Project Details

I am a graduate in Business Studies, with a postgraduate Diploma in Computer Engineering; both from the University of Limerick. Since graduating, I have been working in Limerick as a Software Engineer for the last three years. At the end of September, on the invitation of Bishop Evans Kisekka, the Bishop of Luwero, I am going to the Luwero district of Uganda, as a volunteer through CMS (Church Missionary Society) for one year, to work with staff and young people in his diocese teaching them computer studies. The Luwero district is a very poor area of Uganda, with a population of approximately half a million people which suffered particularly badly under the Amin and Obote regimes. I will be working in a number of local schools and a Technical college. I have been advised that there will be 40 – 80 pupils per class.

Click on a picture below to zoom in on it

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A typical road in Luwero, Uganda. 

 

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Luwero, Uganda after the Amin and Obote years. Note the skulls in the foreground. In 1982 Museveni, the current President of Uganda form the National Resistance Movement (NRM), an army largely made up of orphans left behind by the excesses of Amin and Obote. The NRM operated from the Luwero Triangle where they waged a guerilla war against Obote's government. Obote's response was characteristically brutal. His troops waded into the Luwero Triangle killing civilians by their thousands, an ongoing massacre which exceeded even Amin's.

At the moment, they only have one computer between all the schools and colleges in which I will be teaching and if my work is to be effective, it is essential that I obtain further computer equipment, so that if possible, I have a number of computers for each school/institution in which I will be working. I am therefore urgently looking for any spare computer equipment (Windows 95 or greater) and if possible some assistance with back-up material if required, to help me in my work whilst in Uganda.

I hope to set up a web site (much like this one) that I will update periodically with details of what life is like in Uganda, what we are studying, and how donated equipment is making a difference to the local community. This community is one of the worst affected by the AIDS epidemic.

In recent years, the computer has transformed Ireland opening up opportunities for many young people in terms of education and employment. This is largely due to investment by many US companies. My hope is that my work in Uganda will help transform the local area in which I will be operating.

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