Back to Kampala

Yesterday we said our fond farewell to Nyabyeya. It has been a really wonderful three weeks, and a very successful conference. It is really strange to feel this all wrapping up after months of planning, including many days of anxiety, excitement and frustration. In the end, we had close to 80 participants earn certificates, and the feedback we have received is extremely positive regarding the impact the information and skills our participants have gained will have on their lives and communities.

In preparing my closing speech, I realized that the participants themselves are much like the seeds and plants that we have been teaching about for the past three weeks. Each one of them came with different roots; we had young and old participants, men and women, participants who are students or full time mothers and participants who are already large scale farmers or health care workers. Each one of them has a different goal, a different destination; like the seeds the agriculture class sowed which will grow to be maize, tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage and nakati (a green leafy vegetable), each one of our participants will take this training and implement it in a different way - teachers like Freda and Alex will go back to their schools and work with their students, government administrators like Robert will take the knowledge back to their work in planning and community development, farmers like Zed and Odongo will implement techniques to improve the output and sustainability of their crops, and young women and mothers like Josephine, Juliet and Gladys will implement changes in their homes that lead to healthier children.

The real change and effort comes on the part of each individual participant, and as conference organizers and facilitators, our role was little more than nurturing and fertilizing each seed as it begins to grow. We hope that as our participants continue to germinate their plans, CMU will be able to continue to support them through additional trainings, monitoring, and assistance in implementation. I look forward to following the progress of CMU and each one of our participants - I know that not every one will grow strong and tall, but I believe that some will really flourish, and have even already begun to plant their own seeds of change.