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This letter was written on 16th November 2000. Hello, I hope everything is going well with you back home. Over in Uganda things are far from boring - in both a positive and a negative sense. DEATH I was very distraught today to hear of the death of the wife of someone I have grown to love and revere. We have with us an extraordinary individual who's life makes my own seem incredibly limited and insignificant. This person - Reverend Robin Abel Tippo truly loves as Christ loved - and has consistently put his compassion for others above himself. Immediately following the Rwanda massacre he went over to Rwanda and set up an organisation to teach love, forgiveness and tolerance. This organisation achieved a lot and made a large difference. However one day Rev. Tippo and a number of others were stopped by a group of armed men, who believing that Robin and his compatriats were Tutsis, sprayed them with bullets and killed all of them... except for the Reverend who miraculously survived, partly because the person next to him bled so profusely that it looked like he (the Rev.) had also been killed. On another occasion - this time in the North of Uganda during a time when Rebel activity was very strong, the Reverend was travelling with a convoy of 200 people and a military escort. But they were intercepted by close to 200 armed girls of between 12 and 15 (some with babies on their back). These girls had earlier been stolen from their families by Kony Rebels and had been forced (and indoctrinated) into killing their fellow Ugandans on behalf of the rebels. And these young girls proceeded to kill everyone in the convoy... except for Robin Tippo who once again miraculously survived. The lesson he learnt, the "benefit (he) gained from the experience" was that he committed his life to helping others and to ensuring that Ugandan youth had a chance to learn some values which would allow these youth to have a positive future. He gave up his salaried job as a Priest and became a "freelance Preacher" - and with the Uganda Television Network he started his own storytelling program for children - where he told African stories with deep messages to children and adults. One of the wonderful things of doing the sort of work I am doing in Uganda is to meet such extraordinary people - and Robin and I have chatted into the morning hours about his life, his insights into the psychology of his people (of which he's writing 3 books about), and of his family and his wife who has enabled him to do all he has. So you can imagine how devasted I was to receive a phone call from his home town (in the North of Uganda) telling me that his wife had died overnight of an asthma attack, and asking if I could let him know. In fact I had previously planned to talk with our audience (of the Advanced Leadership - Level 2 Certification Program) about Elizabeth Kubler Ross' Stages of Grief which people go through when someone is dying - and which also reflect the stages employees go through whenever there is a major change in an organisation. But it was the Reverend who taught me. Here he was losing someone so important in his life: - his wife and the mother of his children (and the sister to his friend and fellow IAL(West Nile Sub Branch) Founder, George Ucopi) - and yet instead of being weakened and emotionally crippled, his focus was almost purely on how he believed our training would make such a difference to creating a future for Uganda where people such as his wife have a chance to live a full life. And he told me how he had chatted with his brother in law, George, and that after working out the funeral arrangements they talked for far longer about their plans, hopes and dreams of spreading the teachings of the Institute. [Editor's Note: In November 2001, Robin Tippo (along with Pastor Amani Placide {and Tony Lenart}) established the Rwandan Branch of the Institute of Advanced Leadership, and are continuing to manage the branch to transform leadership, and to create unity and reconciliation throughout Rwanda. The next "letter" (actually an audio file) describes more about this.] Certainly the death rate here is horrific. In the first week of my visit, Robert (our Manager) asked if I'd like to join him that night to meet a cousin of his. I said I was too tired, so I didn't. The next day Robert mentioned he took his cousin to see his brother in hospital - and the brother (also a cousin of Robert's) passed away an hour later. A fortnight later this cousin's uncle died. And in the same week as the cousin's death, another volunteer lost an Aunt, and two days later she lost a second Aunt. I am also getting used to Participants needing to leave the training early to attend funerals. In our trainings I often have people write down their vision for their life, 10 years time, 5 years time and 3 months time. One participant had a very inspiring long term vision, but what struck me was that even though he had no illness, he put as his short term vision to simply be alive. And indeed, the average life expectancy is just 43 years of age. WONDERFUL THINGS At the same time there are some wonderful things happening in Uganda and in Africa generally. We hear so many negative things in the media - particularly about Africa. Yet often the positive things are overlooked. Its true that the death rate is atrociously high, that Rebels killed 10 people in Gulu (a place I was intending to go to in order to train 1000 volunteers) and that the Ebola virus struck in the same township, effecting 225 people and killing 75. Yet where previously this virus would probably have spread like wildfire, and would have killed most effected by it; this time it "only" killed a third of those effected, and was handled so well that it is now reported to be contained and rapidly ceasing to be a problem. (This is partly due to the experience Uganda gained in moving from having the second highest AIDS death rate in the world, to currently being the 15th highest.) We've also seen popular power restore Democracy to the Ivory Coast (and to Serbia). And we've seen Sudan and Uganda make a pact (backed by outside monitors) to ensure neither country supports the rebels attacking the other. On a less newsworthy - yet equally important note - I was filled with hope and joy to see some of the TV programs that are broadcast here. On CTV (an affiliate of CNN - established by Ted Turner who recently donated one billion dollars to the U.N.) I noticed that they took comedy and soup opera programs - and instead of having ads, they had short messages building on the learnings possible from the program. Another program, which looked just like Ricky Lake - at least on first glance, had beeen set up not to milk the shock and ratings value from family and teenage conflict - but to bring people together - to provide on-air (and off-air) therapy and advice. Our own training also seems to be making a large difference. Tonight I had a participant travel to the office to tell us that she had just been offered a job (in a City with an 80% unemployment rate) which she told us was solely the result of the knowledge she had gained in our training over the last 2 days. Other participants have told us of how they've used the training to help organisations not only in Uganda, but also overseas. We've just finished a week long training of 15 trainers who will be working on our behalf and taking the training out into the countryside. We currently have 54 participants attending our "Advanced Leadership - Level 2 Certification program" and we have a number of people who did their first course with us 2 weeks ago and are now doing their third course and their 12th day of training with us. One of these people runs a large NGO (a charity) which trains people to be more powerful and succesful in helping their villages and communities to break free from the yoke of poverty, and he is so keen on taking our program out to others that he has committed to building a teaching college on a 20 acre piece of land he owns. It also seems that we are becoming quite well known - by the public and by those of influence. For example, on Sunday I spent half the day with the President (of Uganda)'s advisor. I also noticed that he was on page 1,2, and 29 of their main newspaper, "The Vision". Page 2 and 3 talked of the President's Representative (the RDC) in the capital, Kampala - who is a great ally of ours. And page 5 mentioned one of our directors (and the former Local Government Minister), Professor Kakonge talking on human rights. The Institute appeared on page 30, and there was a full page article on page 29 of the second most popular paper, "The Monitor". I rarely have the time to listen to news reports on us, however I believe our training also appeared on the news of both Television stations over the weekend, and as well as being on radio news, we were interviewed live-on-air for 2 hours on Saturday and 1 hour on Sunday. On Friday our Vice President (who's also the Deputy RDC in Kampala), Robert and I, will visit the Under-Secretary in charge of Administration for the Ministry of Presidency to arrange for us to run training for all of the RDC's, Deputy and Assistant RDC's in the country. (An RDC is a little like a Governor or Premier of a small State of 1/2 million people). Next week we're intending to meet the Minister for Local Government with the aim of training many of the 100's of councils that make up 5 of the 6 layers of Government in Uganda. And tomorrow, Major Kakooza Mutale (the President's advisor) will give a 90 minute presentation to our course participants, as well as handing out certificates to all our graduates. So as always, life in Uganda is never dull, and I feel incredibly blessed to be here - and to have the support of those making everything financially possible - as well as the support of Chris - my lovely wife, who is being very understanding of the hectic lifestyle I have suddenly found myself living. Till next time, thank you for listening and allowing me to share some of my experiences. Love, 
NEXT "LETTER"
(Actually an MP3 or
WMA Audio File)
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