KATOOGO SLUM

Katoogo is a slum on the shores of Lake Victoria in Ggaba, an outcast of Kampala. This slum got its name from the papyrus plants that were a dominant plant there before its invasion by the masses of people who took residence there. Many people there are low income earners and they cannot afford the expenses one has to while in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. So, the people there live a ‘simple life’. However, in the eye of reality, the life they live is not that simple like it pronounced. Life is really hard! To begin with sanitation, one cannot afford being in katoogo for it is one nasty area infested with flies and scorching stench. One time my friends and I went there to map the area and we wondered what kind of life went on there. People lived in simple structures which served as buildings and homes for the poor people. The houses are made up of mud, though some with bricks, sand and cement, and their roofing are of very old iron sheets. Some houses were actually roofed with papyrus which had also become too old to prevent any rain from entering the houses. Looking alone at the houses, a few were modern which depicted a bit on some differences in the income levels amongst the people; one would draw a quick conclusion that Katoogo is poor.

Then, there was poor accessibility of a place because of its poor transport system. The paths were too narrow that too often I doubted whether or not we were treading through path ways or that we were trespassing_ the houses were very much close to one another, leaving very small corridors which served as paths for navigating the place. Most disgusting among all was that the whole place was flooded on actually a hot sunny day. I wondered what it looked like when it had rained! I think every creature would be submerged in water except for the lucky few which could float.

Oh! As the problems were not enough yet, clusters and clusters of garbage were seen floating about the floody grounds of Kato go. And somewhere there, I turned my head to see a very huge mountain of garbage heaped near someone’s house. But no one there seemed to bother. It seemed normal for them to live in such an environment. Even the children were busy playing there football made out of balls of waste polythene bags. They seemed to be very happy playing and running all over about the slum, some hitching their pants up because they did not fit them. The clothes were extra size for them and most of them were torn. The physical impression about the children’s health was that they did not look healthy at all. Perhaps they had a poor diet and also I came to notice that there was one and only one clinic in the whole Katoogo, which clinic was also substandard. I imagined what it would do if people caught severe diseases which were almost probable, the cholera and other related diseases.

Lastly, but not least about the problems I noticed while there, was the education. I saw only one nursery school in Katoogo. And when I inquired from the local people there, they told me that even the school dues were a very big challenge for them. Some of them told me they have some children who school from St. Denis, a nearby secondary school, but they could not really raise the little that is asked for proper running of the school.

At home, when I came to rest, I wondered what to do help the residents of Katoogo. Indeed, I am still a student who cannot do much but I believe that you who is reading this, can afford to give a hand to help Katoogo people. You good give a shirt or anything for as long as it is intended to reddem the poor people from their agony.

UGANDA ICT INNOVATIONS

Uganda Communications Communications commission along with acia, annually organise pitching competitions that are under a given theme. This year's theme was " IF YOU WERE A LEADER IN YOUR COMMUNITY, HOW WOULD YOU USE ICT TO FIGHT POVERTY?" 
So, most schools gave in their applications and awaited the day for regional pitching. It is normally organised that schools in a certain region, say Kampala, compete with themselves and then one of them is nominated for national pitching with other schools from other regions. At the end of it all, participants are awarded and are often dined with at one of nice hotels in the country.
This was the first time we applied for such competitions. And our idea was to make a detailed of a certain slum which poverty had dominated. Through that, we aimed at catching decision makers in the society to make the slums resilient to their problems.


But other schools had quite different ideas owing to the fact that they came from different communities. Nevertheless, we were confident with our idea. We felt success in our blood. We hoped we were to win.
However, owing the difference in ideas, I observed for the first time a creative mind of Ugandans. I saw people, students with great ideas_ a high level of innovation. Being the first school to pitch, we honored a chance to observe what others' ideas were. A group of students from Mengo secondary school invented a bio metric device to monitor teachers' attention to them on daily basis. That was not so much a surprise because we had heard of such a device before and as a matter of fact, these had strayed from what theme required. Then a student who amazed me though he too had deviated from the theme was the one who came from Taibah international school. This student alone engineered an application known as shizz. It works similarly as wataapp except that it has some more advantages. Even though he had moved astray, I appreciated his creative mind.

Then there were students who to get rid of the garbage that is all over about the urban streets, came up with an idea which they called I CORM. With this, one takes a snap of the garbage in an area and sends to who are responsible for cleaning the city. This image comes along with the location of the garbage area.
Yet, the innovations were not done, people still had ideas, there were students who innovated a device that lessens the speed of a vehicle once the driver was detected to be unnormal while driving. This device, like they explained, could figure out the status in which the driver was and adjust the speed of the car accordingly. Still on the issue of controlling accidents, Kako, a school which actually won the regional pitching invented a device in form of a traffic light that would, in its way, control accidents. It was an amazing level of creativity that though they were not in line the year's theme, they won. It is actually more of physics that I cannot really explain how it perfectly works. For Kako, we came in the second position with our mapping and so we could not go for national pitching. However, it was still fun that we enjoyed as we exchanged our expressed ideas in ICT.
There withal, there was a school that found ways of eliminating this common misery faced by youths with out jobs. That school came up with what they called " JOB MART SCHEME". In their way, one just had to get connected to the employer. It was actually an online programme. Why I think these guys did not get it is that they presented two things at ago yet the rules were such that one school had to present one idea. But these ones went a head and even showcased their E-Bus. In their presentation, they said the only way one could reach the the employer was through an E-Bus thereby having two ideas at once.
With such, I tended to realise the kind of a smart mind Ugandans have and put my hands together in gratitude.

 From the left, Wasswa, me, Wokulira and Okello after the pitching ceremony.

Our whole team outside UCreganlugoloobi@gmail.comC.

THE PITCHING OF IDEAS AT UGANDA COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION IN THE CATEGORY OF YOUNG ICT INNOVATION

UCC ACIA AWARDS 2016

In the fact I enjoyed though it was my first time to be at the UCC headquarters in Bugolobi, Oooh guys came with very good ideas. First there was two categories which included; The Primary and The Secondary Categories in the session of the primary, there was Green Hill in the fact which presented a very good idea called TEREKE, which was a machine you use to keep money. And there was another school which with just the functions of ICT also in the same category of the Primary category. And Green Hill won in that category.
And the second category was for the Senior Secondary Schools Category and we St.Denis SS Ssebugwawo we were the first to present in that category and we presented our Map Katoogo. and the second time was for this guy who innovated an application called SHIZZ. though it was like whatsapp buth it had other special functions which is used to message texts, and share apps.
The third school I remember was Kawempe Moslems which came up with an idea called Wire Less Transportation of Electricity it was cool.
And here came the time to announce the winner and the schools which followed and the winner was a school found in Masaka which has been the second time to appear in the ACIA AWARDS.
And we managed to be the second in these competitions and imagine it was our very first time to be in the ACIA AWARDS. Thanks to Lugorobi Regan, and Nzikulu Angella who were our presenters and Kasozi Chrezesto our technician plus all the other mappers you deed a great job let us not stop here but to continue we will earn that we are yarning for. I am Waswa Abraham the editor of the group with Kirunda Sula the mobilizer of the crew.
These were same of the participants as wokulirira was pitching to the public to the schools.

And on our way back we took same pictures of our crew.

I was in the middle here with my team.

MY UNBELIEVABLE ADVENTURES

Tuesday, 26 April 2016

MY UNBELIEVABLE ADVENTURES

Hello my esteemed reader. It is been a while now ever since I last wrote a blog. Now I have a lot of things to explain my absence and the delay to write blogs. 
It was really a pleasure to be nominated or chosen to be part of the ICT  mappers. It was one big luck that I was yet to explore my geography skill of mapping using an ICT idea. It happened that I found myself with a team of twelve students to map with. It was simple. These were digital maps. So we used digital devices. These were actually smart phones, GPS units and computers. So the teacher introduced us to how to use these devices and with no time we had owned the skill. The next step that followed after this is actually the threshold for today's blog. The story begins.
In our neighborhood, there is a place known as Katoogo. A place known for its poverty. A slum it is. It was the place we drew all our focus to since it was in line with our theme "COMMUNITY MAPPING FOR URBAN RESILIENCE AND SAFETY". Actually, most of us had not grasped the finer and clearer image of what our theme was actually about. Now we sloped down to Katoogo with a great eager to know what lay in the wetlands. No. In the slums.
We did not take long before our boots stepped on the muddy grounds of the slum. We paused amazed at the first glance when our eyes caught the entire place with funny houses confined in the same place with out any discernible plan. One house looked very much similar like the other and if one did not known the place, one would actually lose one's way to a certain destination in the slum. However, there in between the houses existed corridors and these are what had been turned into play grounds for the children.The poor children run about the corridors all chasing one ball. All of them were drenched with sweat which they dried with their dirty patched clothes. Their legs were brown- the color of mud. What was so similar about them was their unfitting pants. The torn pants were sagging down and so they always had to hitch them up.
Oh what a plight they lived in! But they were happy and unbothered about their misery.
At that time, we started our work straight away. We took pictures of most scenes, and taking data on every thing there that was worth to record. One of the most pitiful conditions of the place was sanitation. It was so poor. There poor latrines_in fact, some latrines had an abnormal structure as they were instead flats. They were so high in the sky.
There withal, garbage was every where. It compiled up and made a huge heep that was the mother of the stench that infested Katoogo. 
In addition, this place had no proper drainage, steams of water passed through everywhere and the whole ground was soft and sticky. A lot, more weird things happened in Katoogo but people still lived there. Where were the poor people to go once they left Katoogo? That was a question that everyone called in question_it was a question of concern. 
A students of coarse, we did not intrude into any business that we had no partnership in. Our work was to collect data and present it as one detailed map. Of what importance was this. It was for pitching out our idea to the UCC( Uganda Communications Commission). Even then, were to compete with other schools that had other ideas of ICT and were to use them to help solve problems in their society. But we had hope that once we showcased our project, it would be of help to slums in urban centers.

ACIA COMPETITIONS 2016

A day came sooner than we had planned for it. We had thought it would find us done with creating a digital map of Katoogo slum. But unfortunately there was still unfinished bit of the wetland, Katoogo that we had not put on our map. However, that would not stop us from going for the competitions. It was the D-day!
I rose up before dawn and my boots crunched on the gravel of st. Denis path ways. A few students were there already. All smartly dressed in their full school uniforms. quickly I looked for the laptop which we had to go with. I had met our teacher on the way, just a few yards away from school and he had told me to look through the presentation which we had worked on for the past three weeks, to make sure I was conversant with the editions he had made the previous night.
No sooner had I gone any further than Tr. Martin- the ICT teacher we had to move along with- came driving in a small nursery van. Being for nursery kids was not that that was embarrassing but instead its dirtiness. The van was brown, the color of mud. And all mappers including myself twitched our lips into a smile that was more jeerful than impressive. But that was just a funny bit of it. In actual sense, none of us could have any substitute means of transport. So we had to bear with it.
Tr. Martin can really drive. He branched from a certain junction and moved past other vehicles with accustomed ease. Then he sloped downwards as we could see another slum there down. At that time, all mappers were impressed because that could have been the next slum they would have had to map as it was their theme "COMMUNITY MAPPING FOR SLUM RESILIENCE".
I liked the way Tr. Martin drove, with no time, we had reached UCC ( Uganda Communications Commission) which was our venue of the day. A few schools were there already. And students had taken up their seats_ their coign of vantage.
We were talked to and we had fantastic break which a cup of coffee and somewhat snacks. It was fine! At least I liked that. I had last had such a break fast when I was in an E-learning conference. Now it had been so long ever since.
We were the first secondary school to present. No pitch our idea. It was even easier than I had expected it. It was just a matter of confronting the judges and say out your idea. At the end of the five minutes in which you had to do this, you had to be questioned and required to answer accordingly. Many schools presented after us and the end of the day, we had emerged the second.  We were congratulated and awarded for our selfless performance. We had fun there after. We took pictures of ourselves and toured the entire institute. It was full of lurk. At the end, we got into our van at dusk and drove back home.

Sanitation in Katoogo slum in Ggaba.

By Kasozi Chrisestom, S.5
Well, we did this but, the most irritating thing was that, the sanitation of the area was really bad. finding people dwelling in places where animals can't bear living. Finding on a hot sunny day, flooded environment, is it just because it's on the shores of lake Victoria that people are like its normal this way? Well this goes back to my research, the people down there are not all willing but its because of their standards of living.
imagine finding a home that is really filled with water and people have vacated it leaving some of their belongings, maybe sometime they will come back for them.

Flooded house in Katoogo slum

Poor garbage disposal being another sanitation related problem, hopefully there being not efficient supervision of place by the city council to help these people out, on garbage collection just like in any other place of the city. The council just passes by the place thinking that there are no lives down there after all the place is not even identified on some maps.

Disposal area in Katoogo, just next to a residential place.

Another thing is the "issue of future generation leaders" who never get chance to have their education in the best classrooms but also hopeful to gain heights,

Bad conditioned classroom in Katoogo slum

the only possible hindrance being the state of their study facilities like you can see the classroom.

Then another problem is the poor maintained sewage channels that are not protected in that children can easily contact diseases from there. 

MAPPING KATOOGO

This is the process of creating a detailed map about Katoogo and the problems faced.

 I am from St.Denis Ssebugwa senior Secondary School located in Ggaba.

Katoogo  is also located in Ggaba and is a nearby our school and some of our students come that area.

They face problem and we and my team came up with a solution to solve these problems faced.

PROBLEMS FACED IN KATOOGO.

• FLOODING- this is a common disaster in most countries around the world and some of you know that some people die through dawning and many others.
• INSECURITY- we have discovered their is a lot of insecurity in the community in this area like Theft, drug abuse, e.t.c this mean that people who don't have jobs involve in this mostly in theft which causes insecurity gives hard work to the police.
• POOR SANITATION- this is also part of the problems faced in the community that the people have a poor disposal of garbage in the area. This can cause some of the deadly diseases like Cholera,Diarrhea which may cause dehydration, e.t.c.
• INADEQUATE WATER SUPPLY- there are less water supplies in the community.
• INACCESSIBILITY- they face a hard way of accessing some facilities for example educational and health facilities because they have less accessibility to they because of POVERTY.

THE BENEFICIARIES OF THE MAP.

• POLICE- to solve the problem of insecurity.
• COMMUNITY MEMBERS- to find for them jobs, get educational and health facilities e.t.c.
• NONE GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION
• STUDENTS (making ICT and GEOGRAPHY in practice)
• THE GOVERNMENT.
  

The Life In Katoogo.......

By Wokulira Emmanuel.
Form-5 science

It's  called Katoogo by all the people  around but me I call it apiece of the Bio-sphere where a number of people live.
Katoogo is a place a few meters from where I reside.It is occupied by a number of people though it is a slum. People who reside face a number of problems ranging from social, and economic.

Probably, the administrator just don't know what is happening down here that's why I and my fellow we what to break these walls between the residents and the administrators so that they get to know the situation this people are living in.
We sat and came out with an idea. It is creating  a map about the place indicating all the information required. This map is to be accessed by any one and it is editable by all in case there is new information that is required.
We do this with aid of simple tools like smart phone and G.P.S units that have installed application like O.S.M (Open Street map) tracker.  
By this, we are stressing our hard to empower the development of the area.

Flooding in Katoogo

But one may ask, "How will this help the local PEOPLE?"
This is going to be a platform on which the government can base while making decisions e.g Since it is Slum, it can decided to construct a public area where these people can settle thus conserving our environment or the government may provide these people with all that it can for the good of there life
     "TOGETHER WE CAN IMPROVE PEOPLE'S LIFE BY JUST USING SIMPLE TOOLS"

Poor Sanitation

The poor disposal of refuse which in turn lead to-
sensitized about the out comes.

The floodings in the slum

well,all the problems faced by

The Life Investigation In Katoogo

Katoogo briefly, it is a slum village or a village found in Katoogo. Me as a mapper I have ever gone there with my collides fellow mappers. In the fact what I saw there, it is not the situation I would love my fellow to be in.
On my arriving inside the village, People were suffering a problem of waterlogged where water entered would enter people's houses and imagine water create a hole on house and people do not have money to rebuild it. That situation in fact it did not please me but it just showed me the way to work hard and not to loose hope. Indeed I do not know whether these people were considered to be living there but we mappers and  I Abraham Lincoln Waswa. I have not sited but I am creating a map with my fellow collides, to help those people to show the administrators that those people are also there.
That there are lives going on in a place we all call a slum....
Katoogo will be uplifted by the help of our map.
It is going to solve people's problems. The water logging and poor health conditions and facilities like of hospitals all of their problems will be solved by the help of an Open Street Map.
Open Street Map is a free editable map made by we the people like you to solved the problems of the people a round the world. osm.org  you can visit this link and see the great work we have done.
Big-up to Namiya destiny, lugolobi, angella and others who we are in this thing together, thank you for the great job.
More info visit abrahamlincoln.waswa@gmail.com