Christinaswwworld Unlimited

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions... My sister in law is an artist who creates and sells wonderfully unique garden stepping stones , like the one in the picture above. The first time I saw them (and fell in love with them!) the Life in Africa community in Kampala had just recently started doing some work with war-affected children in Northern Uganda. We'd had some great experiences with art-therapy workshops making peacetiles (another collage concept) so I immediately started dreaming of how we might also make stepping stones with those kids. Over the course of two decades, the Lord's Resistance Army abducted many thousands of Northern Ugandan children, who they brainwashed through extreme violence to serve as soldiers in their brutal rebel army. At the time I was thinking about the stepping stones (circa 2005), there were still thousands of child soldiers "in the bush" with the LRA, but peace talks seemed likely to happen soon. A local rad...

The iGive 4 LiA Challenge is over - congrats to the winners! BLOGGERS: You can still support Life in Africa by placing an iGive badge on your site. If you do, we'll reciprocate with your badge on the front page of LifeInAfrica.com through mid-February 2009. Here's the badge: Please link it to: http://www.igive.com/html/refer.cfm?memberid=524199&causeid=43292 When you've added the iGive badge, let me know where to find it in a comment to this post, and I'll arrange for your badge to get on the front page of lifeinafrica.com Many, many thanks! -------------------- If you have a blog , this christinaswwworld pArtY chALLEnGe is for you! Yes , there will be prizes. AND it's for a great cause. Read on to see what you need to do to participate, make an impact, and win! The holidays are coming soon, and even if we're all tightening belts this year, chances are there's a few gifts you and your readers are going to need to buy, and you'll probably be buying ...

There are stories I am afraid to tell. I wish I could tell you it's been all sweetness and light, working to try to empower African communities. I wish I could tell you that I achieved all - or at least part of - what I set out to accomplish. I wish I could tell you that I clearly see the lessons in whatever these trials and ordealswere supposed to teach me. Were I able to find nuggets of wisdom in the wreckage, I would want to share them in a way that inspires others to do better, to be smarter, to achieve more. I fear sometimes, that I might never find them. And yet, there is the painful process of sifting through the mess of memories that my mind's eye is compelled to try and do. I lie awake nights imagining where to begin, and how to combine the memories of magical experiences with an acceptance of how things changed... of how my understanding of what I was up against changed... of how I changed. Writing is a tool that can help me with the sorting through. But I fear som...

... and then there was the time I started a project in an African war zone. My journey into the war-torn heart of Africa's Pearl began with an aim to motivate the members at Life in Africa's WE Center Kampala to join hands behind a cause beyond their own poverty. A community like ours could do something to help the children of Northern Uganda. We held a great fundraising event , we got a contract making bracelets to support awareness of the plight of children in Northern Uganda, and we went to Northern Uganda in small groups to facilitate art therapy workshops with groups of night commuter children and former child-soldiers. After interacting with children at different organizations in Gulu, we'd developed the strongest bonds with one night-commuter center in particular. The volunteers that were keeping the place running were horribly under-resourced. We started thinking about setting up some of our adult community activities there, involving the volunteers and the chil...