Welcome back to my Africa blog!! For anyone who is new to this project and wants to follow the whole story, please visit my old posts starting back in March 2011. The brief synopsis is below the video link but the focus of this post is to make readers aware of the Kony 2012 initiative by Invisible Children, an organization that has been working to make the world aware of the atrocities against African children by Joseph Kony. They seek to garner worldwide awareness and support so that the US government will continue to assist the Ugandan army in its search and capture of this mass murderer. I first learned about Kony when I was researching Uganda a year ago and borrowed a video from the library called War Dance (see post dated 3/7/11). He is the leader of a militant group called the Lord’s Resistance Army and he captured young children in northern Uganda and has turned thousands of boys into warriors forcing them to kill their own parents and turned the girls into sex slaves. Please take 30 min of your time and watch the video below. It is extremely well done and if you feel so moved, please spread the link by posting on Facebook, your own blog, or just send people to this blog. Thanks!! (go to http://www.kony2012.com/ for more info)

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

About the Project

About 3 1/2 years ago, a couple of faculty colleagues asked if I wanted to go to Africa to work with them to research the impact of access to clean water on the lives of rural villagers in Masindi, Uganda. They had developed a relationship with Busoga Trust America, a non-profit organization working in that region to improve the lives and health of people there by providing wells and health and sanitation education. Over the next few years the project for me became a mission not only to do research but to also develop a learning and serving global practice experience for pharmacy students. I have also been able to meet and start a relationship with 2 faculty members in the School of Health Sciences at Makerere University. Last summer I took my first trip to Uganda with a pharmacy student to start the research project as well as explore future opportunities for study abroad. Everything went wonderfully well and I am now in the planning process for my trip back there this fall with 4 senior pharmacy students. Stay tuned for future blog posts to chronicle this process.