Farewell Uganda!

I am writing from Buffalo NY upon the completion of my three month commitment as a Kiva Fellow in Uganda. I want to use my final post to thank the people who made this one of the most significant and rewarding experiences of my life.

KIVA.ORG: First, thank you Matt and Jessica Flannery for inventing Kiva. I have great admiration for what you started, especially since you invented an entirely new model of microfinance funding. Without your effort and creativity, Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times would not have written about a baker in Afghanistan whose business was funded by a Kiva loan funded in part by Kristof himself. When I read that article I just knew I had to get involved.

Also, thank you Anushka Ratnayake, the head of the Kiva Fellows program. Anushka permitted me to volunteer and to make my own unique contribution to poverty reduction. Most people don’t know it, but Anushka, a Modern Literature major, is the guiding force behind the Kiva Fellows Blog. As you can tell from my frequent posts, I enthusiastically took advantage of her brainchild to blog away about my experiences and observations in Uganda. Thanks Anushka for having the foresight to create a space for all Kiva Fellows to share ideas and experiences from our remote corners of the world.

Finally, thank you Ben Elberger, my microfinance boss at Kiva. Ben is one of the hardest working young people I have ever met. The rumor is Ben never sleeps, and I believe it. He always seemed to be on-line when I emailed him from half way around the world, no matter what time of day or night it was in San Francisco.

Ben is responsible for managing Kiva’s business with the two microfinance institutions I worked for; Share an Opportunity Microfinance, Ltd, and BRAC, Uganda. He was always interested in my input and suggestions.

I know for sure Ben is hard working because he did his utmost to keep Kiva from running out of loans during the holidays. Due to internet connection problems in Uganda, we were unable to post loans on the Kiva website. Ben worked throughout his Christmas vacation to transcribe word documents and photos I e-mailed him to post about 150 group loans. In my opinion, that was above and beyond the call of duty. Way to go Ben!

MFI’S: Thank you Samuel Mayanja Ssekajja (Sam) and Knondoker Ariful Islam (Mr. Arif), my two bosses at SAO and BRAC respectively. They gave me guidance, insight, and a plate full of work to do while I was in Uganda. My primary motivation for volunteering as a Kiva Fellow was to learn about the business of poverty reduction. Thanks to Sam and Mr. Arif I got everything I hoped for. There was never a dull moment under the direction of these two natural born leaders.

I also want to thank all the employees of SAO and BRAC. It was a joy to work beside these dedicated young people. I took great pleasure in making my small contribution, because I knew how much they appreciated my effort.

BORROWERS: All the borrowers I met in the course of my activities as a Kiva Fellow made me feel like a “million dollars”. These are some of the most genuine and sincere people I have ever known. I found nobility and remarkable family values among the poor residents of Kampala that I have not observed elsewhere. To Florence and Regina and all the other borrowers I met; thank you for sharing your culture and your values with me. You made a lasting impression.

MY FAMILY: Three months is a long time to be away from home. I want to thank my wife of 31 years, Mary Therese, for not objecting to my somewhat unconventional idea of volunteering in Africa. I also want to thank my daughter Molly who rearranged her semester break to visit me. She raised my spirits at the critical two month point in my stay, just when I was beginning to get really home sick. I also appreciated every email and blog comment I received in Uganda. Thank you to the authors of all those messages.

KIVA FRIENDS: Finally, I want to say thank you to all the generous supporters who frequent the Kiva Friends website and who contributed to two women I wrote about in my Kiva Fellows blog; Florence Kaluuba of the Mirembe Youth Development Projects and Regina. You will never know how much pleasure it gave me to distribute your money. No matter what explanation I offered to the contrary, your gifts were always treated as if they were a gift from me. Thank you for allowing me to serve as your proxy and to bask in the glow of so much heartfelt appreciation.

I am a different, and hopefully better, person than I was before Uganda. I sincerely thank Kiva and everyone who had a hand in my transformation.

Post-Conflict Education in Uganda

Kampala, Uganda “Poverty reduction is a three legged stool balanced on income generation, savings, and education” according to Mr. Knondoker Ariful Islam, BRAC Uganda Country Manager. “Take one leg away and the stool tips over.”

While Kiva social lenders are focused on the income generating leg of poverty reduction, this discussion pertains to the education leg; specifically post-conflict education in Uganda.

Education is one of the first victims of civil conflict in Africa. This is especially true where children are targeted as potential child soldiers and forcibly removed from their families and schools by rebel armies.

One such post-conflict environment is Northern Uganda where the Lord’s Resistance Army formerly battled the Uganda Army for control. The local population, consisting mostly of members of the Acholi tribe, fled to the safety of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. The education system ground to a halt.

When armed conflict ends, one issue is what to do with children whose education was interrupted or not begun during the conflict. One option is to enroll the older children in the last grade they completed. This is not practical because the existing grades are completely filled with younger students. For example, in Uganda the average primary school class size is about 50 students. In Northern Uganda, where qualified teachers are in short supply, the average class size is larger. Adding a whole new layer of 10-15 year old students to Primary 1 level classes is not a workable solution.

In 2007 BRAC Uganda partnered with UNICEF to tackle this problem. BRAC is uniquely qualified to deal with post-conflict education because it traces its roots to the aftermath of the war of independence between Bangladesh and Pakistan in the 1980’s.

BRAC’s pioneering study “Non-Formal Primary Education, Learning from BRAC’s Experience” is a model for post-conflict education throughout the world. Ultimately 2.8 million students in Bangladesh who dropped out of or never started school have been educated since 1985. Subsequently, approximately 24,000 students in Afghanistan benefited from BRAC’s non-formal education program after their schooling was interrupted by war or denied by the Taliban because they are female.

Mr. Knondoker Ariful Islam (Mr. Arif, for short) has a strong background in education. He originally joined BRAC right out of college in the 1980’s as an education specialist. He came to Uganda from Afghanistan, where he headed BRAC’s education program there.

BRAC’s non-formal education program in Northern Uganda, referred to as the Out of School Program, focuses on young girls. Many of the children attending BRAC schools are formerly abducted, traumatized child mothers who became pregnant by their captors. They perceive this to be their last chance for education. BRAC school children spend 30 minutes each day story-telling, presenting local short drama, singing, dancing, drawing and other fun activities. This is considered part of the curriculum for traumatized children.

BRAC and UNICEF share a vision of education as having multiple impacts on the student’s life. Education enhances people's thinking ability, improves planning capacity, develops skill in managing and shaping an independent life, widens social participation, and empowers people to realize their rights. Education is a cornerstone of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for alleviating poverty in Africa. Without these acquired skills, escaping poverty is highly unlikely.

The elements of BRAC’s “Out of School Education Program” in Northern Uganda (Kitgum and Pader Districts) are;
· Community Instructors recruited from the local population
· 10-15 year old students with no literacy or numeric skills
· Completion of Primary 1-3 grade levels in two years
· Education following the government curriculum
· Smaller class size limited to 30-35 students
· Same instructor for the entire 2 years in the same learning center
· Year round school with no vacation and class breaks no longer than 1 week
· Four hour school day with flexible starting time so students can do family chores
· Characteristic BRAC “U” shaped seating for student-to-instructor eye contact
· Monthly parents meetings at the learning centers

Instructor training is provided by BRAC education specialists. Community Instructors must have “O” level of formal education (high school) but no previous teaching experience is required. BRAC provides induction training for new instructors prior to deployment and then conducts monthly one day refresher training in which the curriculum for the next 30 days is laid out and practiced. Instructors return to their classrooms with rehearsed lesson plans and all the materials needed to execute the program for the next month.

One of the primary differences between BRAC’s non-formal education approach compared to the formal government run system is the absence of a pass/fail year end test for advancement. Community Instructors in the BRAC program are trained to conduct frequent assessments of students and are responsible for re-teaching students who fail to grasp the subjects. Mr. Arif reports that this results in relatively uniform student performance across the entire class.

Students in the non-formal program attend class in learning centers located in rented buildings separate from the government schools. Instructors live in the same village or IDP camp as the students. BRAC Education Program supervisors are distributed uniformly throughout the area, so they can frequently observe instructors at work in the classroom. Monthly training is conducted at the supervisors’ location which is no more than several hours travel from the most distant learning center. Supervisors are provided motorbikes to travel on the unpaved, unimproved roads.

The results of BRAC’s non-formal education program in Northern Uganda since its inception in June 2007 are;
· 122 Learning Centers
· 3,973 students
· 764 boys (19%)
· 3,209 girls (81%)

The preponderance of female students and female community instructors in the Out of School Program reflects BRAC’s goal of “empowering the powerless”.

Upon completion in June of 2009 these students will either be mainstreamed into grade P-4 in the public school system or, in the case of the older children, be given an opportunity for job skills training through BRAC’s Adolescent Program.

In summary, civil conflict is a significant generator of poverty in Uganda as well as other African countries such as Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. BRACs non-formal Out of School Program is an organized effort to reduce post-conflict illiteracy and rescue young victims from a life of poverty on the bottom rung of society.

"Double Bottom Line" Loans

Kampala, Uganda A loan funded by Kiva social lenders benefits the Microfinance Institution (MFI), the lender, as well as the poor borrower. The MFI potentially earns gross profit from the loan to sustain its business and, in the case of a MFI structured as a for-profit company, to generate a financial return for the owners.

Where the MFI is a not-for-profit venture, surplus interest income may be invested in non-financial programs which generate expenses but little or no revenue.

One such non-financial poverty program is the BRAC Adolescent Program. Although this start-up program is initially being funded by a grant from the Nike Foundation, it is expected that the rapidly growing BRAC Uganda Microfinance Program will generate enough profit to sustain an expanding Adolescent Program when Nike’s funding ends in three years.

The purpose of this post is to describe the BRAC Adolescent Program and demonstrate how integrated approaches to poverty reduction give Kiva social lenders a double bang for their loan dollar.

Background: Uganda has one of the highest birth rates in the world.

Afghanistan 46.21 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Mali 49.61 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Sierra Leone 45.41 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Somalia 44.6 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Uganda 48.12 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
United States 14.16 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)

When you walk the streets of Kampala it sometimes seems as if everyone in this country is a teenager. In the villages, schools are overflowing with uniformed young students packed 50 or more to a classroom.

In Ugandan society women still have fewer advantages than men and, as mothers, they bear a disproportionate burden of poverty. These two factors; high birth rate and female inequality point to adolescent girls as a growing risk group in society.

Any parent knows that adolescence difficulties are not limited to girls in poor countries. We all face them, first as a young person ourselves, and then again if we are parents. The critical nature of adolescents in the developing world is that they are a disproportionate share of the population and these young people represent the future, and best hope, of their countries.

Girls are the starting point for BRAC for several reasons. First, money is limited and you have to begin somewhere. BRAC opted for a female only approach but ultimately expects to design programs for male adolescents in the future.

Secondly, young boys have significantly more socializing opportunities through sports. For example, Uganda is a soccer (football) crazy country. Wherever there is a flat piece of ground you will find a group of boys kicking some sort of a round object toward an improvised goal. In three months in this country, I have not seen a single girl playing soccer or any other sport. Unlike the US, where the government mandates equal access to school sports, girls in Uganda are largely denied the socializing benefits of sports.

Thirdly, BRAC found through household surveys that girls often have limited access to reading material. The daily newspaper is a good example. Typically the father brings it home from work and reads it first. Two hours later when he is finished, the mother reads it. Then the sons, if they are interested, get a crack at it. Finally, the daughters, if it is not already past their bed time, have a chance to read the paper. A cornerstone of BRAC’s Adolescent Program is to make quality reading material available to girls.

Finally, age 13 is a common school drop-out point for young girls. Few have basic literacy skills at that grade level. BRAC’s household surveys show that many return home after dropping out and do nothing. With limited literacy, little earning potential, no job skills, no money to invest, and a lack of parental confidence in them, these girls are positioned to be non-starters in society. Without intervention they represent part of the problem of poverty rather than part of the solution. A myriad of bad outcomes await them.

The Idea: BRAC’s Adolescent Program is designed to empower girls between ages 13-19 from poor households for;
· Knowledge
· Skill
· Income earning ability

How It Works: At the heart of the Adolescent Program is the Adolescent Club. This is a group of up to forty young women from age 13-19 who meet every Saturday and Sunday at the same location with a peer mentor. School drop-outs have preference. During the program roll-out, each of ten participating BRAC microfinance branches will be assigned one full time paid project staff member to establish and supervise ten Adolescent Clubs. The staff member will also conduct periodic parent meetings and develop programs to foster community support and involvement.

At club meetings the girls will have access to sports of their choice such as basketball or net ball. The objective is socialization and peer group formation. They will also have access to quality reading material, in English, pertaining to life skills. If a girl cannot read, other club members will assist her. The point will be to gain knowledge, improve reading and writing skills, develop a reading habit, and move in the direction of a knowledge based society.

The weekly meeting content will evolve over time to include life skills training like hygiene and a host of female topics such as reproductive health, pregnancy, child care, disease prevention, and when and how to say “no”.

The girls who are not in school will also have access to work skills training such as tailoring, livestock rearing, hairdressing, and other trades.

Finally, as they approach age 19, the girls will be introduced to microfinance and offered an opportunity to form borrowing groups with fellow graduating club members to establish small businesses.

Benefits: While microfinance focuses on poverty reduction today, the BRAC Adolescent Program is a coordinated attempt to prevent poverty in the future. Everyone benefits from the effort.

Young girl drop-outs benefit the most by being given a second chance. All the girls benefit from socializing opportunities not otherwise available to them in Ugandan society. A host of positive outcomes is expected from the peer relationships forged at the Adolescent Clubs;
· Reduced teenage pregnancy
· Reduced sexually transmitted disease
· Improved literacy, life skills and job skills
· Fewer unwed mothers
· Fewer forced marriages for financial reasons
· A more confident and better prepared group of young females for their families, their communities and their country

BRAC benefits by reinvesting proceeds from microfinance to achieve its vision of “just, enlightened, healthy and democratic societies free from hunger, poverty, environmental degradation and all forms of exploitation based on age, sex, religion and ethnicity”.

Kiva social lenders benefit from loans with a “double bottom line” that help pay for integrated poverty programs beyond the initial peer-to-peer business loan.

And it all begins with a simple $25 loan on Kiva.org.