We have been at war for 20 years. --Torture is very specific.
Issues surrounding
citizenship and equality. --The sex workers have a right to organize in their own agency.
The concept of a free
and open
society. --Basic human rights. Rights that prisoners are supposed to be getting
despite the fact that they're being held. --Oil governance. --Empower
their citizens to ask very difficult questions.
Our mission
is essentially to try and
help support and foster
these open spaces that allow for
debate, discussion,
and participation by citizens. We do it through grant-making; we provide spaces and
fora for discussion around issues of importance in East Africa;
and we try and create opportunities
for open and informed dialogue so that East Africans
can create
vibrant, tolerant democracies for themselves.
I think one of the things which
in a sense is an advantage for OSIEA is that it's quite flexible.
In order to get around to have to
be creative, a take a few risks. --OSIEA in Uganda funds communities that
are so far away from
the usual
NGO communities. Communities that have basically not registered, and
I think that's a unique aspect to our working
in Uganda.
We also do
environmental
governance,
environmental and natural resources governance.
This has to do with
forestry,
and the democracy around
forestry.
We're also doing
oil governance,
because as you know there's,
oil has been discovered in Uganda. --We're able to collaborate with the network programs
and be able to,
in terms of give them context, in terms of what is relevant for the network programs to
work on in this region, because they're usually thematic.
There are great opportunities for our work in Sudan. But
we have to put a lot of effort. We have to move slowly, because it's a big
country, there are a lot of political complexities, a lot of social complexities. So,
we need to just go, I think it's 'pole-pole' as you say in Swahili. Slowly, and
gradually, sort of build up relationships with our grantees and partners. The last time
I was there, I found myself boarding an unmarked white Antanov plane.
A good example of the
challenges is communications.
Gradually,
people are getting mobile phones, there's a new mobile phone company in south Sudan for
example but still, communications are a real challenge and you can go to many places
where,
in order to catch the mobile network you have to for example stand on a rock,
in a particular places to find it.
Take the example of integrity. I,
I don't give grants
to my relatives.
Not to my father, not my mother,
not my Aunty.
I won't eat, because I'm going to the mosque.
I don't know what I'm doing here.
You want to know how [inaudible]
Organizational values.
That's the glue
that holds an organization together.
OSIEA knows that, individually and collectively it's demonstrated every day.
I work with a lot of organizations. They've got it.
All OSIEA,
all the time. --And that's OSIEA.