Abstinence and Faithfulness in Uganda
Abstinence and Faithfulness in Uganda
In the last few weeks I started finding some expat bloggers in Uganda and through them I've found a number of native Kampalan bloggers. It has been my experience both via my time in Uganda and these blogs that the Ugandan people are generally quite conservative. (Consider the trouble that the Anglican Communion has with their African brethren vs. their liberal western brethren).
The same "trouble" seems to be present amongst many charitable westerners who end up in Africa to help with secular (e.g. UN) aid programs and their African counterparts or recipients of said charity. One of the bigger issues in Uganda lately has been the dismissal of abstinence education programs by westerners as worthless and their advocacy of homosexual behavior. It would seem that many Ugandans (Africans?) reject such "progressive" western aid.
Below are a couple of fantastic public service style advertisements that I don't think we'd ever see in the United States. Ironically, pay close attention at the end to note who sponsored them.
Apparently, the US government thinks Africans have what it takes, but Americans don't.
Hat tip to Oliam from Uganda.
Comments
I like it.
Quite a different response and outlook than the "they can't help themslves" perspective.
http://papaherman.wordpress.com/
And USAID, for all love. Echoing the Church. Something supposedly unconstitutional there...if I could only put a finger on it.
SF
I've always argued that abstinence education standing alone amidst all the massive quantities of contradictory messages in our culture is - of course - doomed to fail.
Can we imagine if we collectively worked to make practices like abstinence until marriage and faithfulness therein seem as hip as a Hannah Montana concert?
As it is we dismiss the notion of abstinence without realizing that we undermine it to begin with by way of our own cultural freewill. It's like telling a man to refrain from having his passions inflamed while his eyes are duct taped open at a strip club.
Anyway, you are completely right about this being a Bush thing. As I understand it, while Clinton was in office USAID was handing out free cigars to Uganda.
:)~