The power of community engagement in co-creating durable solution. Florence Ringe Interviewed

In this week’s episode, we interviewed Florence Ringe Executive Director of Prince of Peace Orphans and Widows Vision(POPOW), a grassroots organization working across Kaberamaido, Kalaki, and Amolatar Districts of Teso and Lango sub-regions in North Eastern Uganda.  Florence’s talks of the importance of engaging the community in understanding the unique needs of particular communities rather than imposing external solutions that might end up not being sustainable. 

Education being a critical area of focus, Florence mentions challenges faced by children in accessing quality education. Many children walk long distances to school, and the infrastructure often fails to support their educational needs, but POPOW Uganda is working to promote safe learning environments and provide essential resources to families.

Florence also shares inspirational stories of transforming the lives of young men involved in criminal behavior through sports and community service. By providing opportunities for positive engagement, the young men have become protectors of their communities, demonstrating the power of change when given the right support.

If you’re interested to find out more about Florence Ringe’s work, take a look here:

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A suggested reading for the audience:

“Every story of hope and desired change blooms through the power of giving. Your selfless acts of kindness and generosity create a huge impact in the lives of the marginalized individuals. This is who we are as POPOW. It is a powerful reminder that we all have the ability to make a difference in the rural, unprivileged communities. Choose to show someone kindness today!”

Transcript

 Kate: Welcome to The Power Shift, decolonising Development, the podcast series seeking to bring together thinkers, practitioners, and activists to share ideas, inspire change and identify tools for practical action. I'm Professor Kate Bird, a socio economist and director of the Development Hub. My co-host today is Nompilo Ndlovu, and I'm going to hand over to Nompilo Ndlovu now to introduce herself.

Nompilo: Thank you, Kate. I'm Dr. Nompilo Ndlovu. I'm a Zimbabwean living and working in South Africa. I have an oral history background and apply gender frameworks to my work with communities in Africa. My PhD focuses on mass violence, memory and local transitional justice in post-colonial Zimbabwe. Back to you Kate. 

Kate: Thanks, Nompilo

Kate: Today we are talking to Florence Ringe, executive founder and director of POPOW in Uganda. Florence is a passionate, Ugandan change maker and mother of four. With over 25 years experience championing, and advocating for the rights and wellbeing of women, children, and extremely vulnerable individuals, including the youth.

People with disabilities and rural communities in Uganda. She's founder and director of POPOW, which is the Prince of Peace Orphans and Widows Vision, a grassroots organisation working across Kaberamaido, Kalaki, and Amolatar districts of Teso and Lango, sub regions of Northern and Eastern Uganda. Through POPOW she's become a powerful voice for the marginalised fighting, gender-based violence, promoting access to clean and safe water, hygiene and sanitation, household economic empowerment, child protection and participation, environmental conservation, and psychosocial support for rural communities.

She's worked with the European Union, ECHO, UN, Tear Fund and USAID funded programs over 15 years in Uganda, Southern Sudan, and Kenya. After POPOW became operational, she's been instrumental in transforming and directly impacting the lives of over 258,000 marginalised individuals through POPOW's interventions.

For more about Florence and POPOW, please click on the links in the show notes before this episode. I'm going to hand it over to Nompilo now for our first question.

Nompilo: Thank you Kate. Hello Florence. It's great to meet you today. I wonder if we can start our conversation by first telling our audience a bit about your organisation, its mission and its practical programs.

Florence: Well, thank you so much. Our organisation is a women founded, women led and women managed organisation. And, our goal and mission is to empower communities to realise the potentials within them for sustainable livelihoods. We got into that goal because my community, over 10 years ago, believed in a dependency, I would say depending on somebody else to come and help. So we intend and we purpose to change that mindset and help people to realize the resources that they have within them, and without that can help them to meet their basic needs and transform their lives. We work in three districts, as it is mentioned. And we've chosen these districts purposely because of their geographical location in nature, very hard to reach with very limited access. So, our target is to support the entire community, but focusing more on the most needy, the most vulnerable, and those within digital access to services. So we support the entire community, but focusing on women, youth, Children and people with disabilities. We've been in operation for 10 years and over a period of 10 years we've achieved a tremendous change. We have tried to promote a peaceful, resilient, productive, and healthy community, and that is the direction we are taking through promoting access to clean and safe water.Education in these communities is a nightmare. Absolutely no access. In the three districts, we have what we call Universal Primary Education and Universal Secondary Education, which is purposed to promote free education. But it's never free. It's never free because the infrastructure itself does not enhance the free education. The household vulnerability cannot even allow them to meet the little needs that can enhance the free education like uniforms and scholar materials. The distances from school, one school to home is a nightmare. Our children move if I say two way. Two from home to school upto 10 kilometers I think the shortest place, especially in nursery education. We don't have nursery schools, so children start school at around seven and eight years because they can walk. So, we are protecting children because when children are working far to seek education opportunities, it comes with a lot of vulnerability. To the girl child it is just a nightmare. That's where, along the way they meet a lot of traumatic events, luring them into smaller gifts in order to get a book or pen. So we enhanced child protection because we want to make sure these trails are safe, speaking to the communities, to be change agents and making sure these girls are safe. And water has been a very big issue therefore, people taking water from open spring wells. This comes with a lot of health issues, which affects both the women, children, and entire communities. It affects the whole line of a human need. We do psychosocial support, a community that has never been exposed to social services outside there, they don't know what it means to enhance growth. Being born in a poor community, growing in that community, studying in that community, and after that, still finding livelihoods in that. So the minds are so much closed, closed up to a state of desperation with hopefully not looking at other livelihood options. So we do psychosocial support, economic empowerment. We are trying to support women. In these three districts, out of five households, at least three are managed and taken care of by a woman. So economic strengthening, trying to train the women on business skills, how to identify how to start and how to manage income generation activities, which can be done from either home or nearby home. When the youth drop out of school, then they result to two things, destruction of the environment because they want quick money. So they cut the trees, including the protected species like mango trees, I mean fruit bearing trees, and any tree that comes along that path, they destroy to make bricks which they want to use for making money. If you look at the value of the mango tree which has grown for over 80 years, then you cut it and then just sell the outcome mode fee for only $5, $6, it's really heartbreaking. So we want to protect and conserve environment by helping the youth to find other livelihood options so that they don't destroy the environment. We support the youth through games and sports. Because it's hard to find the youth in the three districts, they're not productive. They've gone out of school. They're so desperate they find themselves worthless, so they go into risky behaviors, smoking and abusing drugs, and then making life difficult for themselves and their families and the entire community. So we get closer to them through games and sports. And when we get them closer, then we take them through a model of behavior change. And when we change them, they become the transformers and the change engines in the communities. So women are safe when the youth are also productive. Children are safe when the youth are productive. I remember actually, one of them speaking when I first had an encounter with them and they said, mama Florence, we didn't know that we would have ever in time in our life when someone can call us and have lunch with us and dine with us, because out there they look at us like useless people, and people who are trouble causers. Just having us sit with you and have lunch with you makes us feel that we are somebody. So we're trying to do everything interconnected that can lead to social and economic participation. And then trying to make everything work together so that we can achieve a healthy, peaceful, and productive communities. Thank you. Back to you.

Nompilo: Wow! Mama Florence, thank you for that very decisive and clear introduction. I am a person of words, so I really just picked up on the fact that you were like women led, volunteer run, sustainable livelihoods, and just your work in the very hard to reach areas and amongst our vulnerable populations. Thank you for sharing about the intersectional work that you are fulfilling and doing so many things solely through volunteers. I know you've already started speaking a bit about your work with the communities, but in the next question, can I ask you to describe or elaborate how you work with these communities? So how do you set the agenda? How do you design the projects? And delivery? Especially because there's so many issues at hand, how do you decide which are the priority areas?

Florence: Okay. How we started working with the community is first of all, by helping the community to understand. Actually, the first thing was to understand the community that we're going to work with, understand their needs, understand the context and where they live. That helped us to develop programs that rotates around that need, that was the first step. The second step was to help them, to enable them understand who we are, our objectives, and how we want to achieve this. And then from the beginning of the program from inception we made sure that community engagement and participation forms the foundation and the bases of POPOW’s existence and that has helped us. That we have helped the communities to understand who we're, and only what we can offer. But how to make this work, and where to make this work, it is entirely the communities to decide. So we say, okay we've come to improve access to water, they identify the water source, they identify the problem. They tell us the solution that is needed to make that problem work. So community engagement and participation is one of the key that will leave every programme to succeed. The mistake that many international organisations have done over years and years ago is because we come with programs which are already packaged. You come with a package program,  maybe a study has been done internationally, maybe a study has been done in Zimbabwe, maybe in another district. Then ballon it together. Then you carry it forth and say, yes. I want to give an example of menstrual health. Menstrual health when I was in northern Uganda over 20 years ago, the first thing was girls drop out of school because they cannot afford pads. And it's a story I think that is spoken in Zimbabwe, maybe in Kenya. I don't know no girls are dropping out school because they don't have pads. He said, but how can this become a general problem in Africa or the entire Uganda? So sometimes we try to bring things which don't work, which are not practical, which don't apply to a particular context, and then we assume it'll work for the same. The fact that I am poor does not mean that the poverty level that I'm facing is the same with the money, the neighborhood. Now poverty levels vary. So understanding the context under which we work. Understanding how powerful the people can be, the solution is there. They are the best people to solve their own problems. You can only do that if you give yourself a listening ear, and a mind to understand them, so that is how we've managed. And I want to tell you something that I've always, pride in activities. You see us doing alot of things but we don't have funds. The only funds we have is from Surge for Water, and it's basically to promote access to water hygiene and sanitation. And it's basically to suit that need, administrative need to make sure this water comes. Women's empowerment, women's participation, children, child protection. All these are done by without money. So we've built a lot of trust because of engaging women. They come and we talk. We talk about the issues and then we see workable solution may be using conflict, peaceful conflict so that approach has made us to succeed in community engagement and participation, and then making use of the locally available resources that people can put difference on to solve this problem. And finally maximizing the usefulness of the little resources that we get to make it meet this need and fulfill our desired goals and objectives. Thank you.

Nompilo: Okay. You are very passionate about the story, and it shows. Can you tell us what has inspired you to do the work that you do?

Florence: I grew up a privileged child. I grew up in the city, okay, in Kampala. And as a child, I lived in a house which had electricity, a house which is, self-contained. But outside that house, I remember how I used to go with my mother to the market and outside that house, life was different for the children like me. That time I was a child, it was different. I saw children living in the streets putting on torn cloth, and then I would see people putting on torn cloth. But my mom and dad don't put on torn cloth, and that disturbed my mind as a child and yet I couldn't ask anyone because no one would explain to me. I carried that question. But why? Why are these children begging? I lived with it , at the age of 17, I remember whenever it rained, I would not sleep. I remember inside my bed on my blanket, whenever rain fell, I would feel, I would remember someone is sleeping in the cold, some child is sleeping in the cold.  So I would find myself throwing the blanket away from me on the bed because the pain will linger in me. It is something that I lived with, something that burdened me from childhood. So that kind of thing. So when I saw the women, when I saw that injustice when I got married, I decided to leave my marital home. I kinda married into a well-to-do family. My husband was well to do. We had a lot of food on the table, and when I heard about the conflict in Northern Uganda, people were dying and, people were running away from Northern Uganda to Kampala, to the cities people can afford. I chose to go there and my husband's brother asked me, Florence , what is wrong with you? You have everything have in the house Jonathan brings for you food. You have everything and you want to leave this place and you want to go to a warton area? You want to die? I told them I don't want to die, but I have no power to control death. If destined to die in that place I will die, I have no control, but I am going there. If I'm not destined to die, what do you want to do there? I told them if we all run away from a situation, where people are suffering and dying simply because we have the resources to protect ourselves, who will be there for them? I will go, I told my brother-in-law. He loved me so much and then I went, I found the worst of it. I found women living in the camps. Again, I lived in a very beautiful house. I lived next to the member of Parliament. My house was big and people would move in the night and they would sleep on the veranda because the veranda was large outside. They had nowhere to put their head. So women and children would live under my veranda. Oh my goodness! I wouldn't sleep again, so I would open my door and open the gate. It was a rented house, the landlord didn't allow anyone to enter in that compound. I said I will open, if they chase me away, I'll go. So again, I opened the door and people would sleep under my bed everywhere and I would feel peace. So my passion needs something in my heart, just to do something to change and transform my life. I believe that the bloodstream moves the same way. Every time I pinch my body, I know that if I pinch my body the same pain I feel that’s the same pain someone is going to feel. So being in a place of comfort going to school and I have all the food I have and someone doesn't have it, no! There's something I should be able to do that inspires me. And so with that inspiration, I've transformed lives. I wrote in my book in one of my submissions in Northern Uganda, 10,000 people I know them by name. It is over 15 years since I left the place. I know them by name because they live in me, 10,000 people. Majority were women, I still have them in my heart. I get so many of them and I transform them. So what inspired me to start POPOW I know, I know that there's something I can always do to change a life, so that has made me to resign from my job. I was getting and that I resigned from my job, an international organization and I started POPOW and I never regretted since the time. I suffered a little when I resigned from my job, my children didn’t have money to go to school. Yes! That happened for five years. But yes, I have the peace because finally, I am seated where my heart desires to be in the center of the communities who basically cannot afford to find something good within themselves, and yet together this beauty of something inside them comes out. And that is my inspiration, transforming people, creating a spiritual resilience in people, and then hope. Thank you, back to you 

Nompilo: The most beautiful story of just being an empath, resilience, taking some risks along the way, and you yourself being an example of what it is to  live as a volunteer outside of a salary. I'm not surprised to see that you've grown just in terms of the volunteer network that you have around you because you live it out yourself. Let me hand over to Kate, I know you'd already mentioned Surge for Water, and I think she will take the questions over from there. 

Kate: Thanks Nompilo.  

Kate: Earlier in the conversation, Florence, you've mentioned that much of the work that you do is delivered on a voluntary basis, because Surge for Water is currently your only funding partner. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about your partnership with Surge for Water and how you first met people from Surge and how you developed your partnership.

Florence: I met surge for water,  in 2015 I think May. I wrote a proposal and I gave to a friend who happened to know Shilpa, and she delivered this proposal to Shilpa each passed, it passed. At that time I knew only Shilpa, I didn't know Surge for Water. So she wrote me a mail accepting to work with us. It was a very small proposal and it was a very small amount of money. I think about $4,000 was what we asked for. So in the same year, as surge gave us that money, we did a lot and work with a little money had a lot of impact. Yeah, we had a lot of impact. Actually Surge gave us money to drill, I mean to rehabilitate three wells which we did perfectly well. And then Shilpa in a team of three other women came to Uganda. In November of the same year. That was 2015, 3 months hardly because it started in June, July, August, September, October, November, 4 years. Shilpa came to Uganda with a team of three volunteers, very great women and we bonded so well. Something that was so strange, so unique about Surge for Water. Allow me to refer to Shilpa so much because she is at the forefront of all this. So as I talk about Surge for Water, most frequently I mention Shilpa but I know she works with a team of people. So when they came, one unlike other development partners, let me use the word donors, unlike other development partners that I've seen, even in my previous engagements with international organisations, Shilpa and the team came right to Kaberamaido. A place where there's no access to roads is almost 425 kilometers from the city, from Kampala to Kaberamaido, there is no tarmac, no tarmac at all. All the roads are full of potholes and dust. It's a community where inside Kaberamaido, there are even no roads you, walk through path. Path meaning, just where your foot can walk in small as this, so it is all grass. It's very uncomfortable. But Shilpa and the three ladies walked the journey with us. What touched my heart most, I took them to a place where there is no water completely. It was a school which is very far from others, and children don't study so much. They had 250 children because it's hard, it's a landing site. Shilpa and the team went with us and they walked through the swamp. They walked in the swamp, they walked on those mountainous places, and when they came out of that water, I saw patches of black spots on their skin because they were not used to walk in such a place. They sacrificed everything about them and then they suited in our situation. Shilpa and the team put themselves in my situation, they put themselves in the situation of the leader. That is one thing that I saw that was different. And when they came. They sat down where we sat and they ate with us and they ate with the needy people. And I remember a group, so many poor children who hardly had anything to put on. And then they loved the children. I could see the passion, I could see the love full in their hearts. I could see their hearts melting with pain, seeing the suffering of these children. That is one thing, so they put themselves in a situation, they understood the context. Now, Surge for Water is a partner which does not dictate on you. Just like I do my things I understand the need of the communities and I ask them how best we can work together to solve for same approach. Surge for Water would understand the context where we work in, and they will do what suits our needs. They don't have strings tied. So they have been such a partner that I've never known, I've never met. They're so real. They work with their hands on, not only eyes on, but hands on. So beyond giving us the funds, the build capacity, we created a network. They're so flexible, first to understand and very patient. If where our strength, our weakness are they'll always hold our hands and make us move together. They are not part school, you have not done this, so we are not going to work with you, no! They look problem and then they'll together work with you to solve. So that's a partnership I've worked with Surge for Water and I can't just describe them. They're beautiful, they're good, and over a period of time they have come. They have come again and again to places where people don't reach. Actually, Surge for Water is the only organization in the entire three districts where communities and children begin to see white people. So they hear mzungu, it is through Surge for Water. My community and the children, when they see Surge for water and the white skin, everyone gets excited. It is from me that some children saw a white color for the first time. It was through Surge for Water. So I want to thank them so much and yeah, that's what I want to say about them, but also it is only through Surge for Water that we have been able to improve access to water to the community. Now, I think we are at 75%. Our contribution to access to water in the district that we are in is 75% the only partner organisation that have enhanced access water in the communities. The only organisation that have given us opportunity to speak to the girls about their bodies, about menstrual health and then making them responsible and safe. Thank you so much.

Kate: Thank you very much Florence. Could you tell us a little bit more about the menstrual health program that you run?

Florence: The Menstrual health program targets children age between 9 years to 17. That is at primary level and at secondary level about 9 to 17. That is primary level, then about 18 to 20, 23, 24 to secondary level. So it helps us to get these children together and then we help them to understand three things: One, the stigma surrounding menstrual health, taboos surrounding menstrual health and enhance their power to understand, equip them with the insight to make good decisions and break this barrier. In a nutshell I would say, if they're saying that when you begin menstrual health, you’re woman you have to get married. Through this engagement in menstrual health program, the children should have to know when I'm menstruating, it means i'm growing up. The body changes it signifies growth, it's not about marriage. So then that's what we do with Menstrual Health, but also we introduced another program to enhance Menstrual Healths which we call it the Girl Icon Program. We do surge for Water and Milan Foundation. We are now getting these girls from understanding the stigma, barriers surrounding menstrual health. We are also empowering them to become young, great leaders so they can understand the problems around them, the conflict situation around them, and support themselves in schools, support themselves as children and help them to be safe. So we train, we've selected 750 girls, we call them the Girl Icon. They are leaders in the school. Prefects, head girls, class monitors and then they identify each one of the 750 girls, identifies 10. Each person identifies 10 behind her, so that's another program we are enhancing to enhance menstrual health. And for this 10 years, I need to get the data and send you, but we've supported thousands. Actually, over 30,000 children because we have reached out to all the schools in Kaberamaido, all the schools in Kalaki and now we are intending to reach all the schools in Amolatar. So we've reached over 30,000 children with this program and we don't see our children engaged in risky behaviors in town because they've been empowered to understand what menstrual health is and the stigma surrounding it. Thank you. Back to you.

Kate: Thank you, Florence. In a previous conversation, you mentioned to me a story about a young man who was causing a lot of problems. He was engaging in criminal behavior. He was attacking girls, raping girls, and you were able to engage with him and sit and talk with him and create some changes. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about the work that you've done with youth.

Florence: Okay, with the youth, actually from that one boy, I have transformed 480. That number will never leave me because I have to keep it. 480 of such boys changed. They're married, they're good. They protect me. I used to fear them when I first came, but now they protect me. So we are friends, we work hand in hand. But from there we introduced games and sports. And we've supported seventy eight groups. And the seventy eight clubs. We call them groups, seventy eight groups and each group has at least 25 members. And these youth groups, they form a football team and they play games and sports. So we started empowering them on that, we have realized that youth love games and how I did that. One time I went with Surge for Water to a landing site. We were doing the usual monitoring and evaluation, so they had come to check the work we do. So we went to a landing site and as we went to the water, three youths saw me walking with them and they started using abusive words, insulting words. Usually abusing the body of a woman in my tribe is bad. And then they wanted me to hear, of course the team from Surge for Water could not hear. I just looked at him and I called him to me and then say, what you are saying is not good, it’s not good to insult women to abuse the body of a woman. Why would you do that? Then he told me, you know, and as I talked to that one, five of them came around me. Usually when I start to talk to my communities, only one person, I'll have over 30 people around me in a second if I start to talk, they all come they want to hear what I'm saying. So five of them came immediately. He told me, you know, we live in this landing site and what we do is fishing we don't go to school. So in the night we go fishing and in the day we have nothing to do, there's no school around. So we come and play. There's these cards, they play cards. And as we play cards we take alcohol because we have nothing to do. So after playing cards, we can't sleep and then wait for the night to come and go back. That's what we do every day. So we have nothing to do. And I told them there's something you can do. Then I said, okay, is there anything besides playing cards that you can do? Then one of them told me football. I said well, that's good. Then the other told me, mama Florence, give us a ball. Just give us one ball. Wow! So I told one of the team that had come with Surge for Water, he's called Phil. He's a young man, he came in with the team of Surge for Water. He was the only man among the team. So I tell him, I tell Phil, this young man wants a ball so that they begin to play so that they don't engage in risky behaviors, taking alcohol. Phil was so good. Phil said, I will buy for them. So we go to town and then we go and buy a ball, a pump, and a whistle. That one ball in 2017 has transformed over 7,000 youth and made them productive that one ball. So when we bought that one ball and gave to them in the landing side, a group of boys started playing football and then the elders around the place became the spectators. So they moved away from going to play cards, take alcohol and begin to abuse people, engaging risky behaviors, having unprotected sex, they started watching the football and so we started promoting more boys. More Boys started coming when they had, we give balls. So now we have so many youth groups who come to get balls. So we get them through games and sports, we give them balls and uniforms and then we engage them as we give them the balls. We give them the balls and uniforms of course, we kept them growing from one ball, we now started giving them uniforms and then socks. Then we came up with what we call giving back to the community. So we agreed with them and said, okay, if you want us to give you a ball, you need to give back to the community. So we asked them to identify anything, anything. Remember I told you that if you want to work with the people, you don't have to dictate and tell them what they should do get from them, what they can do. So I told them, what can you do to give back to the community in exchange of these balls that we give you? Of course you talk in a very friendly way that makes them to understand that you are not tying a string. So some of them would say, we are going to build a house for poor old woman in our community. They've built houses for poor people. I've seen so many. If I can get back to these pictures, I'll try to look for them and you see before and after, some of them would say, we are going to clean our water source, our water source is dirty. Others would say, we are going to open a road so that through that another approach that give back so they do something remarkable in the community and we give them the ball. Then the third one is behavior change. The day we are handing over the ball to them, then I go and talk to them about, I called it the value of life for behavior change. That's a model that I've developed, the value of life for behavior change. So I talk to them about that. So many it's a series of so many things, and every time I speak to them about that, they tell me, mama Florence, if you came to my life many years before I got engaged, I will not do this. Those are the statements, that come. Others would say, you speak as though you've seen me. You speak as though you've seen me. So those are the three methods we're using to support the youth and is working for us. Today our youth are so good, very respectful. Even those who take the drugs and abuse the drugs no longer rape women because they have understood the value of life. So they take their drugs, they'll get drunk, and they remain peaceful and simply happy among themselves, but they are not many. So that is how we are engaging the youth. Thank you.

Kate: It's actually very inspiring hearing what you are doing and the leadership that you are providing to the communities around you and the way that you see a problem and that you identify an intervention. A way of working with the community that is building relationships with them, and also creating really positive change and I've found it very interesting, the way that you've got not just the water and sanitation and menstrual health elements to your work, but you've got all of these different social and economic and psychosocial elements to the work that you are doing. It's a very rich set of interventions that you are creating there. I'd like to move now to our last question and to ask you what you would say are the key lessons you would like to share with other organisations about developing productive international partnerships. And can you relate, the lessons that you've identified to the anti-racist and shift the power movement in the global development and humanitarian sector?

Florence: The key lesson that I've learned is every human being. Irrespective of color, irrespective of their economic status and social status is great. They're all great, in their own ways too. Every human being is unique in their own ways, irrespective of color, race or whatever, every human being is unique. And in that uniqueness, there's something good inside every person in that uniqueness. And there is a potential, not only a potential, a great potential in every human being. So, If we want to support and transform a human being and bring change in the societies, we have to appreciate that fact that this person that we are looking at, there's something great in that person that can transform his own life. I want to give an example, humanitarian organisation that I worked in before. I remember there was a lot of food, and let me give an example, allow me give this example because I saw it. I saw the World Food Program in Northern Uganda, people were living in a camp, you don't have access. The gardens are there. People were forced to come and live together in a five acre piece of land, and thousands of them were living in that place. And that decision came, I don't know from where as a way to keep people safe, because outside them the assumption was there was danger. It was true they were armed soldiers outside them. So the only solution that somebody thought was get them together in one place, surround them with their guns behind there so that they're safe. That was wrong, it was good, but it was not a durable solution. Now getting them together is just killing the potential. So when they brought them together, in African culture especially where we are we live through livelihood you go to the garden and dig, get your food, keep your cattle, keep your goats and that is your power as a man. And then a woman has so many children around her they're playing now. Putting them together means a man will not go to the garden. You do not go to the garden, one food program would bring for you food and distribute because you are being kept safe. So their potentials  were killed. They started drinking, men started taking alcohol. I am not saying that was a bad thing. It was done in good intention. It was done in good gesture, but international organisations and developers must first of all understand the problems people face, understand the problem I am facing, understand what has put me in that situation and what has caused that problem and then understand from me what I think the solution is. So that is one thing I've learned: understand the people, understand their problems from them and then design solutions that suit that particular problem and that particular need. Now, if you have a group of people living together in a society, then chances are high that their problems are the same, their social and economic backgrounds are the same. They live in the same place so that means if you understand their problem, then you define an intervention that suits their problem, that is one. Understand the problems of the people, understand their needs, and understand the solution by them, then design programs that will test around that need don't make it uniform. That’s the lessons I've learned. Two, the idea of saying that as someone is poor someone needs help, simply kills the initiative. No, Identify the potential in people and then if you want to help, help them to first of all, use that potential inside them and then bring that support just to strengthen them or to enhance them. If you give me money and you're going to give me $10,000 and you don't know how much money or if I've ever had even a dollar, then I'll get excited and chances are I'll misuse the dollars because I have never held it, I've only held $1. So I think understanding the problems of people, understanding them and helping people to define that, those are the key lessons I've learned. And then help people to participate. Help them to manage it, give it to them, let them manage it. Don't bring it and then manage it for them. Once you understand their problems, once they understand you, build trust in them. If they don't know how to manage their own problems, then build their capacity to manage their problems. I think that's what I have to say. And that approach has made POPOW to shine. We are the best NGO, actually in the region, we are the best. And there's something I've learned Kate and I feel bad about it. We do great things down here, but we are not feasible. You know that we are not feasible. We have great people down in the oceans. We have great people in Africa, down in the forest. We have great women down in the forest, but until you know that there's a forest somewhere in Kaberamaido and unless you know that there are people living in that forest, unless you see the people living in that forest and understand them, you'll never know. We do great things, Kate. If there was any donor who is looking for where to put funds, we are a people that would need that money because: one we are transparent, two we try to make sure that every support that comes to us reaches the person. Imagine we don't have money to support children in school. Just imagine that we don't have money to empower women to give them the little money to support their businesses. But here we are doing the little. So I think that's what I want to say. And then in the current humanitarian system, if you give people handouts, I call them handouts. If you are giving people something for free, it's not so good because you kill the potential inside them and then they feel there's nothing good that comes from them. So they'll always want to receive it. So if you are going to support the humanitarian organizations, if you're going to give first build on what is existing. First of all, see what I have and what I can offer and then support me to move a milestone and to the humanitarian organizations I think they have to find means of verifying. They have to find means of measuring change and the impact created out of these interventions. If you're supporting POPOW you first of all need to develop tools that can help you to measure the change over a period of time. If you got me in a certain way, then you should be able to support me to the point that you can see the change. Not to come with a program five years, you implement it and you're done and you've gone away. You're getting beautiful reports and situations implement the change. To prove what I'm saying, if all the support that we get from external sources it could be nationally or internationally, were sustainable today we will not be talking about children who are out of school no, because they would've been empowered, the parents would've been empowered to take their children to school. Now, another thing I want to suggest is try to empower communities to work. Design programs that can help communities to work so that they continue supporting. If you support one child, we produce up to seven children, eight children, 10 children. If you pick one child and sponsor, what happens to the rest of the eight children? So we need to develop programs that are sustainable and that are transforming and that can change lives. I think that's what I want to say about that. Thank you so much.

Kate: Thank you so much Florence. You've given a very rich and passionate description of your work and some really strong insights in genuine community based and grassroots development interventions, which you are driving forwards in a holistic way with very little external support. You are a very inspiring woman. I feel very grateful to have had this conversation with you today. I'm going to hand over to Nompilo now to say a farewell.

Nompilo: I cannot echo Kate's words enough. One of the most energizing podcasts we've had in a while, I literally feel like running into the field and doing some work right now. But, just to really thank you for your time, and to wish you continued success in the field as you have had. And you spoke so much about giving out to the community psychosocially and just doing healing and mending. I just want to say as I leave that we also hope that you have a community of people that speak psychosocially and healing into yourself so that you are pouring into a community from a place where you yourself are full. But thank you for inspiring us and take care.

Florence: I want to say one more thing as we wind up to prove that if you do programs that transform and change a live of a person, it speaks for itself. I want to speak to both of you, if ever you want to come to Uganda. And come to Kaberamaido or to Kalaki, find a 4-year-old child, or any child who can speak and then ask about POPOW. That child will describe who we are and they'll lead you to where we are. So if you ever think of coming to Kumam Land before you see me, if you want to prove what I'm telling you just get a child, a school going child then you say, I want to go to POPOW I don't know where the office is, do you know POPOW? They'll describe to you what we do, 4 years/ 5 years children will define who we are. That is how much we have built the relationship and everything that we do with the community, that even children know us and they define us and they can tell everything that we do. If you go to an old woman the oldest woman that people think we ask them about POPOW, they'll tell you who they are. And if you ask about Florence, I am not building everything on me, around me, but yes! people know me. The rural people know me, yes! more than the well to do people. So I am more identical with the rural people and that makes me proud, so thank you so much.

Kate: Thank you very much Florence and goodbye for now.