reality TV comes to Kabale

What do you get when you mix eight British multi-millionaires, three weeks in Uganda and a mission to improve the living standards of an African village?

Disaster, mostly. And also a new reality television show sponsored by World Vision, a non-profit known mostly for its child sponsorship program.

Ugandan bloggers have reacted strongly to the show, calling it “preposterous” and “another naïve thing from the West.” World Vision’s official line is that the show “explor[es] the complexities of development work and the causes of poverty,” which sounds very noble, but I’m going to side with the blogren.

Let’s recap: eight millionaires with no real knowledge of Uganda. $240,000. Three weeks. Granted, they have a “mentor” and a handy-dandy World Vision quick guide to sustainable development, but I have a hard time believing they’re going to accomplish something in three weeks that countless other professional aid agencies have failed to do in decades.

Even more than that, Millionaires’ Mission seems to trivialize the problems in Uganda, turning an entire village into an experiment. What role do the Ugandans have in this? So far, they’ve been filmed waving machetes at their supposed benefactors. Way to propagate Conrad-era stereotypes.

Tumwijuke argues that Millionaires’ Mission showcases the “humiliation of Ugandans” and criticizes the show for being just another excuse to watch rich westerners run around Africa. I think she’s absolutely right.

I couldn’t resist: World Vision tells viewers to “Forget the jargon and get a quick guide to some of the key development themes…. sustainability, aid, trade, participation….” In other words, “jargon, jargon, jargon, jargon….”

GVO: Uganda: Bloggers respond to massive flooding

My next piece is up at Global Voices Online:

The top thing on many Ugandan bloggers’ minds in the past two weeks has been the massive flooding across sub-Saharan Africa. The floods hit particularly hard in northern and eastern Uganda, where 250 people have died and up to 150,000 have been displaced.

Read more»

keeping up with the blogren

I wanted to bring your attention to a few bloggers who just crossed (or re-crossed) my radar screen:

GayUganda
I am a gay blogger, blogging from Uganda, and willing to talk knowledgeably about my sexuality, my lover, and my personal life in Uganda. Strange. Very strange.
GayUganda covers issues concerning sexual minorities in Uganda and Africa. Check out the sidebar for news about the Ugandan GLBTI community.

Building the Nation
i am jose acadio buendia. or pip in sons & lovers. prince kung in the last empress. xuma in mine boy. ekwueme in the concubine. i am.
Degstar switched from Blogger to WordPress in March, and I missed it. His most recent post is a letter to fellow blogger Dennis Matanda.

Daniel Kalinaki
Just an ordinary bloke.
Not sure how I missed this one. Daniel writes about media and communications in Uganda. Check out his post on bloggers versus mainstream media.

o happy day

One: people are using The Kampalan to announce actual events! Vision realized.

Two: the actual event announced happens to be this month’s Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour, which 27th Comrade has taken upon his shoulders. Details:

What you are reading is my first post to The Kampalan. It is the first of a number. I am the acting organiser for the Uganda Bloggers’ Happy Hour. And because I am letting my own blog hibernate (on top of it not being the best venue for what I’ll be doing here), I am going to be putting any/all communiqués concerning the UBHH over here.
So … dress up for the 27th of September, 2007, for on that fateful day, yet another Happy Hour shall touch the ground at Mateo’s Bar. The usual time (starting 6:30pm, to when the last blogger leaves).