2011-07-28

Short "summary" by and with Eddy Balina - initiator of NVP-Uganda

(sorry about poor sound quality...)

2011-07-27

Phone interview after workshop in St Florence Highschool

2011-07-27

NVP at Gandhi Memorial

This morning we went on a small excursion around the source of the river Nile. We visited the Gandhi Memorial, where according to history his ashes are spread. From the picts you can see the beginning of the river and when it powers through the waterfalls.

The memorial of Mahatma Gandhi.

Eddy Balina and one of his crew members.

It takes four months for the water in the Nile to reach the Mediterranean Sea.

The Nile is the worlds longest river and it passes through five countries. It takes four months for the water to reach the Mediterranean Sea. At the beginning of the river, by Lake Victoria, there are also several fresh water wells. A lot of people come to these wells to pick up fresh water because they cannot afford to buy water.

A non-violence sculpture on the grounds of the  Gandhi Memorial?

We are offered to place a Non-Violence sculpture here to honor Gandhis vision and to make an even stronger mark for the ideas on a non violent lifestyle. A famous Gandhi quote is: "If you want to change the world, start with the children." Of course it would be a great symbolic honor for the NVP to be able to raise our sculpture on these grounds. Also...think about having a sign-up post for Imagine One Billion Faces next to it. that would be awesome...

This afternoon we are back in business training some 400 youths from various schools. Interesting scenario. We have never trained such a big group at the same time before. However, I trust Eddy and that the NVP team will manage to help us out on that one - more on that tonight.

Best/Rolf S

2011-07-26

SMS from Jinja, Uganda

Photo by Eve

Hi, we are now in the little town Jinja, north of Kampala, situated at the source of the river Nile. Today we have done an introduction of the Schools For Peace program to 250 students from 6 different schools. The reception was awesome and all students participated in various non-violence workshops during the day.

All this was possible thanks to the preparations done by our newest team - The NVP Uganda, concisting of 20 young, ambitious youth leaders – inspired and supervised by Eddy Balina. 

Eddie and his team has already implemented the Schools For Peace program in 20 schools and are now prepared to take the program across entire Uganda.

Today we also did a "manual" sign-up session for Iobffp. Due to the lack of computers we only managed to make a first effort, but everybody wants to join so the NVP Uganda team will make it happen as soon as the computers are in order.

Tomorrow we will be doing another session in front of 400 students. Uganda and the Non-Violence Project has becomed one. 

That's all for now, looking out on an amazing sunset from the source of the Nile.

Best/Rolf S and Eddy B

2011-07-24

Video report before leaving from Stockholm, Sweden: