Winter 2011-2012
Community Engagement
Community Demonstration Gardens Flourish
In Nnindye, Uganda, UPFORD—the University Partnership For Outreach, Research and Development—is beginning to see some concrete changes taking place in the community. Projects in Nnindye are the joint work of three key stakeholders: the residents of Nnindye, Uganda Martyrs University, and the University of Notre Dame. The largest project to date is the establishment of community demonstration gardens in the 12 villages of Nnindye.
The thriving community gardens of matooke (cooking bananas) and beans are providing a classroom for farmers in Nnindye to learn proper planting and care techniques that they can take home to their own gardens. They are also a source of “plantlets” for members of the community to plant and care for in their gardens at home.
“We realized matooke was a crop that can generate income and we also want to eat matooke. This project is one that can produce a lot of results for people in Nnindye,” says community leader Hajji Ssembuze Mohamood.
Each matooke tree will generate between two and four plantlets, which so far have been distributed in the community to an orphanage, local churches, and individual farmers who had properly prepared planting spaces. The community demonstration gardens will produce their first crop in mid 2012. In preparation, the 12 villages are planning a collective marketing strategy to sell the crop.
Kristen Kelley ’13, who interned with the Ford Program this past summer, conducted research on the history of the community demonstration gardens and how the people view them, compared to past agriculture projects. Overall, she found enthusiastic support for the approach and implementation of the UPFORD gardens.
“They value UPFORD’s superior monitoring techniques, continued training, higher quality seedlings, a target population that includes the entire village, and an inspiring commitment from the teams at UMU and ND throughout every stage of the project,” she says.
UPFORD Team at Uganda Martyrs University Expands
Apolo Kasharu PhD, who joined Uganda Martyrs University (UMU) as UPFORD coordinator in July 2011, brings a rich experience in community development work as well as in academia. Before joining the Nnindye Program, he was the enterprise coordinator at the Millennium Villages Project in Uganda. He has worked at the International Institute of Agriculture and the Uganda National Agriculture Research Organization and chaired the Department of Agribusiness and Rural Development at Gulu University.
Agnes Nakaayi is another new addition to the UPFORD team. She has interned with the program since 2010 (and full time for the past year), working with different Notre Dame students who travel to Uganda in the summer for internships. She was recently hired as a full-time UMU employee and provides important administrative support as well as community development experience.
Kasharu and Nakaayi expand our dedicated and talented team of Juliet Nambuubi and Harriet Nakitende. Nambuubi takes the lead in community mobilization, project design, and documentation. Originally from Nnindye Parish, she has seven years experience of working in community outreach through UMU. She recently completed her master’s in development studies at UMU, a degree she earned while working full time in community outreach. Nakitende takes the lead in agriculture and school-based projects and has worked in community outreach in the Nnindye area for ten years. She is currently studying part time for a master’s degree in agro-ecology through UMU.
Teaching
UMU and ND Students Collaborate in the Field
Notre Dame and UMU students worked together during the summer of 2011 in an internship program that further strengthens the partnership between the Ford Program and Uganda Martyrs University. Collaborating in pairs, four Notre Dame students and four UMU interns conducted research and worked together with the people of Nnindye.
The students gained valuable field experience in their respective academic concentrations while also contributing to the mission of UPFORD—the partnership between the Ford Program, UMU, and Nnindye. Each pair of Notre Dame and UMU students focused their research on priority issues identified by the people of the Nnindye community. Their research in community organizations, education, and agriculture will be used to strengthen the current projects underway in Nnindye.
The collaborative internships provide students with the opportunity to apply the theories and lessons learned in the classroom to real-world situations. The internships also promote working with the community to search for sustainable solutions and teach the students to keep the community, rather than outcomes, at the center of their work.
Says Notre Dame junior and Ford Program IDS minor Kristen Kelly, “This summer I was able to gain a first-hand understanding of the importance of community involvement in our efforts to tackle the hardships of extreme poverty, the core of the Ford Program's approach to development. This experience gave meaning to the various theories of development I have learned about within the classroom and will be formative as I continue my work in the field.”
Kelly worked with the UPFORD team, Notre Dame anthropologist Rahul Oka, and UMU student Dennis Jjuuko to document the history of past agricultural projects in Nnindye Parish and their impact on the community, including the 12 new community demonstration gardens that are part of the UPFORD program.
Sister Estellina Namutebi, an UMU student, and Katie Buetow, an ND junior, assisted St. Francis Secondary School in teaching and in developing new educational initiatives. These projects included finding a better use of the existing school space to foster learning, developing the textbook collection and planning a library, and assisting in the planning process for a new latrine. Their assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the school will help the Ford Program collaborate with the community on future improvements to secondary education in Nnindye.
“My summer with the Ford program was an experience that has defined my time at Notre Dame,” says Katie. “This opportunity allowed me to share my passion for reading, writing, and learning with others in the service of a larger goal. In my classroom in Uganda, I applied the ideas that I learned in my classroom at Notre Dame.”
ND senior Curtis Tripp and UMU student Monica Namulindwa worked with UPFORD and the Nnindye community to create an inventory of existing community groups within the Parish. These included women’s groups, youth groups, and both formal and informal institutions. As part of their research, the student interns assessed the opportunities, constraints, strengths, and weaknesses of each community group.
Under the co-direction of the Center for Social Concern’s International Summer Service Learning Program, the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, and the Ford Program, senior Dominic Cimino spent eight weeks partnering with UMU business student Joan Nakitende to research the implementation of savings and internal lending communities (SILC). Catholic Relief Services implements SILC projects in rural communities throughout Uganda to improve access to saving and lending credit in hard-to-reach areas.
Hoping to contribute knowledge on how these groups function and ways they can be improved, the students researched how SILC has impacted participants’ lives, and what can be learned from SILC implementation. They worked in partnership with the Nkozi Agri-Business Trade Association (NABTA), a local organization active in the Nkozi Sub-County. The students conducted an organizational assessment of NABTA to strengthen its internal functioning.
Events on Campus
Coming Up: Fourth Human Development Conference
The fourth annual Human Development Conference (HDC) sponsored by the Ford Program will be held on February 10–11, 2012 at the University of Notre Dame. Organized by students for students, the conference is an opportunity to explore interdisciplinary, sustainable approaches to improving livelihoods and advancing human dignity.
The 2012 theme, “Faces Behind the Figures: Visions of Prosperity, Progress, and Human Potential,” is inspired by Eduardo Galeano’s work, “Those Little Numbers and People.” In it, he observes, “In our countries, numbers live better than people. How many people prosper in times of prosperity? How many people find their lives developed by development?”
With these ideas in mind, the HDC aims to uncover the meaning of human-centric development. How do the everyday experiences of people merge with statistical indicators of poverty and development to reveal something about their lives? The conference is cosponsored by the Center for Social Concerns at ND and SIT Study Abroad, a program of World Learning.
Discussions on Development Series
The Ford Program hosts the Discussions on Development series to encourage thoughtful public discussion by the University community on issues related to human development. Highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of development studies, discussions feature Notre Dame professors or visiting speakers from different fields (follow the links to view video of each event).
Three Notre Dame alumni working in international development shared their career paths with current undergraduates in October.
Madeleine Philbin ’81, the Midwest regional director of Catholic Relief Services, began her career in international development by gaining experience working with Catholic Charities and later as a community organizer in the Chicago area. Her role now is to influence US foreign policy so that it can contribute to the well-being and peace of the international community. Philbin assured the undergraduates that it is “not necessary to work internationally to work in international development.” Change in US policy and action is a crucial component of development efforts.
Winifred Fitzgerald ’83 provided students with the perspective of a professional with over two decades of experience in international development and humanitarian work. Currently serving as the Madagascar country representative and senior advisor for the Better U Foundation, Fitzgerald described finding her current position through “a series of opportunities that unfolded” in her life and not through a deliberate strategy. She emphasized that although there are multiple ways to approach a career in development, from research to project implementation to issue or geographical specialization, international experience is a crucial link to finding where an individual’s skills are best suited.
Clark Gibson ’83 also had international experience post-graduation but he soon turned to academia to fulfill his desire to work on development issues. It was the perfect balance for Gibson, whose academic career has given him the flexibility to pursue his international interests while also providing him the space to help development workers in the field and inform those outside of the world of development on international issues. Today he is chair of the Department of Political Science and director of the Center for the Study of African Political Economy at the University of California, San Diego.
“There’s no path [to a career in development], but you have to exploit every opportunity,” Gibson told students. He emphasized the role that international experience plays in finding career opportunities, and encouraged all students to find study, research, or service opportunities abroad.
Re-imagining Accompaniment: Global Health and Liberation Theology
Later in the month, the cofounder of Partners In Health, Dr. Paul Farmer, returned to Notre Dame to take part in a public dialogue with one of his heroes, Rev. Gustavo Gutiérrez, OP, widely acknowledged as the founder of liberation theology. They spoke before a standing-room-only crowd of more than 500 students and community members, with their talk streamed live to a Harvard University auditorium, where Farmer’s students and colleagues gathered.
Farmer, the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard, and Gutiérrez, the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Theology and a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow, spoke of their lessons in maintaining a preferential option for the poor at the center of their respective work. The dialogue made clear that an acknowledgement of the complexity of poverty and mindful action are both necessary to alleviate the struggles of the poor.
Farmer began the discussion with a tribute to the work of Fr. Gutiérrez, who has been his intellectual accompagnateur(accompanist) since Farmer began his work combating poverty through improved access to healthcare.
“It was the patient, scholarly work of Gustavo Gutiérrez that helped me to make meaning of the poverty there in Latin America and right here in the United States,” he said.
The work of Partners In Health (PIH) is largely inspired by liberation theology’s teachings: that we all have the responsibility to attack modern poverty and that the best way to act is through accompaniment with the poor. This philosophy was honored with last year’s Notre Dame Award for International Development and Solidarity, awarded to PIH by the Ford Program in April 2011.
Fr. Gutiérrez continued the conversation by emphasizing the complex reality of the human issue of poverty.
“Poverty is not a misfortune, it is an injustice,” he said. “Poverty is not a destiny, it is a situation.” This situation can, and must, be changed through creating a preferential option for the poor in action.
Both Farmer and Gutiérrez emphasized that social forces create poverty and humanity must work to change these forces through a commitment to research and social justice. According to Farmer, an understanding of poverty must be linked to efforts to end it. Humanity’s structural sin deepens as science and technology advance. Gutiérrez emphasized the need to act out of a close relationship to the poor, to accompany them through their suffering with a strong compassion and a commitment to connecting human dignity to practical solutions.
It is difficult to be open to the challenges of working for a preferential option for the poor, but both Gutiérrez and Farmer emphasize that we must focus on the hope, and not the suffering, in order to be successful accompagnateurs. As Farmer said in his concluding comments, “we must learn to tell positive experiences and meaningful stories about the work that we do in order to continue our commitment.”
Global Causes and Consequences of Human Trafficking
In November, Professor of Anthropology and Kellogg Faculty Fellow Carolyn Nordstrom discussed her research on the dark world of human trafficking and her mission to promote the human dignity of populations vulnerable to trafficking. She emphasized the truly global nature and prevalence of this form of modern-day slavery and deplored the lack of action on this issue by the global community.
“I am different than most people, because I believe changes can be made and that individual action can wipe out human trafficking,” Nordstrom said. She encouraged students to start asking questions and to be cognizant of the human slavery all around them.
Not just limited to forced sex workers, human trafficking provides a large portion of the agricultural and factory workers in the global economy. In spite of the huge profits that result from the exploitation of human trafficking victims, Nordstrom is optimistic about the power each person has to help solve the issue by asking difficult questions and raising awareness.
Nordstrom’s discussion was the last event in a month-long Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery Series, cosponsored by the Ford Program, Center for Social Concerns, Notre Dame’s ND8 and Inspire student clubs, and students from St. Mary’s College. The program featured lectures, films, and awareness events around campus to bring attention to the complex problem of human trafficking and other forms of modern-day slavery. The series also aimed to mobilize students to support the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011, currently in discussion in Congress.
The series began on November 3 with a screening of the documentary Tony, created by Invisible Children, an organization dedicated to ending the use of child soldiers by the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army. A “Slavery Footprint Awareness Activity” challenged students to understand the pervasiveness of modern-day slavery by discovering the means of production of their clothing, food products, and other consumer goods. An Open Mic Night, a Poetry Slam, and a second documentary, Sex and Money: A National Search for Human Worth, also helped to raise awareness of the issue.
Research
Research to Improve Sanitation in Africa Gets $1 Million Boost
Molly Lipscomb, assistant professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, and Laura Schechter and Jean-François Houde, economists at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, hope to increase the accessibility of sanitation technology in poor neighborhoods, making sanitation services more environmentally friendly and improving the health of neighborhood residents in Dakar, Senegal.
Their two-year research project is supported by a more than $1 million grant to Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Lipscomb, an environmental and development economist who is a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow, credits a $15,000 seed grant from the Ford Program with helping to lay the groundwork for the new, larger study.
“The pilot study funded in 2009 by the Ford Program helped us understand many of the issues in the field,” she says. “We were looking at the impact of social pressure on people’s willingness to pay for sanitation services.”
In both projects, the economic problem is similar: how to incentivize the proper disposal of waste, either through social effects or through reducing the costs of disposal services. The pilot project analyzed willingness to pay for the disposal of gray water while the new project investigates the disposal of sludge from latrines.
“Sanitation is one of the biggest health concerns in high-density poor communities in developing countries,” says Lipscomb in describing the new, scaled-up project. Because proper disposal technology and services cost householders money, many dump latrine waste in the streets or pay manual laborers to remove the sludge, which they usually dump illegally near people’s homes.
With the new funding, the researchers are conducting three randomized controlled trials, which will cover 4000 households in 400 poor neighborhoods of Dakar.
One trial will pinpoint ways to increase household investment in sanitation through social effects such as altruism, social pressure, or learning from neighbors. The other two will explore how to reduce the market power of mechanized sludge removal firms, as anti-competitive practices keep prices high.
To carry out the study, the collaborators are partnering with CREPA, a West African NGO that specializes in research on sanitation, and working closely with ONAS, the National Office for Sanitation of Senegal.
Project results are expected to inform marketing and operational work in sanitation in Dakar, as well as in other parts of Senegal and the developing world.
Innovations for Poverty Action is a nonprofit dedicated to discovering what works to help the world’s poor. The organization designs and evaluates programs in real contexts with real people, and provides hands-on assistance to bring successful programs to scale.
Gooood Morning Mopti: The Impact of Radio Access on Political Mobilization in Mali
New Kellogg Faculty Fellow Jaimie Bleck, the Ford Family Assistant Professor of Political Science, is exploring the impact of radio access on rural populations in Mali.
Despite twenty years of democratic rule, mass illiteracy, gender inequality, and the hierarchical control of political information make it difficult for rural citizens to act as “democratic agents.” Political science literature suggests that the expansion of mass media facilitates more informed and active citizenship and indeed, a dramatic expansion of radio has followed Mali’s transition to democracy. Mali’s media is celebrated as among the freest in Africa.
However, access to radios is often restricted to village and household heads. Bleck’s study examines radio’s potential role in forming capable democratic citizens—focusing particularly on women and youth, the most vulnerable and marginalized populations. Her team is investigating the impact of access to radio on citizens’ political knowledge, political efficacy, and autonomous political participation.
The study leverages data from a field experiment, a panel survey of more than 1000 respondents in 10 villages in Northern Mali, interviews with village leaders and party agents, and content analysis of radio programming to identify the effects of a program furnishing women’s and youth associations with 300 solar crank-radios. The research will take place during the 2012 presidential and legislative elections, which include a significant constitutional referendum that could create 33 new laws.
Bleck’s research will generate important information about democratic participation, electoral courtship, and representation in rural, Islamic Africa. It will also provide important policy lessons for USAID and other donors who have supported radio expansion and programming with hopes of better citizenship outcomes.
Understanding Civic Engagement and Political Participation in Uganda
In collaboration with Clark Gibson, Karen Ferree, and Danielle Jung, all members of UC San Diego’s Political Science Department, Ugandan political scientist Robert Esuruku, 2010-11 Kellogg Visiting Fellow, Rev. Bob Dowd, CSC, Ford Program director and assistant professor of political science at Notre Dame, conducted a Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) field experiment to assess the effectiveness of messages intended to encourage Ugandans to vote in the February 2011 election.
Supported by grants from Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies and UC San Diego’s International Studies Program, the project was one of the first GOTV experiments to be conducted in Africa. It assumes that civic engagement and political participation are crucially important means to authentic human development.
Without an active citizenry, people become objects of development rather than active participants in development, and sustainable development is impossible. The project attempts to understand what types of messages promote political participation—in this his case voting—and what types of messages might impede such participation, with the goal of designing more effective ways of promoting an active citizenry.
While more analysis is necessary, preliminary findings are revealing. Contrary to the GOTV studies in the US, reminding citizens that their inked fingers (a customary procedure at the polls) would make it visible to others that they had voted reduced turnout, especially among unmarried women. Dowd and his collaborators theorize that this indicates that Uganda’s political system is still less than democratic and that many of the poor and vulnerable are afraid to vote.
Of what or of whom are they afraid remains unclear. Were they afraid that the anonymity of their voting preference would be violated and that those in power would learn that they voted for the opposition or are their other reasons why, after being reminded that their fingers would be marked with ink as part of the voting process, the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community did not vote? Dowd and collaborators intend to conduct follow-up research that includes focus groups to address this and other questions.
