other services. Cross sections of people in Uganda have benefited from these developments in telecommunications. This has simplified the activities of transacting business electronically. We therefore appeal and encourage the general Public civil servants and farmers are to use the facilities.
In Nakaseke, farmers have been empowered to use ICTs to access agricultural information and marketing their produce using ICT tools. This was achieved through a series of organized trainings. A training manual was developed in collaboration with CAB International. The manual was focusing on different ICT tools like the Radio, Computer applications, a camera, fax, Mobile cello phones, Fixed Telephones, photocopying and Internet.

Internet & Solar Power Solutions

Internet & Solar Power Solutions
The CMC received a VSAT project from IDRC in 2004. The Internet facilities at the Center improved the communication barriers that had been in the Center for the last five years. The internet facilities helped the Rural community members to link up with friends and in-laws a cross boarders.
The users fees are 30/=Uganda Shillings per second to the users and the Center pays 292USD for 64Kpbs (band width) to the ISP AFSAT. Unfortunately the CMC has been facing challenges of sustaining this project.
The Center could not sustain the project due the po
The sites include; or power supply at that time. Therefore, IDRC found it necessary and funded a solar project (with 22 panels, 24 Batteries and a pure sine wave Inverter) to support the VSAT project and other services. Such atmosphere helped the Center to operate its services for longer hours and making services readily available to the community.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is funding another project VoLP using wireless to enable the communities to have access to both Voice (Telephone) and Data (internet) at a reasonable fee. In this project 10 institutions (sites) will be networked to bring the internet rental bills down and sustainable.
Nakaseke Hospital
Nakaseke Primary Teachers’ Training College
Mazzolid College
Kiziba Primary School
Nakaseke International School
Nasekaseke S.D.A
Nakaseke Sub-County headquarters
Nakaseke Court
Nakaseke Farmers’ Association and
Nakaseke Telecentre will be the hub for all. The installation program is going to be executed by the Ministry of ICT-Uganda soon in September- October, 2007

Location:
Nakaseke CMC is located at Nakaseke Sub-County Headquarters, 65Km off Kampala -Guru road. it is just an hour's drive towards the northern part of Uganda and about 16Km from Wobulezi Trading Center.

Mission statement:
To test the conviction that Information Communication Technologies (ITCs) can be used to change the livelihood of the rural poor marginalized communities for a sustainable development.

Vision:
To ensure that community members access and utilize Telecentre facilities for a sustainable development.

Objectives:
To envision mechanism of increasing community access to the ICTs
To ensure that relevant local content is developed and accessed by the communities.
To encourage the communities to listen and participate actively onto community Radio Programs.
To market and disseminate Agricultural information
To Plan for the Telecentre so that it remains strongly sustainable.
Target Population
The Center covers an area of 25 square kilometers and serves approximately 53290 people of whom 27228 female and 26071 males respectively.
The major economic activities are trading and farming. The Sub-County is dotted with small trading Centers and small to medium scale agro- processing industry especially maize mill, coffee processors and Up-land Rice milling machines.
There are about 1103 business ( mostly retail shops) and 8000 farming families engage in both crop and livestock keeping ( zero grazing, open diary farming, poultry and piggery).

Services:
Nakaseke CMC provides telecommunication and information services ( telephone, Internet, Computer Training to Schools, educational video, daily news papers, Photocopying , Secretarial, Community Radio services, World space Radio services, Library and many others including; Electronic delivery of Agricultural information from National Agricultural Research Organiation (NARO) and the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS)

Photocopying:
The copier is one potential moneymaker for the CMC on a daily basis. However, the machine has been giving the Center more trouble due to mechanical broke down. The staff has played a big role in troubleshooting and fixing some parts for the last two year thus saving some revenue that would have been spent on external technicians.

Computer Training programs
The Center has two main computer training programs ; Computer Training to Schools and Computer training at the Center (Day and Evening Program)
The Center runs a Computer Application – Training program to Schools in both Primary, Secondary Schools and to out of school youth, Students in Holiday and the general public.
The challenge in this program is that most Schools lack access to the stable power supply.
The Center has trained over 1500 People in ICT- Computer Application. Such Trainings have created a very good foundation for ICT use and revenue for the Telecentre sustainability.


Daily News paper.
Apparently the CMC buys one issue that is Bukedde the local publication read by most of the members of the community. “One farmer ( Siraje Muwanga) once commented that the newspapers helped him to know the current affairs and also to access information on farming techniques shared by other farmers.”

The News paper have attracted more people to come daily to the Center to read and as they come they get access to other information from the video , Library and Internet.
The Library
The Library is the mostly used service by the patron especially Students, teachers health Workers, Local Administrators, extension staff, NGO staff, researchers etc and some few who are semi-illiterate. This is because the biggest collection is in English, and the materials in the local Languages that can impart skills are very difficult to find.
The Library has got material from The National Library of Uganda, National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) ie brochures, Chats manual, Posters Video and audiocassettes.
Other material were got from British Council- Uganda, UNESCO, American Embassy, world Vision and others are donations from individuals like Professor Victoria Mwaka etc.
The library has a total collection of over 5500 reading materials. The Center also extends the Library services to far Schools in the BOOK BOX SERVICE this program was established to enable distant whereby students could hardly access the Library at the Center to have small libraries in their Schools. The Program has been very successful. One of our patron (Abby Nzeimana) had this to say, “the Library made me pass my O’ level and A’ Level examination at Nakaseke Intentional School to the University.”
Other Primary Schools have developed a reading culture program whereby the bring the pupil to the Library and the Library team up with the Teachers to find relevant and interesting reading materials to the pupil especially the Story books for African Writer.
More still the CMC has developed a quiz program over the Community Radio focusing on the on going primary School Children. The Program runs every Sunday. The idea of such programs was to help the rural poor schools to have access to different question approach and empower them to compete favorably with the first class schools in bigger towns.
The poor performance in the past year was also another factor, like last year the whole Sub –County got 4 pupil passing in the first division out of the 34 primary Schools both Private and Government aided Schools.
The Center has worked with the School Teachers, Opinion leaders and the parents in mobilizing presents to boost moral of the pupil and also to inspire others to develop their reading skills.

Virtual Reality Program:
A virtual Reality CD ROM looking at Rural Hygiene was developed and installed at the CMC. It has been shown to the community members and School Children with a special approach of having users run it on their own. This has been one avenue of encouraging community Members to who were originally intimidated by the technology in the Center to participate and use the equipment, it has further generated discussions on the status of households and the community hygiene and health.

CD ROM for Women:
This program was developed by the International Women’s Tribune Center in collaboration with IDRC. The program focuses on empowering rural women in Africa to have access to information through the use of ICTs. The CD- ROM was designed in such away that its user friendly and does not require any serious computer application skills for the women to access it. It is only the mouse that is required to brows the program. The advantages are the program is audio visual and in the local language (Luganda) thus giving the users courage to use it.
Jajja Anasitancia Namisango, 75 is one of the living example who have benefited from this program. She mobilized her fellow women to join the program. Besides she goes on village to village with her lap Top to conduct the program.
The CD-ROM covers areas of Small scale entrepreneurship, Banking and Savings skills, Farming, Food processing, Health and computer basic application skills.

Community Radio
Nakaseke Community Radio is one among the many Brief Case Radio Fm funded by UNESCO in Africa. The introduction of such Radios in Community Telecentres was to increase access to information by all community members. It was also discovered that it was important to use community Radios to disseminate information to the communities and also to create a platform where community members can meet and share ideas on different topical issues concerning them, such as farming, environment, Rural community hygiene, education, culture, Indigenous knowledge, Gender etc
Despite the political, religion and tribe differences among community members, the Radio has created harmony in fact it is one of the unifying factors among members. They have been able send themselves greetings and massages.(an indicator for togetherness & social development)
The Radio covers a radius of 25km and the listener- ship has increased monitored by the call in, massages received, greeting cards, and letters delivered to the station.
A Fun’s Club was developed to strengthen unity among the community member. The Club is chaired by Cpt. Kangave Moses and they usually meet to discuss issue like, volunteerism on the Radio, marketing the Radio to other community members and sports.
The club has also helped the Centre to organize mobilization campaign and fund raising whereby new equipment were bought to reinstate the Radio ( Microphones, Ear Phones, a Mobile Phone, and some other recording accessories.)
The Radio is run by two full time staff and supported by a total of 32 Volunteers. And these include out of school Youth, Extension workers, farmers, Teachers etc.
The Radio operates for 18 hrs a day (6:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m) and the programs focuses on; education, environment, gender, Organic farming, Health, HIV and AIDS etc.
A children’s talk- show and a quiz program were developed to bring all the children especially the on going primary School Children to come together to share ideas and discuss academic issue. Such programs have attracted so many and it created awareness of the children’s rights and essential needs in the society.
A world space Radio (satellite digital Radio) is also another component used to access information. Nakaseke CMC in collaboration Uganda Local Government Association and The Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDP) Malawi runs a distance learning program on corruption, Civic participation, participatory Budgeting and Municipal Finance.
The programs target local government official, extension workers, civil servants, Religious leader and the community.
This program is funded by the World Bank Institute and facilitated by MDP Malawi.
Challenges:
Apparently the Radio (Our Talking Drum) is off air due to the breakdown of the transmitter. The Center is now soliciting funds (1970USD) from the community, stakeholder, partners and well-wishers to reinstate the radio.

Internet:
The CMC received a VSAT project from IDRC in 2004. The Internet facilities at the Center improved the communication barriers that had been in the Center for the last five years. The internet facilities helped the Rural community members to link up with friends and in-laws a cross boarders.
The users fees are 30/=Uganda Shillings per second to the users and the Center pays 292USD for 64Kpbs (band width) to the ISP AFSAT. Unfortunately the CMC has been facing challenges of sustaining this project.
The Center could not sustain the project due the poor power supply at that time. Therefore, IDRC found it necessary and funded a solar project (with 22 panels, 24 Batteries and a pure sine wave Inverter) to support the VSAT project and other services. Such atmosphere helped the Center to operate its services for longer hours and making services readily available to the community.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is funding another project VoLP using wireless to enable the communities to have access to both Voice (Telephone) and Data (internet) at a reasonable fee. In this project 10 institutions (sites) will be networked to bring the internet rental bills down and sustainable.
The sites include;
Nakaseke Hospital
Nakaseke Primary Teachers’ Training College
Mazzolid College
Kiziba Primary School
Nakaseke International School
Nasekaseke S.D.A
Nakaseke Sub-County headquarters
Nakaseke Court
Nakaseke Farmers’ Association and
Nakaseke Telecentre will be the hub for all. The installation program is going to be executed by the Ministry of ICT-Uganda soon in September- October, 2007

Book Week Festivals
Nakaseke CMC and Library always join the rest of the Libraries in the country to celebrate the National Book Week Festivals. This year’s theme is “Local Languages enhancing Literacy”
The Festivals will be held at Nakaseke Telecentre from 17th to 22nd September, 2007. Schools have been invited and requested to prepare the Pupil/ Students in music dance and Drama, reading, Quiz, Art and Crafts, Poetry etc. Farmers and Adult Factional Classes are also expected to participate in the Festivals.
The festivals will be officiated by the Chairperson LCV- Nakaseke District Mr. Koomu Ignatius Kiwanuka.

POULTRY PROJECT
Nakaseke CMC decided to invest in the non- ICT projects as the best avenue to increase sustainability.
The Center received 1000 Chicks donated by Hon. Rose Namayanja Nsereko (MP Nakaseke District) . This project was also intended to help the Rural poor community to engage into poultry keeping on a commercial basis. The Chick were brooded at the Center and some were given to organized farmers groups. The project is doing well and it has changed the livelihood of the farmers, some have been able to send their children to Schools and others have managed to expand their farm.
Farmers always meet at the Center to acquire more skills on poultry management such as basic principles of Local Chicken production, housing, Feeding, Poultry health, Brooding and the general poultry management skills. The Center collaborates with the Uganda Local Chicken farmers’ Association to pass on the skills to the farmers and also to market their products.