[Wigsat-l] Visionary Ugandan women facilitate rural ownership of development

[Sophia Huyer]

Visionary Ugandan women facilitate rural ownership of development
http://www.mediaglobal.org/article/2009-06-05/visionary-ugandan-women-facilitate-rural-ownership-of-development

By Molly Slothower

5 June 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The first class of Ugandan women to  
graduate from the African Rural University (ARU) in a year from now  
will have no trouble translating their college curricula into real- 
world skills.

These women have already completed three years of rigorous, field- 
oriented training in empowering rural communities to make development  
meet their needs. Their fourth year will be spent in an advanced  
practicum in their home communities, creating change and developing  
livelihoods with their families with regular support from ARU’s faculty.

When a woman in Africa receives an education, the positive impact on  
her community and her family is much higher than when a man is  
educated. Women are the backbone of agriculture in Africa, including  
in Uganda, but they usually do not go into higher education. The  
primary education that many girls do receive does not prepare them to  
think creatively about the needs of their communities and families.

But ARU recognizes the transformative value of rural women with a  
vision and organizing skills. All from rural communities in Uganda,  
students at ARU get their first challenge before they are even  
accepted to the school.

They have to prove their resourcefulness to get into the school by  
raising $150 dollars from donors besides themselves, and they continue  
to be constantly challenged throughout their four years.

“The first class of students were amazing,” Patricia Seybold, an ARU  
Board member, told MediaGlobal. “They have mastered a wide variety of  
skills and most importantly, they have learned how to teach others how  
to create the lives they never were able to imagine they could have!”

By the time they receive their Bachelor of Science degree in  
Technologies for Rural Transformation in the Spring of 2010, the women  
in the first class will have a solid foundation in “visionary  
leadership.”

And indeed, by facilitating people to come together and create visions  
of what they would like their communities to be and then figure out  
how to get there, students have already inspired innovation in  
agriculture, construction, health, and daily life necessities.

For most of these women, innovative businesses and community projects  
are already waiting for them in their home villages. They have built  
these businesses themselves over school breaks, using their powers to  
envision goals and follow through. The students have also spent time  
in communities besides their own practicing their skills.

ARU’s parent NGO, the Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme  
(URDT), is a vibrant, community development-oriented campus in the  
town of Kagadi in Western Uganda. With 500 people on its grounds at  
any given time, it is a hotbed of rural innovation, bringing together  
villagers from various fields to solve the problems they face.

The university setting of ARU is an integral part of the larger URDT  
vision. It is meant to bridge a gap that divides the needs and wisdom  
of rural people from the large universities that are so often looked  
to for new trends in development.

“Years ago when I asked [URDT and ARU co-founder] Mwalimu Musheshe why  
ARU must be a university, his reply was that URDT is devoted to  
bringing new thinking to development,” Martha Dolben, Chair of the  
African Food and Peace Foundation, a partner of ARU, told MediaGlobal.

“The university system internationally disseminates thinking, mental  
models, et cetera. Founding a university is a means to put URDT’s  
model for integrated rural development into practice more broadly.  
ARU’s thinking, participatory action research, and community action  
planning are fed by the wisdom, experience, challenges, and  
aspirations of the local people,” said Dolben, quoting Mushese.

Every morning, the students of ARU participate in an hour-long seminar  
on systems thinking. The women sit down with all of the adults on  
URDT’s campus and together they analyze an issue that someone brings  
up that day from as many angles as possible. After three years of  
focusing holistically on new issues every day, it has become second  
nature to the students.

“The group [in each seminar] considers the historical background and  
local context, identifies the forces at play and analyzes their  
systemic interplay,” wrote Seybold in a report. “How do different  
issues (beliefs, cultural norms, current practices, health, nutrition,  
gender, local resources) interact with one another? What are the  
causes and effects, what unintended consequences did we foresee or  
miss?”

This way of thinking shapes the students at ARU, and provides them  
with the tools they need to live by the famous mantra of being the  
change they wish to see in the world.

MEDIAGLOBAL


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