Au Revoir Karamoja

After 14 months in the wilderness, I have emerged. Slightly smaller than before and a bit more confused. Karamoja has managed to intertwine its gritty nature into the far reaches of my heart. I will never forget the colorful people, barren landscapes, food grabbing and great friends. Kristi and I had an amazing time albeit it challenging at times. Up next is an eating tour of Pensacola and then on to Haiti where i will be managing another food program. Our plan is tentatively to come back for grad school in August at either Georgia Tech or UC Berkeley. Below are some pictures of my favorite places/people in Karamoja.

Camp Swahili slum in Moroto
Home...?
Ruco the Kjong version
Our local shell fuel station
Samaritan's Purse Office Moroto
Team Karamoja - Food Staff
The big house. WFP warehouses in Moroto full of food.
The drive home
Welcome to Moroto. This is the 1 mile strip of pavement in the entire region.

WFP Karamoja 2010

This year the World Food Programme in Karamoja has made some significant changes to its programming. Last year, WFP/SP fed every single person outside of town centers in South Karamoja with a 70% ration. This year we will be feeding EVIs (extremely vulnerable individuals) with a 70% ration, FI (Food Insecure) with a 50% ration and Food For Work Individuals (Karamoja Productive Assets Programme / KPAP) with a 40% ration.
The shift in programming is two fold:
1. To build productive community assets through food for work programming which in turn will render communities more resilient to natural shocks.
2. Decrease dependency of food aid.

Samaritan's Purse will be implementing the actual distribution of food commodities throughout Southern Karamoja (Nakapiripirit and Moroto Districts) as well as implementing Food For Work activities in 4 sub counties. The new programming will be significantly more complicated but also significantly more beneficial to the long term development of Karamoja and its people.