Mr. O'Neill Joins Team Uganda

Ottawa -- At the end of an intensively stimulating week of training with Mines Action Canada, I am set to become the latest to join the ranks of Team Uganda alongside Laura and Tyler (so far). The past few weeks have saw myself and Jordan learning much about the history of campaign to ban landmines and cluster munitions, as well as the various aspects of mine action programming (demining, survivor assistance, mine risk education, advocacy, etc). We had a great crew of interns in Ottawa, 9 of us in total. Jordan and I represented IPMP to the max.

I will be greeted upon arrival in Entebbe by sister Laura Macchione, for which I am most grateful. We will be bunking together in a lovely 2-bedroom flat in 'Bunga', Kampala. I will be working for Canadian Physicians for Aid & Relief (CPAR Uganda), essentially filling the role of a Project Officer. I am also told that I "will be taking the lead on organizing GuluWalk in Kampala this year"; allegedly the city's largest public awareness raising event of its kind in the country, and an event that is held worldwide on October 25th. I'll be contributing to as many of CPAR's different projects as I can, including some mine risk education projects, landmine/ERW survivor assistance, food security (the Moving Beyond Hunger project some of us actually worked on writing a sequel proposal to in semester 2 of IPMP), and others. Proposal writing, report writing, M&E, as many field visits as possible, we'll see what else.


One more thing: The campaign to ban cluster munitions (CMC), which has been steadily progressing for years, will culminate in the signing of the Oslo Treaty on 3 December 2008. I would like to urge you all to please sign the Peoples' Treaty to show your support -- it'll only take a sec and its worth your while. In the lead-up to Oslo, regional conferences are being held worldwide in order to keep the momentum up and maintain pressure upon states to sign on. The Africa-wide conference will be happening in Kampala 29-30 Sepember 2008, and I will have the good fortune of helping to facilitate it. I'm extremely excited about this as there are some heavy hitters on the bill!!

Finally, I'd like to formally extend an open invitation to all IPMPers to visit in Kampala and consider crashing at our pad. In fact I believe Laura is picking up a spare bed this weekend precisely for this purpose. I hope you're all feeling inspired, getting into new things and looking forward.

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