A Day in the Life of a TPO Social Worker
Nov 03, 2008
All in a Day’s Work…
There’s a compound in the town of Yumbe, near Uganda’s borders with Congo and the Sudan. This modest compound houses a few huts and a small office building; home and workplace to three TPO social workers, who really should be known as ‘the unsung heroes’ of the West Nile.
TPO extended its Uganda-wide psychosocial program to the West Nile region in 2002 in response to the growing unrest among communities, a result of more than 20 years of rebel activities in the region and the influx of refugees from across the Sudanese border. Beyond the core psychosocial program element, the Yumbe project focuses on peace building and conflict resolution in the local communities, aiding and empowering people to deal with the many issues they face on a daily basis. At the heart of this work are the TPO social workers, and what follows is a typical day in their lives.
Guardian of Lost Souls
The West Nile region has been severely neglected since the fall of Amin’s government in 1979. The roads are in a sorry state, particularly during rainy season, petrol is expensive and hard to come by, and 4 wheel drives are mostly the privilege of large international NGOs. So the only means of transport for TPO social worker, Innocent, and his colleagues are off-road motorbikes. Hardly comfortable in this harsh climate, nonetheless the only option available for them to visit their clients, which is how they refer to their many beneficiaries spread throughout this vast, rural area.
Today Innocent is on a number of follow-up visits, checking on the progress of his clients. First up is Fatima who, only in her forties, looks decades older and as fragile as can be. Fatima suffers from epilepsy, a common condition to go untreated among the country’s poor, and was referred to Innocent when she moved to Alaipi parish some months previously. Such is the stigma of epilepsy that Fatima had left her marriage and village behind and moved to where her son and daughter in law live. When Innocent first met her, Fatima suffered an average of three epileptic fits a day, often causing her to soil herself, leaving her utterly exhausted and entirely in the care of her family. Innocent initially referred her to a local hospital where she received treatment and drugs, and her condition improved drastically. Now it seems she has run out of drugs, as her son has not been able to take her back to hospital and consequently her health has deteriorated. In a low fragile voice Fatima explains how the fits have returned, that she can’t keep down her food and points to the sores and bruises on her feet caused by kicking the ground during fits. Innocent suspects further complications beyond epilepsy and discusses the situation with the daughter in law, Raima, who agrees Fatima’s condition has worsened but insists that she does what she can to help her by feeding her, bathing her and cleaning her house (though Fatima body, hair and clothes are clearly caked in filth). As the son isn’t present, Innocent schedules another appointment to ensure they take Fatima to hospital for examination and continued treatment.
Back on his motorbike and another two visits follow. One to an elderly widower, Alay, who having lost both his children and his wife had no one to rely on but his community. Alay was referred to Innocent by the LC, who knew of TPO having attended a workshop on mental health of vulnerable people. Alay, as a result, had a life saving hernia operation, and though still weak appears to be healing slowly.
The final visit of the day is to 17-year-old Seraj. At the age of four Seraj had meningitis, but as so often is the case, proper treatment was delayed whilst traditional healers tried working their magic. Seraj’s life was only just saved when he was finally brought to hospital, but his sight was lost for good. An orphan, Seraj was raised by his grandmother, and for some years even attended a local blind school until he started having epileptic fits three to four times a day. Again, only traditional healers were consulted and his condition remained untreated until he was referred to Innocent, who saw to Seraj getting proper diagnosis and treatment. Now, according to his grandmother, he only has one or two fits a month.
“These cases are typical of the individual cases I deal with,” explains Innocent. “When I first started with TPO I had a lot of training in how to identify and refer common conditions such as epilepsy. But we also had a lot of other training, such as counselling and negotiating skills, and with these I now conduct meetings and workshops, teaching communities to solve their problems. Whereas before they would mainly deal with issues through witchcraft and arbitration, community leaders now leave the workshops with an action plan and tell me I have ‘opened their eyes’. To me, those are true success stories.”
Meanwhile, until the learning and knowledge has spread to every corner of this rural region, one suspects that without Innocent’s continued involvement with people such as Fatima, Alay and Seraj, there would be little hope left for these lost souls.
Empowering Community Substructures
Always with one eye firmly focused on sustainability and the risk that funding might run out, TPO’s philosophy is very much based on building capacity by working with existing structures within the communities.
Ibrahim, another TPO social worker, is today visiting a number of such groups for follow up and counselling. Starting the day in the Gboro IDP camp, a depiction of the region’s problems are put forward to Ibrahim – only here they are intensified due to the transient nature of camp life. With no proper means of livelihood, schooling or healthcare, the camp’s roughly 4,200 population struggle on from one day to the next. Evicted from their homeland in 2001 by the National Forest Authority, the camp leaders claim no proper notice nor compensation was provided by the government. Though Ibrahim seems to be of the opinion that notice was given but people chose to ignore it – most likely due to nonexistent alternatives – the fact remains that this is a damaged group of people. Having suffered the trauma of a violent eviction and loss of all their possessions anger, desperation and conflict is rife in this community.
Ibrahim first became involved when asked to settle accusations of witchcraft made by the camp leaders against a community member, who had allegedly embarked on an affair with his brother’s wife. The camp leaders solution: to parade the accused around camp, posting notices of his betrayal and threatening to either evict or kill him. Thanks to Ibrahim’s involvement, a number of meetings were arranged with the concerned parties, and the matter was eventually settled peacefully and to everyone’s satisfaction. Testament to the success of Ibrahim’s counselling the former enemies are today sitting side by side presenting new problems with a united front.
The Chairman, Bran Shaban, sums up the current situation for the camp community. “The place where we used to live, we had been there for a long time. Some people were born there, some people died there, and still we were evicted because they wanted to plant trees there. Now we can’t go back, so we have to establish ourselves permanently here, but it’s not easy. We have built the road, the school and teachers’ buildings ourselves, but we need more help with permanent things. We only have one borehole, but it is not enough, we need more and we need a health centre and materials for the school. This place is not productive, the rain is too much – last year the rain destroyed all our crops and the same thing is happening now. Last year we gave a report to the district but nothing happened, so this year we are just keeping quiet.”
Ali Omar, the camp’s Vice Chairman, joins in; “Our hardships have created a lot of psychological problems for our people. When they remember what happened, they get problems among themselves, there are a lot of misunderstandings and accusations of witchcraft. We need a lot of education on how to build peace and resolve conflict. TPO has helped us a lot by coming here regularly, every time problems have developed they have come here and understood and known what to do. They have taught us that no one can come from somewhere and just help, but that we have to sit together, finding the root causes of our problems, resolve the issue amongst ourselves and reconcile our people. This is why you are today seeing people sitting together who before wanted to fight and kill each other. This is thanks to TPO.”
Ibrahim knows that the camp community has a long way to go to be self-sufficient. “TPO does not have funding to give much material help, but what we can do is advocate on their behalf and help them having a voice. Meanwhile, we will continue our education and workshops on conflict resolution as they still have a lot of internal problems.”
Having spent the morning in the IDP camp, Ibrahim moves on to visit three community groups he has been guiding and counselling. The first, a youth drama group, puts on a theatre piece dealing with land dispute issues, much to the delight of the locals who have gathered. A major issue of conflict in the area has arisen over land ownerships, when rebel soldiers returned from the bush and found that brothers and cousins had taken over their land in their absence, causing a lot of inner fighting and even killings. Ibrahim has been teaching this group how to solve such conflicts in a peaceful manner, and the youth group are now incorporating these teachings in their performances, thus spreading the knowledge throughout their district. Another benefit of the drama group is that it is giving the youth involved a purpose and something to do, keeping them from getting involved in drugs and alcohol, which is increasingly a route taken by an idle generation, creating a whole new set of problems.
Next up is a visit to a group of elders, who traditionally are the ones to settle disputes within their communities. As their belief system is heavily based on traditional values and measures, Ibrahim explains it is particularly important to re-educate the older generation. The elders enjoy a lot of respect within their communities and are the ones who are contacted first when conflicts arise from land disputes, witchcraft allegations and domestic violence. The problem is that many of the elders actually believe in witchcraft, and one would think it near impossible to change their attitudes. But surprisingly the workshops and meetings seem to have been very successful, as the elders express their gratitude and explain how thanks to TPO, they now have the understanding, tools and skills to settle disputes peacefully, and request of Ibrahim to continue and expand his support.
It is nearly sunset when Ibrahim arrives at his final meeting of the day, and the golden afternoon light envelops the group of women and children gathered to greet him. Another TPO success story, this women’s group has been receiving both psychosocial and material support from the organisation for a while, and in Ibrahim’s words have gone from not having a voice in their village to enjoying respect from their men and acting as counsellors within their community. Thanks to income generating projects funded by TPO, the women are now well on their way to being self-sufficient, and TPO is gradually withdrawing its support in order to focus on other needy groups in the area.
At the End of the Day
Back at the TPO compound Grace, the Project Officer for Yumbe district, has just returned from a long journey to Koboko district. Together with the Koboko social worker and the sub-county chairman, Grace is trying to settle a particularly violent dispute. A young girl who had fallen sick and subsequently died had accused one of the young men in the village of poisoning her. Following her death her aggrieved father confronted the young man who, before getting his throat slit, blamed his cousin. Having already killed one man, the father and a growing mob confronts the newly accused, wanting to kill him too in retribution. Such tragic violence is devastating enough in itself, but the situation is now dangerously close to extending to the entire community. “The village is in a desperate situation,” explains Grace. “Two people have already died and now the biggest problem is that the extended families and clans are getting involved calling for revenge and the relationship is very bitter. What we have to try and do is reconcile the families before anyone else gets killed.”
So much hardship and conflict in just one day, but also so many successes and real long-lasting progress. And tomorrow Innocent, Ibrahim and Grace will get up and do it all over again!
There’s a compound in the town of Yumbe, near Uganda’s borders with Congo and the Sudan. This modest compound houses a few huts and a small office building; home and workplace to three TPO social workers, who really should be known as ‘the unsung heroes’ of the West Nile.
TPO extended its Uganda-wide psychosocial program to the West Nile region in 2002 in response to the growing unrest among communities, a result of more than 20 years of rebel activities in the region and the influx of refugees from across the Sudanese border. Beyond the core psychosocial program element, the Yumbe project focuses on peace building and conflict resolution in the local communities, aiding and empowering people to deal with the many issues they face on a daily basis. At the heart of this work are the TPO social workers, and what follows is a typical day in their lives.
Guardian of Lost Souls
The West Nile region has been severely neglected since the fall of Amin’s government in 1979. The roads are in a sorry state, particularly during rainy season, petrol is expensive and hard to come by, and 4 wheel drives are mostly the privilege of large international NGOs. So the only means of transport for TPO social worker, Innocent, and his colleagues are off-road motorbikes. Hardly comfortable in this harsh climate, nonetheless the only option available for them to visit their clients, which is how they refer to their many beneficiaries spread throughout this vast, rural area.
Today Innocent is on a number of follow-up visits, checking on the progress of his clients. First up is Fatima who, only in her forties, looks decades older and as fragile as can be. Fatima suffers from epilepsy, a common condition to go untreated among the country’s poor, and was referred to Innocent when she moved to Alaipi parish some months previously. Such is the stigma of epilepsy that Fatima had left her marriage and village behind and moved to where her son and daughter in law live. When Innocent first met her, Fatima suffered an average of three epileptic fits a day, often causing her to soil herself, leaving her utterly exhausted and entirely in the care of her family. Innocent initially referred her to a local hospital where she received treatment and drugs, and her condition improved drastically. Now it seems she has run out of drugs, as her son has not been able to take her back to hospital and consequently her health has deteriorated. In a low fragile voice Fatima explains how the fits have returned, that she can’t keep down her food and points to the sores and bruises on her feet caused by kicking the ground during fits. Innocent suspects further complications beyond epilepsy and discusses the situation with the daughter in law, Raima, who agrees Fatima’s condition has worsened but insists that she does what she can to help her by feeding her, bathing her and cleaning her house (though Fatima body, hair and clothes are clearly caked in filth). As the son isn’t present, Innocent schedules another appointment to ensure they take Fatima to hospital for examination and continued treatment.
Back on his motorbike and another two visits follow. One to an elderly widower, Alay, who having lost both his children and his wife had no one to rely on but his community. Alay was referred to Innocent by the LC, who knew of TPO having attended a workshop on mental health of vulnerable people. Alay, as a result, had a life saving hernia operation, and though still weak appears to be healing slowly.
The final visit of the day is to 17-year-old Seraj. At the age of four Seraj had meningitis, but as so often is the case, proper treatment was delayed whilst traditional healers tried working their magic. Seraj’s life was only just saved when he was finally brought to hospital, but his sight was lost for good. An orphan, Seraj was raised by his grandmother, and for some years even attended a local blind school until he started having epileptic fits three to four times a day. Again, only traditional healers were consulted and his condition remained untreated until he was referred to Innocent, who saw to Seraj getting proper diagnosis and treatment. Now, according to his grandmother, he only has one or two fits a month.
“These cases are typical of the individual cases I deal with,” explains Innocent. “When I first started with TPO I had a lot of training in how to identify and refer common conditions such as epilepsy. But we also had a lot of other training, such as counselling and negotiating skills, and with these I now conduct meetings and workshops, teaching communities to solve their problems. Whereas before they would mainly deal with issues through witchcraft and arbitration, community leaders now leave the workshops with an action plan and tell me I have ‘opened their eyes’. To me, those are true success stories.”
Meanwhile, until the learning and knowledge has spread to every corner of this rural region, one suspects that without Innocent’s continued involvement with people such as Fatima, Alay and Seraj, there would be little hope left for these lost souls.
Empowering Community Substructures
Always with one eye firmly focused on sustainability and the risk that funding might run out, TPO’s philosophy is very much based on building capacity by working with existing structures within the communities.
Ibrahim, another TPO social worker, is today visiting a number of such groups for follow up and counselling. Starting the day in the Gboro IDP camp, a depiction of the region’s problems are put forward to Ibrahim – only here they are intensified due to the transient nature of camp life. With no proper means of livelihood, schooling or healthcare, the camp’s roughly 4,200 population struggle on from one day to the next. Evicted from their homeland in 2001 by the National Forest Authority, the camp leaders claim no proper notice nor compensation was provided by the government. Though Ibrahim seems to be of the opinion that notice was given but people chose to ignore it – most likely due to nonexistent alternatives – the fact remains that this is a damaged group of people. Having suffered the trauma of a violent eviction and loss of all their possessions anger, desperation and conflict is rife in this community.
Ibrahim first became involved when asked to settle accusations of witchcraft made by the camp leaders against a community member, who had allegedly embarked on an affair with his brother’s wife. The camp leaders solution: to parade the accused around camp, posting notices of his betrayal and threatening to either evict or kill him. Thanks to Ibrahim’s involvement, a number of meetings were arranged with the concerned parties, and the matter was eventually settled peacefully and to everyone’s satisfaction. Testament to the success of Ibrahim’s counselling the former enemies are today sitting side by side presenting new problems with a united front.
The Chairman, Bran Shaban, sums up the current situation for the camp community. “The place where we used to live, we had been there for a long time. Some people were born there, some people died there, and still we were evicted because they wanted to plant trees there. Now we can’t go back, so we have to establish ourselves permanently here, but it’s not easy. We have built the road, the school and teachers’ buildings ourselves, but we need more help with permanent things. We only have one borehole, but it is not enough, we need more and we need a health centre and materials for the school. This place is not productive, the rain is too much – last year the rain destroyed all our crops and the same thing is happening now. Last year we gave a report to the district but nothing happened, so this year we are just keeping quiet.”
Ali Omar, the camp’s Vice Chairman, joins in; “Our hardships have created a lot of psychological problems for our people. When they remember what happened, they get problems among themselves, there are a lot of misunderstandings and accusations of witchcraft. We need a lot of education on how to build peace and resolve conflict. TPO has helped us a lot by coming here regularly, every time problems have developed they have come here and understood and known what to do. They have taught us that no one can come from somewhere and just help, but that we have to sit together, finding the root causes of our problems, resolve the issue amongst ourselves and reconcile our people. This is why you are today seeing people sitting together who before wanted to fight and kill each other. This is thanks to TPO.”
Ibrahim knows that the camp community has a long way to go to be self-sufficient. “TPO does not have funding to give much material help, but what we can do is advocate on their behalf and help them having a voice. Meanwhile, we will continue our education and workshops on conflict resolution as they still have a lot of internal problems.”
Having spent the morning in the IDP camp, Ibrahim moves on to visit three community groups he has been guiding and counselling. The first, a youth drama group, puts on a theatre piece dealing with land dispute issues, much to the delight of the locals who have gathered. A major issue of conflict in the area has arisen over land ownerships, when rebel soldiers returned from the bush and found that brothers and cousins had taken over their land in their absence, causing a lot of inner fighting and even killings. Ibrahim has been teaching this group how to solve such conflicts in a peaceful manner, and the youth group are now incorporating these teachings in their performances, thus spreading the knowledge throughout their district. Another benefit of the drama group is that it is giving the youth involved a purpose and something to do, keeping them from getting involved in drugs and alcohol, which is increasingly a route taken by an idle generation, creating a whole new set of problems.
Next up is a visit to a group of elders, who traditionally are the ones to settle disputes within their communities. As their belief system is heavily based on traditional values and measures, Ibrahim explains it is particularly important to re-educate the older generation. The elders enjoy a lot of respect within their communities and are the ones who are contacted first when conflicts arise from land disputes, witchcraft allegations and domestic violence. The problem is that many of the elders actually believe in witchcraft, and one would think it near impossible to change their attitudes. But surprisingly the workshops and meetings seem to have been very successful, as the elders express their gratitude and explain how thanks to TPO, they now have the understanding, tools and skills to settle disputes peacefully, and request of Ibrahim to continue and expand his support.
It is nearly sunset when Ibrahim arrives at his final meeting of the day, and the golden afternoon light envelops the group of women and children gathered to greet him. Another TPO success story, this women’s group has been receiving both psychosocial and material support from the organisation for a while, and in Ibrahim’s words have gone from not having a voice in their village to enjoying respect from their men and acting as counsellors within their community. Thanks to income generating projects funded by TPO, the women are now well on their way to being self-sufficient, and TPO is gradually withdrawing its support in order to focus on other needy groups in the area.
At the End of the Day
Back at the TPO compound Grace, the Project Officer for Yumbe district, has just returned from a long journey to Koboko district. Together with the Koboko social worker and the sub-county chairman, Grace is trying to settle a particularly violent dispute. A young girl who had fallen sick and subsequently died had accused one of the young men in the village of poisoning her. Following her death her aggrieved father confronted the young man who, before getting his throat slit, blamed his cousin. Having already killed one man, the father and a growing mob confronts the newly accused, wanting to kill him too in retribution. Such tragic violence is devastating enough in itself, but the situation is now dangerously close to extending to the entire community. “The village is in a desperate situation,” explains Grace. “Two people have already died and now the biggest problem is that the extended families and clans are getting involved calling for revenge and the relationship is very bitter. What we have to try and do is reconcile the families before anyone else gets killed.”
So much hardship and conflict in just one day, but also so many successes and real long-lasting progress. And tomorrow Innocent, Ibrahim and Grace will get up and do it all over again!