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You
are here: Building Bridges to Africa
The issue of helping Africa has long been used as sound byte. Although important, research and good academic papers on Africa's problems alone are not the answer since often the resources and will are not provided to implement the recommendations.
We live in an interdependent world that and we must all do more to learn about the rest of the world. It is evident that we must increase global exposure of today's young leaders and tomorrow's leaders of the world. It is time to gain a clearer understanding of the cultural and social values of our neighbors in Africa. Therefore, Project Namuwongo Zone B, a small non-profit organization that sends volunteers bi-annually to Uganda, is a vehicle by which youth apathy and misconception about Africa is remedied.
Over the past year, 19 students have traveled to Uganda. A year from today, there will be nearly 50. These young leaders spend time at home exploring the culture and society of Uganda through research and personal inter-action with Ugandan-Americans. Following this education, they come to Uganda.
We have learned that Ugandan youth have led the charge in the fight against the AIDS, offering substantial hope and opportunity to change the course of the epidemic. The young people are aware; they are mobilizers; they are Uganda's leaders.
With this example of youth leadership, I co-founded Project Namuwongo Zone B (PNZB), an initiative that provides long-term sustainable development to the impoverished Ugandan community, Namuwongo Zone B, through direct community outreach between Ugandan and American youth and by re-empowering the community. The "Zone B" sector of Namuwongo is largely populated by displaced persons from Northern Uganda up the Southern border with the Sudan, and West Nile.
Namuwongo lies sandwiched between an active railroad track and an industrial district in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. The experience of volunteering there was eye-opening in many respects; the most disturbing observation was seeing the people in the slum live without clean water, sanitation, and electricity.
One of the most striking aspects of community life is the number of children running around. AIDS has decimated the population there, creating a huge number of orphans; therefore there is an equal number of children and adults in Namuwongo Zone B. Ugly diseases, including Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, plague the already impoverished and underdeveloped community. Most of the people are unemployed and live on less than a dollar a day. These circumstances do not afford the children in this community, the future of Uganda, the opportunity to properly develop through adequate education and nutrition.
Project Namuwongo Zone B's Student Global Ambassadors program (PNZB SGA) engages American youth in activities related to advocacy, leadership, cultural education/understanding and sustainable development in Uganda. The cornerstone of the program is the opportunity for students to spend one month in Uganda. They experience hands-on learning through interaction with the people of Namuwongo and government leadership in health and HIV/AIDS, peace and reconciliation and culture.
The most important aspect of the SGA program is the focus on community outreach in their home communities and college campuses. The leaders document their experience through academic research, photography and editorial journalism: each leader is an eyewitness- to the life of Ugandans.
Currently there are PNZB Student Global Ambassador programs at six American college campuses, including American University, University of California-Santa Cruz, Howard University, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and University of Texas-Austin.
Project Namuwongo Zone B hopes to continue this movement of global education, understanding and cooperation, beginning with Uganda. We all share one planet. It is time to restore balance to the way we use our world. Let us all move forward to fight poverty and disease, to establish equity, and assure sustainability and peace for the next generation, the future citizens of the world.
Jeremy M. Goldberg is co-founder and Executive Director of Project Namuwongo Zone B. He also a Research Fellow in the Office of Government and International Relations at The American Jewish Committee in Washington, DC Jeremy led a group of ten college students to Uganda in August 2003 and again in June 2004 to meet and learn about Ugandan culture, society and to reach out to displaced communities in Uganda, primarily orphans and people living with disease and in poverty in Namuwongo. From September 2003 - June 2004, he was the Goldmann Fellow and International Fellow at the American Jewish Committee in Washington, DC where he focused on inter-ethnic coalition building. and outreach to the African Embassies. Jeremy graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in May 2003 with a degree in government and a focus in international relations. You may contact him via email at: Jgoldberg@relievezoneb.org.
©September 2004 New Horizons for Learning
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