Supporter: Taylor Wegner

Alex Odongo is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. After decades of an insurgency by the Lord's Resistance Army — a rebel group defined by its brutal tactics, which often targeted civilians — that left the country ravaged and its people nearly hopeless, the sun is beginning to shine again in northern Uganda.

Sunflowers bloom across Alex Odongo's cropfields in northern Uganda's Pader District. Photo: Taylor Wegner/Mercy Corps

That is, with the help of Mercy Corps and his sunflowers.

Alex is part of one of the numerous producer groups participating in a program entitled Stability, Peace, and Reconciliation In Northern Uganda. Through this program, Mercy Corps has partnered with Mukwano, a Ugandan company that produces a wide array of consumer products, from soaps to vegetable oils. This partnership is providing sunflower seeds and training, along with farming tools, to help increase the livelihoods of those returning to their ancestral villages after years of living in displacement camps
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This increase in income does not come without hard work.

“I get up at 6:30 a.m. to travel to the field, and I finish for the day at 6:00 p.m.,” Alex tells me. When asked about troubles with his crops he says, “I’ve had a small problem with beetles and the drought.”

But even with these problems, you won’t hear Alex complaining. “Mercy Corps has given me the hope that I can grow more crops and buy more land,” Alex assures me.

“I’ll harvest 15 to 18 bags of sunflower seeds” says Alex, “and each bag weighs 50 to 60 kilograms.” At the price that Mukwano set, Alex may earn up to 300,000 Ugandan Shillings (more than $150).

“The money will pay for school fees for my three children, and the money I don’t spend will help me to buy more land and hire help for my fields.”

But Alex has even bigger thoughts for the future.

“The training Mercy Corps has given me has let me dream about a house, not just a hut," he says. "Without Mercy Corps, all of this would not have been possible.”

So while the daylight hours may be waning in Alex's village, his dreams are not.

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Grace Awor is working on a Mercy Corps project to connect her isolated village to other communities by building a new road. Photo: Taylor Wegner/Mercy Corps

They say if you want something done you must do it yourself — and that is exactly what one woman in the village of Lamoi, Uganda is doing. She is Grace Awor, a 45-year-old mother of seven, farmer and most recently a road builder.

Lamoi is situated in the northeastern tip of northern Uganda's Pader District, an area that was severely affected by years of civil war. It’s a small, isolated community — the nearest neighboring village is ten kilometers away through thick bush. But Grace Awor is working to change that.

She is one of the many villagers participating in a Mercy Corps-sponsored cash-for-work program that's focused on giving the Acholi people — Grace's ethnic group — a hand up, not a hand out. Grace leads one of the 22 groups in Lamoi working on a seven-kilometer section of road that will help connect them to other communities in the region.

Grace admits “the work is very hectic”, and that “ditch digging is hard for mothers” like her, but the need to feed and clothe her children drives her through the hard work.

“I’ve paid for my children’s school fees and uniforms with the money from working,” she beams, “as well as food for my family”. But Grace is also focused on the long term impact the road will have on Lamoi.

“It links the community to the only hospital in the district as well as the market in Kalongo,” she tells me.

As we shake hands when I get up to leave, Grace Awor turns to gaze down the unfinished stretch of road that winds its way into town. I can’t help but imagine that she is thinking about the many days of work ahead, and smiling at the sight of hope in the distance.

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This morning at 5 am I rolled over in bed and grumpily wondered why I had woken up. My bad mood was washed away as I realized what had roused me from sleep. A low distant rumble, the soft sound of a slight drizzle on the tin roof of the guest house in Pader — it was raining!

Lately, many parts of northern Uganda have been experiencing a drought. The rains were late, by as much as a month from what I had been told. The people were really starting to worry. The ground was so dry that many could not till the soil with their oxen-pulled plows. Crops that had been planted were withering and many were far smaller than they would be during a year with normal rain. Some farmers even doubted the possibility of rain anytime soon, thus hindering the second growing season. Rumors of people succumbing to hunger even filtered in from some parts of the region.

Food insecurity here as of late is something that has weighed heavily on my mind. My worries were melted away this morning, slowly at first, and then they were washed away almost all together. The skies opened up and the slight drizzle turned into a thunderous downpour.

The rain stopped almost two hours later. Though it was time for me to get up, the lack of sleep did not bother me much. The smell of the rain and the hope it gives this area refreshed me.

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