Community Hero Awards in Lwengo District.

In 2012 while working with our Clients Raising Voices, we made a nationwide call to the public to submit names of individuals who have done something outstanding in their community to prevent violence against children. We received many submissions from children and adults from all regions of the country, among which winners were selected.

Our Community hero nicknamed "Maama Haji" Sarah Namakula comes from Kyazanga Lwengo District and was crowned on the 23rd March 2013 at the District Health Center by Hon. Gertrude Nankabirwa Lubega, Woman MP Lwengo District as our community hero along side two other winners, the 1st runners up from Lira District and the second runners up from Nebbi District.

This event was preceded by community mobilization in the neighboring towns of Kyetume and Katonvu. As always our team was there and full house, joined by a long time friend Kibalama Muteesa from Denmark, Peter and Lisa from raising Voices.

Our Team: Geresom,Tonnie,Emma,Ismah and Amos did a very commendable job and thank you. Our most thanks also go go HOSA the community based NGO with whom we collaborated to have such a great event.

Catch a glimpse of the three days event in pictures.

Hon.Gertrude Lubega and the winners

Geresom in a stakeholders workshop

Sarah Namakula our Community Hero

Peter and Geresom at the event

Hon Lubega awarding the Winner

2013! Here we come!

We ushered in the year 2013 with a new client Rainbow House of Hope Uganda - RHU a child based NGO located in Nsambya. Thanks to Geresom Mayanja for his tireless efforts that Rainbow House saw our services of a great value to add to their programs.

With our earlier client,Raising Voices we have continued to engage communities in Lwengo district where the awards of the Community hero took place early this year.

Also Interactive Development Forum joined the social media where you can access us on Facebook as http://www.facebook.com/InteractiveDevelopmentForum?ref=hl,you are welcome to engage us and follow us as we engage communities and companies.

We wish you a happy 2013, love children and your country.

UNDERSTANDING VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN – KABAALE PRIMARY SCHOOL IN KAMULI DISTRICT

With children, pictures appeal and working with visual prompts help them to see concepts that may be hard visualize.

In Kabaale Primary School in Kamuli District of Eastern Uganda, the children had a pictorial representation of what they understand with Violence Against Children. In their mother tongue LUSOGA they found it hard to express what they understand once you mention violence against children; but given a maker pen and flip chart they came up with pictures that implied that they had a lot to talk about the topical issue of Violence Against Children. Looking at this flip chart without any further explanation, you truly see violence done to children in this community. Carrying heavy loads (bricks), burning them, severe beating and defilement among others are most prominent. This exercise was done before any information on violence against children was given to them.

Interestingly; as you do stretch from East to the North of Uganda (Tororo, Kamuli and Lira) acts of violence against children keep changing depending on the social economic and cultural set up. But on the whole, all forms of violence against children namely: Physical, Psychological, Sexual and Economic violence exist among children in these communities.

Leaning Without Fear(LWF) Schools Committee Trainings are on in Lira/Abeletong, Kamuli and Tororo Districts.

Ogwok Daniel

"Time is ripe enough for us pupils, teachers and parents seat on the same table to talk about issues that affect children in our school", says Ogwok Daniel from Abia P.7 School in Abeletong District. 

Through training School Committee members,Interactive Development Forum - IDF continues to engage teachers and schools leaders in the districts of Lira, Tororo and Kamuli into deeper understanding of the issues of Violence Against Children with an objective of widening their knowledge on the issues and how to use such  knowledge to solve problems that affect them at school.

A total of thirty(30) schools are involved in this loop as IDF continues to engage leaders in these schools with various methodologies to enhance their potential and encourage them to rise up to the center stage in managing the issues that affect them and the entire pupil community.

The response from the pupils in the eleven (11) schools so far trained is overwhelming although the support of the teachers from some schools is lacking.

Physical and Economic violence rank highest on the list of the four forms of violence the other being Sexual and Psychological violence. The latter is also very prominent although pupils find it hard to see through it and associate with it in their daily lives.

Interactive Video

Geresom in session

Tonnie in Session

IDF For African Non Violence Conference in Johannesbarg

An African Non Violence Conference is on Going at the Stay City in Johannesburg! Interactive Development forum is proud to be part of this conference and our Chief Creative Officer Mayanja Geresom is in Johannesburg for this conference. He has reliably informed us that an African Non Violence Network has been formed.

Thank you for doing us proud in Johannesburg Geresom..

Interactive Development Forum Profile

It is prudent enough for us to let you know where we are at! We have taken a step further to register as a Company limited by shares and we invite you to have a look at our New profile here. We look forward to more interactions.

Welcome to 2012!

Finally after great silence, we are back in action and we owe you a lot of information and updates! We ought to live to this expectation and in the next couple of days, we are glad to take you through a series of updates of how our year(2011) ended and what we have touched so far in 2012.

2011 was a great year and we thank you all for the support and the good working relations we had that enabled us to extend our services to thousands in Fort Portal, Masindi, Kapchorwa, Kween and Kampala.

In Masindi, Fort Portal and Kampala its was the issues of Violence Against Children with our partners Raising Voices and their implementing organization Bantwana.

In Kapchorwa and Kween districts of Eastern Uganda, it was the issue of female circumcision where Raising Voices and their implementing partners Kapchorwa Drama Stars worked alongside IDF to implement community events aimed at sensitizing masses about the Female Genital Mutilation(FGM) law. That was our year in a nutshell.

2012 was ushered in with the Eastern Africa youth Conference(www.iofc.org) in which IDF fully participated and facilitated.

We are looking quite a head this year with projects with a German based peace building initiative CRISP(www.crisp-berlin.org), Raising Voices with The Good schools project and Violence against Children Program. 

We look forward to great work, working with you because we are proud of you and made stronger by you.