Dwon Madiki Partnership

the MISSION
To foster sustainable, personal relationships with Ugandan children, to amplify their voices in the West, and to empower them through partnership, mentorship,and education.

the HISTORY
Grace Odonga, the mother of a good friend in our organization has a community based organization (CBO) recognized by the local Ugandan Government called Women Together. Recently, Grace has shared the pictures and names of 21 Ugandan orphans with us. These children’s lives have been greatly affected by this war, but now that peace talks are in the process, they have the opportunity to go to school. The problem is that many children are theoretically covered by the universal primary school program, but still cannot go to school for many reasons: lack of uniforms, non-tuition school fees, book fees, and lack of money for food. Dwon Madiki Partnership aims to eliminate these barriers that have prevented them from flourishing. Through art and communication the children tell their stories to us in the West, which “helps us help them” raise money for their own education. We envision a two way learning process. We will learn from them, and they from us, all the while developing a lifelong friendship.

the LIFESTYLE
All of the 21 children are either orphans, parents to younger sibling, or the child of one parental figure, but none of them have enough support to have an education. In order to survive, many of them deliver water for money, a day-long backbreaking task which keeps them from school and pays next to nothing. The Partnership provides the money they need for school and other necessities, a mentor figure to monitor their progress and provide encouragement, and an outlet for expression through art, especially photography, which will help us tell their stories to the world. In addition, Dwon Madiki has an office in Gulu where the children come after school to play and check in with Grace, our local administrator.
Already, the lives of children are changing. They are all thrilled to be connected to the outside world, and overjoyed to be going to school. Were it not for Dwon Madiki, these kids would be carting water all day just to survive.

the RELATIONSHIP
Invisible Conflicts is forging personal relationships between individuals in Uganda and the West, linking communities of power with those living in poverty. To this end, we plan to develop a program that will open lines of communication between our two worlds. We will make it easy both for the children to communicate with us, and for our peers to communicate personally with the children, sharing our lives through art, letters, blogs, email, and forums. We are currently developing a curriculum for the after school program that is intended to engage and educate the children on the subject of human rights. This curriculum is designed such that it can be used in either a Ugandan or American classroom, and can be implemented through art activities, peer discussion, or history and social/civic studies lessons. As we develop this curriculum, we are in talks with two Chicago non-profits that work with underprivileged youth in the inner city. We will engage both the Dwon Madiki children and a group of Chicago children in a dialogue, using the curriculum as a loose guide to start kids in both communities thinking and talking about human rights. By providing a guiding framework (the curriculum), cameras, art supplies, instruction and encouragement, we will provide both groups with the means to tell their stories through art. We will also encourage both groups to use their art to answer questions about human rights brought up in discussion and their every day life experience. Eventually, the children will be encouraged to propose a solution to problems they see around them, and to express it through art. Their art will be shared not only with their “sister students” across the globe, but also with donors and people in powerful political positions in the west. It is our experience that the art of children can be very powerful, and we expect it will impel people in the U.S. to donate money, to get both politically and personally involved. We believe that getting underprivileged children to internalize basic fundamentals of human rights at an early age will be transformative both in their lives and the communities they live in. By encouraging them to be creative, we will build their confidence, and help build critical thinking skills vital to a community so in need of drastic change. Furthermore, as the children exchange art and develop relationships across the ocean, their world will be “expanded,” and their horizons thus broadened. We will encourage them to adopt a global perspective.
In addition to creating relationships and understanding between the two groups of children, we also are building and will continue to build a relationship between the community of Gulu and our peers in America. This summer, our first representatives will travel to Uganda to help set up computers, work with Grace Odonga to adjust the after school program curriculum to suit the Acholi (the local tribe) culture, to build the relationship, and to document the story of Uganda’s children for those of us who cannot go.