[Stoves] FW: To Hugh and others, from ken in the middle of the night in Darfur, forwarded by Warren (5)

[Warren Goyer]

Dear Hugh, It's good to hear from you. I am up in the middle of the night
with a good internet connection so I will write to you a few thoughts. I am
not best at communicating in writing, I'd much rather talk, but talking will
have to wait till I get home. I do have many ideas and much has developed
recently and is still developing.

     The stove project in Lira has taken some turns. Dan Wolf, of the
International Lifeline Fund started supporting the stove project at ANCC in
Lira with a lot of money and things and has pretty much replaced my need to
work there. This allows me to go up the road to Gulu and start another
project So I have hired a few people to start a new project in Gulu under my
organization, AidAfrica  which I am presently registering in Uganda as a
charitable organization.

     So to  set the stage, Freda, Prescilla, and Martin will work in Gulu
and Rosette will work in Jinja doing the office, secretarial, accounting for
AidAfrica, as well as organizing and running an orphanage (she can use help
too). Freda has just gone to Gulu and Precilla and Martin will follow soon.
They are not trained or hardened in the trenches humanitarian workers and so
I hope that in the coming year they can grow considerably and learn to
organize and run a project with my help and the help of volunteers (such as
yourself). ( And vice versa)

     As far as things to do, there are many choices. I plan to continue with
the stove project, but it will need some reorganizing and restarting in
Gulu. I hope to use a little different program model this time for the
stoves. 

     The big thing on my mind at the moment is the malaria issue. I would
like to start (or join) a campaign to end malaria. As you know one of my
touch points is babies that die needlessly from MAD. I have been talking
with a very smart, experienced doctor here in Darfur and she says " why
don't you give mosquito nets for infants" and while your at it pregnant
mothers too. (and while your at it everyone else (my comment)) So the
mosquito net idea is a good one, ie. don't get malaria in the first place.
Once you have malaria you need treatment, especially if you are one year
old, and thousands of babies die especially in a couple of peak months for
lack of treatment, or belief that they can not get treatment, or lack of a
couple of dollars. So I would like to start some kind of project to address
these issues. There are a number of people who have expressed interest in
being involved with this project and many of them receive my emails, So I
have just decided spontaneously, to copy this email to everyone and if any
of you out there are interested in helping with this please reply back to
Hugh and me. I don't want to put you on the spot, Hugh, but I know that you
are itching for a good medical project, and I am going to do this anyway, so
we might as well start now.

     I firmly believe that the place to work is in North Uganda. The need
there is tremendous. And with the support of the AidAfrica team in Gulu I
hope we can organize and run a project that can make a serious difference. 

     I know that you are a good communicator and a premed student and
itching for a good project and I hope that you will take this on (with lots
of help).

     You don't have to be in too big of a rush to buy a ticket (depending on
when you are planning to go, but I recall you want to go after the first of
the year). I have seen tickets as cheap as a thousand dollars and as much as
two thousand dollars. So you can use that a a guide. Also, cheap  tickets
don't tend to be changeable so you need to be sure about your time frame. We
are (almost) ready for you any time in Gulu, but I think the malaria season
peaks around the rainy seasons, I think our winter time, December, January,
and again in March,  April. So we could get a jump on those months with
mosquito nets and during those months with a treatment strategy. When we
originally started the stove project in Lira it was in April 2005 and we
walked in to a situation where we found very many babies in dire straits
from MAD.

    So I am about typed out for now. Best wishes from Darfur and I hope to
hear back from a lot of you.

Much love, Ken