Aunty Nombozo

Once in a while aunty Nombozo comes to the Sironko Digital Village. She is assumed to be in her early 70's. She was one of the first elders to visit SDV in its early stages, to see the project her nephew Charles had brought to Buhugu community.

Aunty Nombozo has four children all of whom live outside Sironko. She has responsibility for several of her grandchildren living with her, while their parents try to make a "way" in the nearby town, Mbale. She is a peasant and grows maize and beans.


Our photograph of aunty Nombozo was a finalist in the 2007 Development Gateway (DG) photo award. To us, aunty Nombozo, and many other individuals we serve, are a representation of real development in our efforts to bridge the digital canyon.

More information on the DG award can be found at http://dgfoundation.org.

Transitions

Over the months, we have received much positive feedback and support from so many of you who have been following our journey through this blog.

Sri, who has authored the blog so far, is leaving the SDV project to partner with the Buhugu community in general.

Starting with the previous post, this blog will now be authored by other members of the team.

Thank you for being part of the journey so far, for it has given us much encouragement. And we hope you continue to read stories we will be sharing from Sironko as this journey continues.

First Team e-Meeting..

Last Saturday, November 3rd, team members at YTF's Sironko Digital Village (Uganda) for the first time joined their digital peers at YTF's Owerri Digital Village (Nigeria) for our first ever online team meeting.

For weeks, team members had exchanged emails expressing their excitement about the meeting. Since the establishment of the Sironko Digital Village in June, this was the first synchronous meeting for both teams.

The meeting was scheduled to begin at 10A.M. Uganda time (8A.M. Nigeria)and the teams had been talking about it for weeks. Benneth, Makuo and Maureen were online from Nigeria while Charles, Rogers, Aloysius and Oliver were online from Uganda. That morning, team members in Uganda went to the "Masaba Telekom" Internet cafe to participate in the meeting while team members at the Owerri Digital Village participated from "O'Neb" Internet cafe. The meeting began a little bit later than anticipated due to first a power failure in Uganda and then an offline network in Nigeria. In both countries, YTF team members had to wait in line until a computer became available in the Internet cafe's.

We shared backgrounds, challenges and successes working locally in each country as well as information on programmes and logistics. Teams in both countries expressed their desires to continue to get feedback from the community and continue to design programs that meet their needs.

It was amazing to see that despite all the technological hitches and the logistical challenges, team members were still very excited to learn more about and share best practices from Nigeria and Uganda.

This e-meeting marked the beginning of a new road for YTF. Join us for this exciting journey.