| Kaabong
Women’s Group started in 1989, is situated in the northeastern, heavily militarised, semi-desert part of Uganda. The Group, the only resource for women in the area, is active in 200 villages. It takes days to reach these by footpath - roads are poor or non-existent. The group has highlighted women's huge workload: women not only give birth to and raise the children, but also build shelters, plant and grow food in the short rainy season (10 months are completely dry), grind and prepare maize and sorghum, walk up to 10 miles a day for water, and sometimes dig five feet to get some muddy water. Firewood is scarce as the trees have been cut down, so women use dry grass for cooking which takes a long time. Most people have no electricity or basic health care. Last year members built their own women's centre in Kaabong where women gather to discuss problems, express their needs, organise to defend their rights and make visible their contributions, learn to read and write and get other skills which help them get an independent income and refuse domestic rape and violence. The Centre has a communal grinding mill, cultivates a fruit orchard on land the Group reclaimed, and distributes food during the famine which happens every year. Kaabong Women's Anti-war statement |