AIM:art

Over the last few days three schools in various parts of the Bushenyi district in south western Uganda have received visitors from Norway and Denmark, carrying gifts. The Aid In Meeting participating students have carried out the AIM:art project (read older posts if you’re scratching your head) and with great help from the teachers, staff and our driver Robert the pupils, both deaf and “ordinary” made some pretty awesome cards we’ll sell back home, come Christmas time. (100 kroners pr card = 32.000 UGSH or roughly 15 Dollars). We asked the kids to write what their future dreams were (in addition to the drawing on front, name etc) and although doctor, nurse, teacher and lawyer seemed to be most common, some of the kids also wanted to be vice president, minister of agriculture and driver.

However, what’s more interesting to notice than what the kids want to be when they grow up, is the response the teachers give you when they hear of the AIM:art project. You would think that when they hear that just one card will generate one sixth of a teachers monthly salary, they’d be kind of amazed, but it seems like a combination of not really grasping it, not really believing it and not being used to plan that far ahead (six months) usually results in them just going “oh, ok”. And this is interesting, because so many of the people I’ve talked to over the last weeks have told me just how beneficiaries are used to big words and huge promises, but also not getting shit of it. When time passes, all those fancy words falls apart and nothing comes out of it. So I guess that visits from some random mzungo students promising millions of shillings for some weird looking Christmas cards warrants some skepticism. But what’s most important isn’t getting the “holy crap!” response we (or at least I thought we’d get), but getting the kids to know that it’s them that’s actually creating a vast income for their school, that, and being sure that we have the right people on the ground to receive the money and distribute it in the right way. Hopefully though, I think we’ve succeeded in doing just that.

On a side note, what I’ve learned since last time: Getting rid of the feathers and stuff from a chicken, hen or some other feathery creature − is best achieved if you first dip the animal in hot water. Then the feathers just rolls off.