1.0 Introduction

TeleFood cassava project in Kalongo parish is considered as the "green gold" in the area, reflecting the only hope in "Food for the future" since other crops have since withered due to the onslaught of the poor weather conditions. Similarly, their project is also being considered as the bench for the "Food for All" Campaign by FOKAPAWA including Extension Agents to energize food production through having several cassava mother gardens established in various Parishes of Pader district formerly part of Kitgum district. Food availability, to which cassava is an integral part for composite flour making (cassava flour mixed with finger millet, sorghum, etc.), is being served as daily bread in all families in northern Uganda. Thus the value of this commodity should not be underestimated. The presence of the huge cassava mother garden in the area has also invigorated FOKAPAWA together with their counterparts in administration to wage a war against food deficiency by encouraging even the men flock to help their wives in opening up land and applying proper crop husbandry practices where it is required. As the struggle to restore food security is gaining pace, FOKAPAWA plans to open up new cassava mother gardens in Muto, Pacabol, Lapono, Lomoi and Layita parishes. According to FOKAPAWA, up to thirty acres are being considered in each parish of Paimol Sub County where there are more than 68 women in the group. While in Parabong Sub County about 200 acres of cassava has been targeted with each parish split to maintain two mother gardens each, not less than 15 acres. Furthermore, the visiting team heard that a number of people who had escaped political disorders in Karamoja and other districts sharing geographical boundaries with the Sudan have been accommodated in FOKAPAWA families.

Since the launching of the nation-wide TeleFood Program (FAO initiative) by the First Lady, Mrs. Janet Museveni, tremendous interest has been shown by farmers in areas where FOKAPAWA is operating and beyond. Within the area where FOKAPAWA is operating, a request has been made by the local authority that FOKAPAWA expands its coverage to the entire Agago county, two parishes in Chua county (Nam-Okora and Orom). The neighboring districts too have expressed interest to come and obtain improved cassava cuttings from FOKAPAWA.

The World Food Proramme has also made several interventions. Some 100 pieces of cock brand hoes, 50 axes and 50 pangas, which were few compared to the number of women being recruited to become FOKAPAWA members have been donated by the WFP. (At the moment about 1000 have registered following the inception of the project). World Food Programme further considered additional grant of assorted farm inputs. Again a French NGO, Action Contre la Faim has organized seminars in areas of nutrition which FOKAPAWA women group have actively been attending. Also the National Strategy for Women Advancement in Rural Uganda (NSWARU) has donated cows to two women groups in Parabongo and Lapono Sub County. OXFAM has recently opened its office in Kalongo and undertaken a child nutrition survey, community road construction and provision of shelter to the displaced persons and is working closely with FORKAPAWA.

2. Purpose of the workshop

Dr. Otim gave a historical overview of the group by recalling the formation of FOKAPAWA as a result of a concern about the women and children during insurgencies. The first workshop was funded by Word Bank (WB). The objective of the first workshop was to identify together with people, what to could be done to come out of poverty and hunger. The priority areas identified were:

1. food security
2. generation of income
3. seeds & farm tools

He further explained that fighting poverty means doing many things at the same time - food, health, education, etc. Through the WFP the group constructed a fishpond and road to the cassava mother garden. Other initiatives were handicrafts, poultry to genarate funds for what the groups are doing. The challenge for FOKAPAWA is to look for market in order to go further FOKAPAWA, therefore want to know:

• How to manage cash
• How to manage market
• How groups can pull resources together, etc, as the next step in their evolution.

Therefore, the purpose of this workshop is to train leaders of the group member of FOKAPAWA in managerial and leadership skills and spread the message to all others.

3. Benefits of the workshop:

1. participants will be better skilled in management of their
2. food security will be addressed
3. members will be responsible for their own plan/projects
4. FOKAPAWA will be a model for the rest of the region
5. Increase in health through good nutrition

4. Objectives

To train 60 women leaders of the FOKAPAWA members in Project Planning, Management and Finance Management skills.

5. Workshop approach

The workshop was participatory. The schedule was adapted to the participant's needs and on the basis of daily progress and feed back. Flexibility was necessary, in order to appropriately relate sequences of the sessions. Therefore, a number of intermediate sessions were created to link up the sessions.

6. Target audience:

The participants of the workshop were mainly peasant women farmer's who's lives were centered around village communities and traditional agriculture. Sixty women and 13 men members of the Forum for Kalongo Parish Women Association (FOKAPAWA) participated in the workshop at Kalongo Catholic Parish Hall and Aber TDMS centre.

7. Partnership Inputs:

Dr. J.J. Otim, Presidential Advisor on Agriculture, Office of the President; and Rev. Sr. Veronica Oyela were the main communicators between the target groups and the NGOs. The joint effort was supported by World Food programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Poverty Aliviation and community Development Foundation (PACODEF), and Agricultural Co-operative Development International and Volunteers Co-operative Assistance, (ACDI/VOCA) and the Catholic Parish Kalongo.

8. Facilitators:

Dr. J.J. Otim, Presidential Advisor on Agriculture, Office of the President; Rev. Sr. Veronica Oyela; Mr. Oyet; Mr. Obiya; of Agriculture Council of Uganda,Mr. Ben Ekoot of ACDI/VOCA (SEAGA trainee) and Forough Olinga IP national training Facilitator. Translators were: Rev. Sr. Veronica; Oyela; Mr. Oyet Obiya and Dr. J. J. Otim.

9. The Workshop

400 Km away from Kampala to the North in Pader District, is where the parish of Kalongo is situated. It has a very distinctive rock mountain called Mt. Oret. A good number of the people participating were displaced, or lost members of their families during the insurgencies, or have been cut off from main lines of communication. The oral history reveals that the first settlers from outside Uganda were Arabs who connected the line of trade from Sudan, Zaire, and Uganda; and during that time the Oret Mountain was named by Arabs as Al Jaboor. Later on a group of missionaries from Italy arrived in 1906 and established the mission, Church, hospital and school; and up to today they, missionaries, are there serving. Kalongo is in Agago country in Pader District.

FOKAPAWA is an umbrella organisation for 90 women groups who are involved in production of a variety of crops and livestock like cassava, rice, ground-nuts sesame , finger millet, and pigs and goats.

In the last decade, the area has experienced some significant difficulties of the civil war, leading to loss of family members, homes and property. Despite all these sufferings, the people around Mt. Oret are very strong in heart and are religious.

On day 1 of the workshop, the participants welcomed the facilitators with a song saying: "you people from all over, feel at home because Uganda is for all of us." Some of the groups had very interesting names such as:

• men have left all the work for women
• orphans are divided among community members
• they all have been changing places
• women stone crushing group, where do I go?
• Help home 100 orphans
• Respect is better than being foolhardy
• A poor person does not sleep
• A poor person depends on her/his hands

The above groups and others not mentioned above are formed at the parish level and coordinated by the FOKAPAWA. They all came together based on a common interest in social factors, such as:

• they all suffered on various calamities of war
• social cohesion/harmony
• common commodity

IP Facilitator conveyed the message of FAO Representative Mr. Ajmal Qureshi that FAO is very interested to see that this initiative bears fruits and helps to better the quality of life and nutrition of the people in the parish.

Furthermore, that FOKAPAWA can serve as a beacon to the rest of the districts around and guide them and build partnerships with all the rest, and solve the problem of food insecurity. When it was mentioned that FAO Rome gave permission to IP Facilitator to attend the workshop, a participant said: "we thought only the Pope comes from Rome, so even permission comes from Rome!".

The efforts of Dr. J.J. Otim and Sister Veronica to make sure that people, in this parish not only get to have enough food, but go further to organise such a workshop to strengthen women leaders managerial skills for development of a sustainable organisation, are commendable. The cassava project is managed by the grassroots people themselves.

The facilitators created an atmosphere of learning mingled with lots of fun and joy of learning. Materials were tailored to realistic and achievable sessions. The facilitators encouraged the participants to evaluate each day and their comments were used for the next sessions. It was noted that it is only the participants who can really judge if what they have been given was useful or appropriate. The participants actually developed the appropriate curriculum through the listing of their expectations which the facilitators incorporated into the programme.

A format of daily evaluation was developed through participation. This exercise helped the two-way communication between facilitators and participants. Marks for each session were given including the reasons why. It also helped them to come closely to the understanding of what responsibility means, by allowing them to take responsibility.

Mr. Ekoot through a very creative and interesting session of stakeholder analysis went through how to identify primary and secondary stakeholders and why. It was interesting to see how the groups presented - one of the most amazing was after ranking the stakeholders they also determined the size of each circle for the Venn diagram in the ranking and one of the prominent stakeholders was "thief," being in an unsecured area. As part of the solution, they all said, "There will be so much food for all, so we shall minimise this problem."

IP National Facilitator and Sister Veronica took the group through a participatory approach of how their society is organised, how work is organised and who does what. Division of labour and the roles of specific people was discussed. On a village map they identified the resources within the area. She further illustrated the relationship between the key players using the responses from the groups. Later the session related all the information to plan for modernisation of agriculture (PMA) and examine whether roles and responsibilities of any categories needs to be altered to the need of this plan. Do people actually need to have more knowledge and skills to perform in the modernisation of Agriculture? Further to this, participants in-group were given assignment to design an appropriate bicycle for a woman farmer to suit the needs of productive and reproductive roles within the acceptable social frame. It was heart warming to see how the groups took care of all the needs including a small basket for the food and water for the baby who is carried behind the mother. This applied method helped the participants to become creative by learning, thinking and applying immediately within the boundary of their perception and knowledge. At the same time, it helped the facilitators to follow from their perception and based on that build the next sessions of participatory planning and financial management. Mr. Ekoot and Mr. Oyet took participants through a "heavy" session of objective tree, and problem analysis. This session at beginning looked very hard for participants and they gave 20% mark to the session. After an assignment by using their own example, Mr. Ekoot helped all the five groups in smaller number to understand the tool and why there is a need to identify the core problem which turned into objectives. Participants certainly were more alert, confident. Mr. Ekoot took the participants through the first part of planning: Thinking and discussing how to plan, what materials are needed, how much of what and where to buy, when to buy, forecasting and later to cash flow plan, through an example familiar to them. This session was so interesting and important to the participants that they sacrificed their tea to get cold. They recalled the things they learned before this session and related clearly to commercial agriculture enterprises (PMA). At the end of the day participants had a feeling of dignity. They thought they know and said "We now understand the things educated people know" and "what happened to me, I am becoming clever" and "This workshop is our University" and "my head is bigger than before," "now we know what to do next." The evaluation of the day was 90%. The session was very tangible, talked of realities in the market and business in the context of participants understanding. Although it was a little difficult for them, through many examples and approaches, Mr. Ekoot and Mr. Oyet kept the session lively. The appreciation of participants was vividly showed through dances and songs "O Lord we want to thank you. Wapori Matek." They joined Sister Sidonia singing a Swahili song: "Upen do wa mungu (love of God)" ... saying "from up from left from right from down from all sides all God's bounties more and more."

From this day the effective language of communication became songs, prayers and examples. Participants promised to put what they have learned in songs and sing it for all who were not present. The next session on group formation and participatory monitoring threw more light on the purposes and stages of group formation- how can we promote participation in monitoring; how to improve accountability, how can progress be measured; how to handle conflict; and delegation of tasks and responsibilities. Keeping Track by recording information in simple formats that all members can follow the progress and monitor throughout their own project of Cassava. Challenges were discussed.

Sessions F and H touched on savings and banking and the management and consequences of loans to a group. The workshop came to an end with colourful dances, music from the North, composition of songs of praise and gratitude to the facilitators/organisers and especially to FAO Representative Mr. Qureshi. Participants presented the facilitators from Kampala a sack of ground-nuts, seeds, baskets, and a broom.

During the workshop women shared a lot of their joy and pain with all. It can be summarised in the following words to men:

"Your position ( men)is assumed by birth (a boy) but we (women) have to prove all the time we have foregone the opportunities for you to become a king, a chief, a head of the household and a controller of resources around us including my energy, labour, care and me as a whole. This is a new age/time until PMA, let us share the burden together and call it a more balanced management. Let us teach you through FOKAPAWA how!"

The participants learnt about the plan for modernisation of agriculture, a plan of government to benefit the majority of the people of Uganda, mainly the farming society, by scaling up the farming from traditional and subsistence farming to modernisation of agriculture for the well being of all people. The plan necessitates for all to have skills, better seeds, tools and most importantly, how to plan (financially and seasonally). There is need to have knowledge about pesticide, storage, labour, transport, and household food security. The idea of being in a group is that you can pool resources to buy inputs and tools and collectively market your goods in order to maximise profit/benefit. As farmers you can join voices together in unity and agree on a price together.

The organisation of the Workshop was collaborative / partnership through planing up to implementation.

At the end of the workshop, FOKAPAWA members came up with the decision to follow up with the training and also distribute cassava stems from the mother garden to the members' gardens.

During the workshop, men and women came to believe that they can learn to become leaders and no one is born with leadership. Male participants were able to understand "power" differently to what they believed previously not as ability to control, but rather a capacity to manage resources by directing towards the entire community. Leaders who consult with community and recognise participation and operate with a high degree of transparency and independence. They also learned that they can set their goals and means of achieving them.

They have also noticed that they have a system of regular communication and information sharing particularly women at places such as the well, collecting water, stone quary (one of the new income generating opportunities for women to crush stones for building), and when they weed crops. These channels of communications can be used for information sharing in order to introduce management to the people themselves. They became aware of importance of literacy and anxious to learn more. Women also learned what task they would have to carry out in order to manage their projects and what they would have to do and how best they could be helped. All participants until the end of the workshop stayed motivated and alert. Only one lady got sick and got admitted in the hospital. Women visited her daily and updated her on the workshop. A man got sick but could not go for treatment; he said "If I go, I will miss a lot." Men thought it is more interesting to learn side by side with women, since last they were learning together in the primary school.

10. A Visit to the Cassava Mother Garden

The National facilitator was able to visit the two mother gardens of 54 and 27 hectares respectively. The gardens are doing very well and the first lot can be harvested in November 2001.

11. Conclusion:

The workshop was a gender-focused training for women and some men in management and development of human resources. This obviously will challenge the existing social structures for better and sustainable community joint efforts. It also articulated the women's control over benefits and aroused the interest for future investments/interventions such as literacy classes, commercial craft, livestock ownership, capacity to hire labour and overcome barriers such as lack of confidence.

12. Recommendations

The project has the capacity for human resource development with particular reference to women.

• More training/workshops based on their interests need to be organised to empower women by transforming the social structures to a full participation of women and men at all levels of project life.
• Some selected women can be selected from the first workshop to undergo a TOT for the benefit of other future training e.g. FOKAPAWA, MAAIF and NAADS.
• There is need to establish a farming rural farm institute/ university.

The FOKAPAWA members need to be more exposed to more training knowledge and field visits to other farming communities.

For further information, contact:
Forough Olinga
IP National Training Facilitator
Email: ipuganda@utlonline.co.ug