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8/3/2019 LCLC Program Brief Nov11
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November 2011
8/3/2019 LCLC Program Brief Nov11
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November 2011
They aim to empower the local people of Ligingi to identify
strengths, address disadvantage and respond to issues that
impact their daily lives as well as future generations quality
of life, and to provide a framework for the LCLCs partnerships.
Importantly too, our programs are not stand-alone they
are interlinked and reinforce each other to work towards our
holistic vision of community sustainability. The current Ligingi
Community Learning Centre (LCLC) program areas include:
1. Arts and Culture
Ligingi has a rich local culture, which is expressed through
practices such as arts, crafts, sports and games. The LCLC sees
a focus on arts and culture as central to ensuring community
sustainability built on continuation with the past, cohesion,
innovation and a sense of community confidence in Ligingis
unique place in the world. Moreover, arts and culture is a way in
which the Ligingi community can build bridges from the local
to the global, the customary to the modern. Through cultural
practice, community members come together from across social
differencesgenerational, clan-based, religious and gender
to foster close relationships, entertain each other, share joy and
knowledge, and engage with the world beyond.
Customary arts and craft practices in Ligingi include intricategrass weaving, pottery, wood-carving and furniture made
for ritual purposes. Traditionally, special musical instruments
important to Jopadhola culture have also been carved. In the
past, traditional sports such as wrestling were played in Ligingi.
Children enjoyed inventive local games that were passed from
generation to generation, such as local takes on jacks, jump rope
and hopscotch. Music and drama play a central role in Ligingi life.
Local ceremonies and night-time gatherings involving traditional
singing, dancing and dramatic acts were common practice.
Our current programs areclosely tied to our strategic
goals and values.
Over recent decades customary cultural and arts practices
have diminished greatly. This is in part due to increased time
spent working, hardships and processes of modernisation and
urbanisation.
Younger generations now enjoy contemporary, pan-African andglobal music forms such as Afrobeat, reggae and hip-hop, as well
as modern sports such as football (soccer) and netball. However
their opportunities to engage in these more contemporary forms
of creative and physical expression are greatly restricted too
through lack of access and resources.
The people of Ligingi have identified arts and culture as a key way
in which the community can begin on the journey of change and
sustainability. Through the LCLCs arts and culture program the
Ligingi community is rebuilding cohesion, unity and inclusivity.
Moreover, the program draws upon a key strength of the Ligingi
community a joyous, expressive spirit and a determination to
have fun! The program also provides a strong basis upon which to
mobilise community engagement in the LCLC more broadly, andan opportunity to disseminate important information.
With the only material resource input being simple provision of
some new balls and uniforms for football and netball teams, the
LCLCs local team has since May 2011 organised fortnightly sports
and arts tournaments with nearby villages. The events centre on
youth male football and female netball games, but children also
play games and adults undertake arts activities. During these
events the LCLC team discuss relevant issues with the community.
The LCLC is also actively seeking to establish a small-scale,
sustainable cultural tourism program. In particular we are
interested in hosting small groups of ethically-minded travellers
for day trips on a regular basis. The Ligingi community isenthusiastic about welcoming visitors and has much to offer
travellers interested in learning about and participating in
the local culture. Activities on offer to travellers could include
participation in arts and sports festivals, organic feasts of local
food made by LCLC womens cooperatives, tours of local farming
areas and natural swamplands, and hearing the stories of local
change-makers.
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November 2011
Current activities
skills-building of local sports teams (soccer and netball)
developing local arts and crafts groups
dance and drama clubs / events to promote culture
seeking and developing strategic relationships with local and
international organisations to support LCLC activities
Future directions
On the strong foundation established by the local LCLC team,
there are many possibilities for the development and expansion
of this program in innovative directions, for example:
documentation and revitalising the practice of customary arts,
crafts, games and sports in a manner that is relevant to the
local community
development of marketable products based on customary
handicrafts, with accompanying marketing strategy and small
business development for local cooperatives
a focus on engagement with women, youth and children to
encourage greater equality, inclusivity and empowerment
within the Ligingi community
residencies for artists working in various media and art
forms (visual media, music, writing) from beyond Ligingi,
both Ugandan and international, with a focus on community
engagement
hosting groups of travellers for day visits to Ligingi
strengthening drama groups for the purposes of an innovative
educational model in a community where illiteracy is high
and oral communication and story-telling is essential to local
learning
We are looking to establish innovative partnerships with
organisations and individuals that can bring expertise, energy,
innovation and resources to assist the LCLC build upon its existing
Arts and Culture program.
In 2012, the international LCLC team will workwith the local LCLC to help prepare the community
or receiving visitors and taking charge o asmall-scale cultural tourism model based onsustainability and proessionalism.
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November 2011
2. Education and Health
Many community members of Ligingi village
have had limited or no formal education, with
this trend exacerbated particularly for women.
While exact statistics are yet unknown, rates of
illiteracy are very high. Moreover young children
have no formal opportunities for early childhooddevelopmentwhich has been proven to
impact on success later in life.1 There are a great
many factors which impact on the health in
Ligingi. Ligingi, like many remote communities
in Uganda, is marked by high rates of HIV and
great difficulties in the area of maternal and
child health. Gender inequality is both an
outcome of and reinforces educational and
health challenges.
The LCLC recognises that effectively addressing
health challenges in Ligingi requires not
only technical solutions, improved resourcesand information dissemination. Rather, it
necessitates innovative, community-driven
strategies that engage and transform the gender
and cultural dynamics that underpin current
health practices and outcomes. For example, for
Ligingi women to realise improved health, this
may mean a greater power to negotiate child-
spacing strategies with husbands and for men to
accept the cultural worthiness of fewer children
and womens roles beyond motherhood. These
are cultural shifts that can only occur through
the Ligingi community undertaking its own
critical learning journey and setting in placecontextually-appropriate action strategies.
The LCLC sees the Education and Health program
as the foundation of building sustainability and
self-directed transformation for better quality of
life. We understand literacy in a holistic fashion,
as encompassing writing, reading, numeracy
and speaking skills necessary for effective
communication and community-centred
change.
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We see literacy as critical to reinforcing childrens education
through providing a strong basis with early childhood development
and encouraging intergenerational and familial knowledge. The
program builds awareness, critical consciousness and analytical
skills. Beyond this, it builds relationships and democratic spaces of
engagement. Guided by a participatory pedagogical approach, the
Literacy and Education program will also recognise and developtraditional knowledge-sharing strategies. Through the program,
Ligingi villagers are empowered to engage in meaningful, long-
term conversations about social and structural impediments to
sustainability and positive change (such as gender inequalities)
and to create their own action plans to address identified
challenges.
This program will have separate streams for children, women
and men, which will come together at regular points to share.
This is because international best practice has demonstrated
that separation is sometimes necessary to ensure program
effectiveness. For example, in contexts where women face
educational disadvantage, womens-only spaces for critical
literacy engagement are vital to building womens empowerment
and transformation of gender inequalities.
This program also encompasses an ongoing research dimension
and partnership with RMIT Universitys Global Cities Research
Program. For the LCLC, research serves several functions. It allows
us to build a thorough understanding of the current strengths
and challenges facing Ligingi, it helps us to measure over the long-
term the impact of the LCLCs work, and of critical importance,
it provides a way in which the Ligingi community can document
its own knowledge, culture and journey of change. In 2012 the
international LCLC team will work with the local LCLC team and
the Ligingi community to undertake a thorough baseline study of
the current state of community sustainability in Ligingi.
We are seeking partnerships with organisations and individuals
with expertise and interest in literacy, education, health, gender
and research to aid us to further develop this program.
Current activities
participatory research and documentation to establish primaryneeds of Ligingi community
community education on family planning and child-spacing to
enhance awareness and action on large families
fundraising for community literacy and education project
development of community literacy and education project
to aid in structuring adult learning
sourcing for international volunteers / adult educators
to support community training and literacy
Future directions
strengthening drama groups for the purposes of an innovativeeducational model in a community where illiteracy is high
and oral communication and story-telling is essential to local
learning
carrying out a comprehensive population census to understand
the demographics of the village
November 2011
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November 2011
3. Environmental and Livelihoods Sustainability
Ligingi is experiencing rapid environmental degradation and poverty as a result of
high population growth rates (which in turn means greater demand on the land),
lack of information and knowledge, lack of access to renewable and affordable
energy and use of unsustainable farming techniques.
Although home to popular hard trees such as the Mvule (Milicia excelsa), Ober
(Albizia coriaria) and the Mukuyu tree (Fig tree), the past decade has witnessed
rapid destruction of these rare Savannah species in Ligingi. The demand for timber
and charcoal in urban centres are the main reasons for this. Wood is used for
domestic purposes such as in construction and cooking.
For example, the entire community relies on wood for domestic fuel. The nearest
electricity transformer is located 5km at Nabuyoga trading centre with no future
plans by government to expand access to Ligingi.
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With almost total depletion of local trees, fertile Ligingi
swamplands have suffered greatly. Although rice is not a
traditional cash or food crop of the Jopadhola people, its demand
and relative high market price has resulted in its increased
production. With Ligingi being a fertile greenbelt covered by virgin
papyrus swamplands which form part of the Lake Kyoga basin, it
is increasingly becoming home to unsustainable rice growing.
In recent times, Uganda has witnessed rapid growth and utilisation
of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Millions of Ugandans own mobile phones with many of them using
it for social and economic reasons such as to transfer and receive
money (mobile money). The utilisation of solar technology has
also expanded, especially in urban centres and a few households
in rural areas. Overall, however, there is limited application of
modern ICT and green technology to support the transformation
of rural communities to reduce poverty. Research institutions and
universities tend to have an urban focus and limited collaboration
with rural areas. Ligingi has extremely limited access to ICT.
Our strategy is to explore the interface between sustainable
rural livelihoods, environmental sustainability, ICT and green
technology. The LCLC will act as a hub for agriculture, permaculture
and business research, training and information dissemination. It
will build the villages capacity to utilise modern ICT and green
technology solutions as well as traditional knowledge and holistic
permaculture models to solve day-to-day livelihoods problems
in a manner that is in keeping with and restorative of ecological
harmony.
To achieve this goal, we plan to work with individuals, research
institutions, nongovernmental organisations and business
entities to develop creative and innovative technology projects
that respond to the needs of Ligingi community to adapt andthrive.
Current activities
participatory workshop with Ligingi villagers to increase their
understanding how their activities contribute to environmental
degradation
focused group environmental awareness and education
tree planting
promoting financial literacy and alternative income generation
activities that optimise sustainable resource use
adapting modern technology to access information, learning
and share experiences on best farming practices
Future directions
promoting alternative income generation activities that
optimise sustainable resource use
adapting modern technology to access information, learning
and to share experiences on best farming practices
developing village-based small scale processing points to addvalue to farmer's products, e.g. grinding mills, processing plants
using the social enterprise business model to buy, store and sell
farmer produce to reduce exploitation and increase household
incomes;
address rapid population growth that has a negative effect on
food security and sustainable livelihoods.
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The LCLC represents a unique initiative to acilitate meaningul,community-driven change over the long term on a sustainable scale.It works to oster community knowledge and competencies to adapt, thrive and actively engage in a rapidly changing
world. Our programs are constantly evolving and represent the priorities and initiatives o the Ligingi community
defned together with the local LCLC management committee and the international advisory committee.