One week to go before I head oversees to Uganda. I have traveled to East Africa for work before, but this will be the longest I’ve stayed in another country. I will be leaving for the capital of Kampala to work as a Peace Fellow with the Kinawataka Women Initiatives (KiWOI). While I’ve worked with women from marginalized communities before, it has mostly been from the comfort of my desk in Washington, DC. This time it will be on their turf in the Kinawataka slums in the capital city.
KiWOI collects drinking straws and recycles them to create crafts such as bags, baskets and mats. The eco-friendly work empowers local women from Uganda by helping them gain new skills and income. In addition to my clothing, bug spray and boots, I will be transporting a straw-pressing machine. Pressing straws by hand is a difficult process. Women use knives to press the straws flat, however this is time consuming and very labor intensive. The new straw-pressing machine will save the women enormous amounts of time. The machine flattens around 15 straws in 25 seconds, which will enable KiWOI to increase their production of bags, mats and other crafts from the straws. I can’t wait to deliver this machine and myself to Kampala.
The past few days I have been going through training with the Advocacy Project to prepare the 2014 peace fellows for the field. It has been a great experience meeting the other 11 fellows and hearing about their backgrounds and interests. We are being trained in videography, photography, IT, NGO management, communications and media and fundraising. Once in our host countries, we will use these skills to train our partner organizations on two of the modules they think will be most beneficial for their work. I am looking forward to using these skills to help support the work of KiWOI in Uganda!
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