Dear all, I would like to thank all the members who attended the science cafe of yesterday. The turn up was good and blessed with the presence of our two newly elected MPs; Hon Bako Christine and Hon elect Engineer Dr. Aridru(forgive me if I have not placed the titles well). We also had two elders who were very embraced and attentative to the end
The topic Alcohol and the community was handled very well by members under the leadership of Dr. Bhoka George who took charge in the abscence of Fr. Vundru who got committed in the last minute. Thanks so much to Dr. Bhoka for doing it very well even when not prepared. We had a moving testimony from Adomati Dickson who finally made a decision to control alcohol after seeing what it had done to him plus many others that made the discussion very interesting. Sharing those experiences was very important to remind us. Keys issues put forward; - Individuals should know that alcohol has more negatives than positives and each person should take charge of himself or herself and know the personal limitations while drinking. - We need alcohol policy in place and the police makers should take it on. - Women generally have less capacity to consume alcohol than men and they should take note of that.(this is a scientific fact) - We should be our sister's/brother's keeper and come to advice when we see alcohol is taking over the brother or sister - People want to know about the rehabilitation centers and what packages they have - We need to take these discussions to Westnile because many of us are taking care of families of drunken brothers/sisters and therefore we need to address the issue right from the roots - Government needs to understand the causes of over drinking in Uganda, propbably research needs to be done in this area to inform policy. Way forward We need to have a development agenda for westnile and address these issues in the broader framework of our development agenda This therefore gave rise to the next topic for science cafe discussion which is "Setting development agenda for West Nile". This will be led by our members of parliament. Hon Christine Bako and Hon elect Engineer Dr. Aridru will take lead in organizing their colleagues and the link for mobilization between us and the MPs will be Aggrey Adrale(Aggrey is my own suggestion given his strategic position and thinking). The suggested date is 26th March 2011 from 3pm in the usual place. We shall keep reminding you but please book that date on your calender, any adjustments will be communicated. What made me impressed was the fact that everybody including our MPs were talking the same language; development and togetherness. We are not talking about parites but development and Science cafe will not encourage any party tone in the discussions, those will be reserved for places where they belong. Therefore nobody should come there with that intention. All the MPs are our brothers and sisters and all the positions they have taken are very strategic and this was well elaborated yesterday. On another note, yesterday's Monitor carried the Entebbe fishermen story where our brothers were killed. Tabu of Monitor sent the reporters to me and for two days we were documenting the story.The story was long and traumatising. You dont want to know what is going on there. The thing I want to bring to people's attention is that the situation is still very volatile. Attempts to attack the westnile community after that incidence has happened twice and the most recent was four days ago where about 60 people armed with pangas were ready to come to attack the westnile fishing community after false report to the police by a Muganda man. The police were also ready to come to arrest the westnile fishermen based on the false reporting. It was only after the victim, whose head was badly shattered reported to the police that it was the westnile community who saved his life and he was beaten by the Baganda ,not the westnile community. There will soon be a civil war between the Baganda and Westnile community if there is no intevention and with the high tension in the country, this could be misinterpreted and could result into serious loss of lives. We had made attempts to make a broader intevention into the issues, unfortunately we were betrayed by our own brothers on this forum and out just because of love for money. This was becoming an insecurity source for me. I pray that we put humanity first before money and try to help our vulnerable members of community. I throw it to our concerned members to take note. Thanks so much Christine
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