Lots of theory to digest here... now to connect this with some reality on the ground.

Opok Farm is physically located between 2 IDP camps (Koch Goma and Alero) that are filled with people hoping to someday resettle to their own land. Ofir (our volunteer) has been mobilizing groups of +/- 25 casual workers from each IDP community, with interestingly different results in each community. This experience, plus talking to a lot of people in the know about the children's current plight in the resettlement process, has given us some interesting insights over the past couple of weeks. This leads to thoughts on how we can start shaping the farm community and conceptualizing it's long-term development as a values-based place to belong.

Later today, we are meeting with the 25 workers from Koch Goma camp and their wives, to offer them all a 2 acres for 2 years package that includes a monthly salary and a whole lot of education about simple techniques and technologies that can help them resettle onto their own land. My intent is to make it clear to them that the purpose of forming the farm community is to serve the most vulnerable children in society, and the way we will serve them is through providing them with knowledge about the land. So if they take the offer, that is the kind of endeavor they are becoming a part of. They may be invited to stay on longer after the initial 2 years, but at that point we expect there may be additional opportunities on the farm to consider. Hopefully by that point they will also have self-organized as a group to help each other build roads, clear fields and build houses on their own land. So at the end of the 2 years, our hope is that they will all have options on what to do next.

Another 5 regulars from Alero camp will be extended the same offer, but the group of workers from that camp has been much less reliable and cohesive. We've seen there are a LOT of idle youth not in school at the camp. They do not really know anything about agriculture, having grown up in the camp and not on the land. Our current intent is to work with the local secondary school to identify youth that have school fees back-logs which are keeping them from sitting their final graduation exams (there are hundreds of such cases at every school). I have interest from the Catechist Training Center at the Catholic mission in Gulu to help us develop a vocational training program that will bring these youth to the farm in groups of 25-30 to participate in the various organic farm processes going on, and learn about the region's bio-diversity and environmental protection for 3-4 months. At the end they will receive a certificate, and we will pay their school fees backlogs and exam fees to the school directly so they can sit their final exams and graduate. If this works well in Alero for 2-3 terms, then we'll also make the opportunity available in Koch Goma camp, as well as in the Life in Africa community in Gulu and the Acholi quarter IDP camp on the outskirts of Kampala.

Most of the encroachers who are cutting down trees to burn charcoal are from the Alero side of the farm. Mobilizing and sensitizing large numbers of youth about different ways to earn from the land - as well as bringing them into the larger farm community as alumni - will hopefully give us a broad base of local support for protecting the land and making well planned decisions about how to use it. Putting the families around the periphery also plays to that objective.

Ofir, our volunteer who's worked most closely with the 2 worker groups, argues that we should just forget alero camp altogether and focus efforts in Koch Goma. What we already know, however, is that people from Alero and people from Koch traditionally don't really get along that well. The people from Alero complain alot is what the Koch folks say. The farm is actually closer to Alero than it is to Koch - within a 2-3 km walking distance - so it seems to me that exclusing participation from Alero in building the farm community really isn't an option. Being located in the middle, I remain convinced it's in the farm's and the school's short and long term interest, to encourage stakeholders from both communities at the outset.

Some interesting thoughts about the children's village - very hard to sell the idea that children should just come and live on the farm. Start calling it a boarding school, however, and it makes perfect sense. Both poor and rich alike attend boarding schools in uganda - we can get children sponsored in and target precisely the target groups that the school is designed to educate. After graduation there may be some families who decide to stay around - they will all have been educated according to the values of the school. There will also be teachers and school staff that add to the adult population and settle into living there.

Feels like there is a lot more to say on the background that led to these ideas, but let me post this before the link goes.