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This letter was written on 4th April 2000. Hello, In Uganda over the last month, we have heard some atrocious news. The naivety of 1000 uneducated Ugandans was exploited to gain their money and to dispose of their lives. (This refers to the Ugandan Cult called "The Movement For The Restoration of the Ten Commandments" which burnt 500 followers and which had previously killed and buried 500 more.) And just a few days ago the department of Agriculture released a warning that Ugandans may be facing a drought or at least a shortfall of rain, and that they needed to plan for the worst eventuality. And due to Government ineptitude the South African Airways purchase of Ugandan Airlines fell apart resulting in the collapse of the airlines and the jobs of its many employees - in a nation where the unemployment rate of non-subsistence farmers is 80+%. (This also meant the cancelling of the flight I was scheduled to fly on for the first leg of my return journey). Yet in the midst of these negatives, there is also great hope. Time and again it has been shown that when people become true leaders, they are able to end their own hunger and to be able to determine their country's future. For example, in Bangledesh I am told that over the last 5-10 years, The Hunger Project (a charity I greatly admire, and which I was the Chairman of a number of years ago) has become the largest grassroots movement, primarily through training 3000 leaders (animators) and 300 leaders of leaders (catalysts). And in Uganda over the last 3 weeks, I believe a transformation has begun to occur. 12 THP staff and volunteers attended a 2 day training just for themselves, and 125 NGO, Government and Industry leaders (including most of the participants from The Hunger Project's Forum on ending hunger) attended 2 programs of 3 days each held at Makerere University in order to fulfil their request made at the Forum for Personal Leadership training. Their responses are that the training was "wonderful", "inspirational", "enriching" and "a great privilege". That the training "made a profound change", "opened me up to re-discovering my vision", "refocused my life" and "will change me for the rest of my life". That it led to a "total improvement and fundamental change", and that the participants "have been transformed" and are now keen, and able to "impart these leadership skills to (their) staff", and to "contribute tremendously" to the impact of their organisations. (And they rated the usefulness of the course as being {on average} 300% above their expectations.) Their desire to learn and grow has been truly inspiring to me. And their commitment to further study and application is wonderful. I have offered to set up a library on leadership (with books, journals, tapes, videos, and computer resources), and everyone is incredibly keen to utlise this. I told them I'd give a number of copies of my books, including "Uncommon Leadership" and "Pearls of Wisdom", to the library for them to borrow - or that they could buy them for cost price if they wanted to keep them or pass them on to others in their organisation. Yet although many particpants are very poor; on average each participant ordered close to two books. But what I find most exciting is their desire for more programs. The Institute has already been requested to train more than 2000 people. One of the requests is to train all 35 Resident District Chairpersons (RDC's), as well as their Deputies and Assistants. (An RDC is the equivalent of a Premier in charge of a small State of about 500,000 people. They are at the same level as Federal Ministers and run the army, police and other Government instrumentalities in their District.) And I have also been asked to train all the Ministers and senior officers in the Public Service Commission, and half of the officers of the Government's Poverty Alleviation Program. In addition, dozens of NGO's have asked that their organisations receive training from the Institute. Equally exciting is the desire to attend a "Training to Train in Leadership" program, which 75% of attendees wish to participate in. On average, each of the original 100 participants expect to train 330 further participants every year following the training. It looks like I'll be training 500 trainers in the next year, so this equates to over 150,000 people receiving this training in leadership in the year following the "Training to Train" program. So I am incredibly moved, and excited at the prospects. For most of my life I have dreamed of being able to assist countries like Uganda to transform, such that poverty is no longer their major impediment to their societal and personal development. And it is truly moving to now see this occurring and becoming a reality. Thank you for listening. And I'll keep you posted on further developments. All the best, Kindest Regards, Tony 
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