Laura Chipp

Hello from

Hope you are all well. I’m ok- for the past few days I’ve been a little sick, just really tired, sore muscles, headaches etc. I went to the Doctor on Tuesday just to make sure everything was ok, and mainly to know that it wasn’t Malaria… and it wasn’t thankfully! It was just a viral infection and the doctor said I just needed to get some rest, drink lots of water etc. I’m feeling a bit better, the past two days I had to take off and just sleep as my body was exhausted. I think I got sick from my time in Katebo, as we were in the rain the whole day, and also being on the go without getting much rest and sleep. So I’m taking things a bit slower and I’m recovering well.. I’ve been so lucky (touch wood) that I haven’t got sick already. So hopefully this is the only time.

All Saturday and Sunday I worked on the computer preparing for the

All of the children are coming home this week which is very exciting! There has been 7 children living here since I’ve been here, but by the weekend there will be 24 children!!!! 19 adopted 5 biological! It still astounds me how selfless and wonderful Jim and Sarah are. If they hear about any child in need, they don’t hesitate- they find out where they are and take them into their home. They have become my role models and I deeply admire their tireless compassion and commitment they give to those who need help the most.

Next week we are finishing up our train of trainers program for our first group. This means that 21 new HIV/AIDS educators and counselors will graduate and can educate people in their own communities- which is such a exciting and fulfilling feeling!

School holidays start this Friday for three weeks, which means that we cannot sensitize or do blood testing and counseling in schools as all of the students have gone home. Therefore what we are doing mainly for the next 3 weeks is spending a lot of time in Katebo and other rural areas doing HIV education and free testing to the community at large. We are also conducting more train of trainers programs, one program consisting of 50 Pastors, which will be very interesting. Most of them are friends with Rev Jim, so they are also very progressive and focus on HIV prevention (including condom use), rather than the belief that ‘if you have AIDS you deserve to die, because you are a sinner’ (which is so crazy because what about the babies born with HIV, or those people and nurses that contract it helping their loved ones)… Thankfully they are all true Christians like Rev. Jim, because I would really struggle to teach people who censor education to suit their own religious beliefs.

In the next few weeks I want to help set up the women empowerment shop in Katebo. They have found a shop to rent at the popular tourist destination on the equator. Here the women can sell all of their crafts, jewelry and other goods, so they can support their families and themselves rather than being dependant on aid. So I want to make the shop look pretty and spend a lot of time cleaning it and presenting all of the items in the nicest possible way.

Anyway, hope all is well. Missing you all, but I’m still having a fantastic time here, just over 6 weeks and I’m home!

Wasuze Otya! (Good morning)

How is everyone? Things here are still good… it’s been an eventful week!!

Firstly, last Friday there was a taxi strike in Kampala. Basically all of the taxis (mini bus taxis) and boda bodas (motorbike taxis) all went on strike and blocked the roads to protest against apparent unjust treatment from police. They claim that they always get in trouble from the police because they park anywhere and the police fine them- but they are complaining because the police doesn’t give them any designated place to stop. So anyway, they wanted to block the roads to make a point to put the city at a standstill. I was in the car with Rev Jim and Joyce on the way home from the Wakiso district health centre (picking up free HIV testing kits) which is on the other side of the city- so we got stuck! We tried to drive passed the blocks but there were thousands of people on the streets blocking roads, and when we tried to get passed and they all got very angry. We could see black smoke above the city, but they were only burning spare tires to create the illusion of fear. To my knowledge they didn’t burn anything else, or was anyone killed or seriously injured. So we parked in a service station for 1 ½ hours and waited for the police to come and clear up the blocks. Thankfully they came, which was quite a sight. They had about 6 or 8 police officers riding in the back of Utes with massive guns, some looked like bazookas. Anyway, they drove around and all of the taxi drivers and others ran away so they wouldn’t get arrested.

Then randomly the president drove passed in a convoy, so Jim thought quickly and drove out of the service station and we joined the Presidential convoy to get out of the city. However, it was still madness as everyone had the same idea to get in the convoy which meant that traffic slowed right down, and this huge truck tried to squeeze passed us, and in turn hit and scrapped the whole side of our car and kept driving! I got his number plate, but Jim said there isn’t much point in trying to claim anything here as the process in making claims to the police is very slow. While we were stopped some very angry taxi drivers were around the car and all I saw was them screaming at Jim and pointing at me and saying something with ‘mzungu’ in it… so I got a little scared. But all they wanted was a small bribe to pass, so we all emptied our coins and gave them 1,000 schillings that they asked for (60c) and they let us passed. Jim later told me, he wasn’t screaming and angry at me, but rather one of the main reasons they let us through was because I was a ‘mzungu’ (white person) and they hold them with a very high level of respect- the taxi drivers wanted to get me safely out of the situation but I thought they would try to target us because I was white! After 3 more bribes we finally got to the main road then home safely. Within a few hours everything was back to normal- felt really sorry for everyone because very few have cars and rely on public transport (mini bus taxis) so for the whole day they had to walk by foot home from the city which usually is a very long way! For the weekend I stayed in the compound with the family and did computer work. Anyway, the whole thing was quite funny (moreso after the fact), but I was overly impressed with the precision and immediate action that the police took. I was surprised how competent and fast to act that the Ugandan police were!

All is over now, so things are back to normal. Jim is still very cautious and protective of me which is so nice and makes me feel at ease. They are really treating me like a family member and they all go extremely out of their way to make me happy and feel part of the family. It is really nice to feel part of such a large and loving family!

I’m still really happy and healthy here. I’m hiring a HIV/AIDS coordinator this week which is exciting as I have re-structured and changed the whole HIV program to utilize resources (or lack there of), volunteers and time. This week is busy, I have train of trainers from 4-6pm on Mon-Wed, then the mornings computer work and visiting more schools to make appointments. It does get frustrating as appointments and deadlines mean nothing here, so to confirm with a school when we are coming in or arrange for blood testing, we need to physically go to the school rather than calling. Anyway, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday we are going to 3 different schools from 8am-5pm and giving free blood testing and counselling which I’m so happy about. Overall we have already sensitized 19 schools and by the end of next week we would have done testing at 8 of those schools.

The HIV festival is on April 26th and we are still in the process of organizing it. We are expecting 500 people and we are having gospel singers and motivational speakers at the event so it should be a really fantastic day. We are holding it at a hotel. The whole festival will cost around AUD$400 which we are hoping will be donated over the next few weeks, as most of the current funds have gone to constructing the Volunteer/Orphan house.

I’m also at nights recreating the whole African Child Foundation website which should be up in a month or so. I’m also creating an in depth project proposal to apply for funds from HIV/AIDS funders in Europe. Like I mentioned before, in Katebo the ACF want to build a much needed medical facility and Secondary school within the next 5 years, and I’m going to try and get them the funds to start the projects! Some grants are for US$500,000 so everyone keep their fingers crossed that I can persuade and smooze all of these NGO’s with my proposal!

A lot of the students approach me after the sensitization and asked me to sponsor their schooling as many of them are orphans. It really breaks my heart. The ACF used to sponsor children in different schools, but now they focus on sponsoring and providing for their 350 students at their school in Katebo. So what I’ve decided to do is compile a list of organizations that operate in Uganda who provide child sponsorship, and then distribute them in all the schools that we go to. So far, the organizations that I have found that may provide sponsorship are:  Action AID, Child Africa, Children of Uganda, Focus Uganda, Helping Hand Foundation Uganda, The Joshua Foundation, Vision for Africa and World Vision. If anyone knows any organizations that they know provide sponsorship in Uganda please let me know as it’s really hard for me to research here as the internet here is so slow!

Well it’s been a very busy few weeks. Last week we did a lot of blood testing in the ACF office, outreach and delivering food around Katebo and some teaching in Schools.

However, on a much sadder note I went to Rwanda for the weekend. A Canadian volunteer and myself visited two of the church memorials where the horrifying massacres took place during the genocide. No words could describe the horrors that took place there. One church had 5,000 people killed on site with only 10 survivors! One of those ten survivors showed us around the church where 30 out of his family of 33 were killed in front of him. The other church we went to had 25,000 people killed in that area. 25,000. They showed us all of the bones and skulls, and inside all the bullet holes, blood on the walls and all of the murdered victims clothes, which pilled up to my knees. Then on the Sunday we went to the official Kigali memorial centre. 250,000 people were buried there. They have 50 skulls in each coffin and the coffins stacked up on top of each other all around the memorial. Can you imagine? At the centre they had a room full of photos of babies/children that were brutally murdered, some as young as 8 months old. It is so tragic, I can’t even find the words to describe how deeply horrified and devastated I am that we didn’t do more to help those poor souls. I nearly threw up at one of the churches because I was so overwhelmed about everything we saw, heard and smelt. The whole country still has a smell of death and you can still feel the suffering. However, the people are still so welcoming and beautiful it’s amazing. Anyway… never again will we let it happen again. Never again.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I started the ‘train the trainer’ program. We have 25 teachers/older students who we are teaching to become HIV trainers/counselors themselves. The course is free and they get a certificate qualification at the end of the 12 day course. It’s a fantastic program as I’m training so many people that when I leave there will be so many more people conducting education programs around Uganda, it’s a great feeling to know that what I’m doing will be sustainable and will continue to impact the community after I leave. It is quite funny, I am teaching the course and I haven’t even taken it… However I feel pretty confident about teaching the curriculum because I have done a lot of extra research and study so things are going smoothly. The training is 3 times a week, and 2 hours per session. There are 12 sessions overall and after each module (day) each participant needs to take a test. They must achieve 80% on all tests to become qualified. Next week we have another train of trainers program starting, so I’ll be mainly busy with that the whole of next week.

Friday we went into a school that I had already sensitized about HIV to provide them with free (same day results) HIV blood testing and counselling. I did the pre test counselling in group sessions, then one on one post HIV test counselling for 45 students. Amazingly only 1 out of 91 students were HIV positive. I couldn’t give her the result as she was younger and couldn’t understand my accent… So I gave 45 HIV negative results which was great as it brought so much joy to everyone! It was hard work though, I sat in a teeny tiny room and for 5 hours straight students came in, I counseled them and gave them information, and as soon as they walked out another student was already entering to get their results. It is quite emotionally tolling, and 5 hours straight was hard work (especially because I was on 4 hours sleep from the night before) but I was so energized as I love spending time with the students one on one. On Saturday we also have a school where we counseled and blood tested the students for free.

Anyway hope all is well! I’m still in excellent health and loving my time here, despite missing a lot of you. Also, THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH for those who continue to donate money! All of the doors and windows got installed in the volunteer compound/orphanage today so I will take photos so you can see where your money is going!

Please click here to read my blog entry… Teaching in Uganda…

Last week, I went to five high schools to conduct the HIV/AIDS education programs. My Ugandan colleague Leah teaches basic information about HIV/AIDS for 20-30 minutes (what it is, how it is spread, how to prevent transmission etc). Then we get all of the students (which is usually around 150-250, ages between 13-18) to write any questions that they have on a piece of paper, then I answer them for 30-40 minutes. There are always so many questions, so the ones that I do not have time to answer I type out and give back to the school for distribution. Usually when I say “Hi I’m Laura, I’m a volunteer from Australia” the whole school laughs for about 5 minutes because they think my accent is hilarious. Some of the questions are also quite funny, but also concerning because it shows how little some of these students know about HIV/AIDS, sex, condoms etc… So generally I have to answer all of these funny questions and the students usually laugh and think it’s really funny that I am talking about intricate details about sex, condoms and STDs. However, some of the questions are really heartbreaking; “My boyfriend/girlfriend is HIV positive, should I die with them because I love them so much”?, “How can I abstain for sex when my sugar daddy (older man) pays for me to come to school?” or “When I was six I was raped by a older man, does that mean I am HIV positive”?

Most of the children desperately want to be tested for HIV/AIDS which is really good, but the problem is that they cannot afford the bus trip to come to our office… So what we have decided to do is go and visit each school for one day in May when they are back from their holidays, and test all of the students/teachers who want to be tested on the spot with instant HIV tests. If we have 300 students it takes all day and it very tiresome… I’ll be the one who has to organize the kids, then give them their results, and then council them/give them more advice depending on the result. Obviously it’s not going to be easy giving HIV+ results, but I have been trained as a counselor, and I will practice the counselling stages and process a lot more before my first testing session. I haven’t yet had to use the wooden ‘implement’ to demonstrate how to use a condom, but I will have to this week, which will be interesting… but generally nothing really embarrasses me anymore about anything as the questions I get I have to be open and honest, without using baby terms etc, so I’ve already overcome any awkwardness from the in your face questions I always have to answer on the spot… which is good!

I have donated the AUD$2,000 to the Foundation that I fundraised before I left in Australia (so that you so much to everyone that donated and/or came to my going away fundraiser!) To give you an indication about how far the money goes here, for about 22,000 Ugandan schillings/ AUD$13.00 it will buy each of the 350 children (mostly orphans) at the African Child Foundation Primary school in Katebo (on Lake Victoria) a maize porridge meal for one day. Therefore, you can feed the whole school of 350 students for about $65 for the whole week! This is so important because sometimes it is the only meal that these children get for the day. We are hoping to get enough money to buy a beans and maize flower type dish (which is a lot more filling and nutritious), but that costs more than double the amount (i.e. $130 for 350 students to each for one week), which is money the foundation does not have. Some of the other fundraised money has gone to building supplies for a new volunteer compound/orphan centre that is currently being build in Katebo. This compound will house about 70 people, which allows larger groups of volunteers to stay with the organization, so that they can do more construction work (such as the plans to build an ACF secondary school in Katebo, as there is no other secondary school at all in the area). The compound will also house some street kid orphans so that the volunteers can look after them and take them to school in the morning, as their primary school is right next door! However, the compound still does not have any where near enough funds for it to be completed, even after two years of construction… But with adequate funding, it could be finished in less than 6 months. Therefore, if any of you, or your friends/family have any extra money that they could donate, it would be VERY VERY much appreciated… Every single cent will be used to buy food, materials etc for the children and the school- so you can know 100% of your donation goes straight to the cause, and not wasted in tedious admin fees. 

If you would like to donate you can into my Australian bank account, please sent me an email and I can give you my bank details.

This coming week I am very busy, I am going to eight schools, including one on Saturday… I’m really happy as I love being busy! We are visiting the Ugandan ministry of health on Tuesday to pick up the free HIV testing equipment that they are giving us, and maybe also a few thousand more condoms, which they also give to us for free.

A lot has changed since my last post, I am in fact in Uganda on my four month volunteer placement and not in

The last week I have been walking through small red dirt roads in villages around the outer edges of Kampala finding schools to organize a time and day when myself, my Ugandan colleague Leah and a nurse can visit the schools and conduct a one 1 hour and 20 minute HIV education program. Nearly all of the schools were very excited that we are coming and made time in the next month for us to come and conduct the program. It is going to be a very busy month… we are visiting at least 14 different schools or colleagues, and from March 10^th we are also conducting ‘train the teacher’ programs at the African Child Foundation Office on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week.

Most of my time will be spent teaching, counselling and helping the nurse conduct HIV tests, which sometimes can be testing over 50-100 people in a single morning. The main role I will play in this is conducting pre and post HIV testing counselling to those being tested. These counselling and support sessions will be structured around whether the client is determined to be HIV positive or negative. If the client is tested to be HIV positive, I will provide them with information about how to access free ARV (antiretroviral drugs- helping people live healthy and longer lives with AIDS) through the health ministry, nutritional information and programs that they need to follow, and prevention techniques so that they do not pass the virus onto anybody else. If the client has been tested HIV negative, I need to first explain to them about the ‘window period’- This means that a HIV positive patient’s results may initially come back negative if they have contracted the virus in the past six months. Therefore, we ask them to come back in 3-6 months to be re-tested. I also provide the patients with information on how to stay healthy, and hopefully remain HIV negative with the “ABC approach” – Abstain, Be Faithful to your partner and always use Condoms.

It seems that I will be based nearly all of my time about 20 minutes south of Kampala in a town called “Lweze” which is off

For more information about the organization that I am volunteering in (The African Child Foundation), please visit: www.acf.org.ug – Donations are very much appreciated.

Also, sorry about the grammar/spelling in all of these emails, I’m in an internet café and don’t have much time to type, or re-read!

I attended the Australia Day breakfast celebrations at Kingston town hall on Saturday and was very humbled to be awarded Kingston’s ‘Young Citizen of the Year’ for 2008. It was a fantastic event, and the whole day reminded me how much I am bloody proud to be an Australian. I hope everyone had a really fantastic day and celebrated how lucky we are to live in such a fine country.

Click here to see an article about the award in the Mordialloc Chelsea Leader 29th Janurary 2008.

Despite the current political unrest in Kenya, in just under three weeks I am heading off to Western Kenya, in a town called Kisumu for a four month volunteer placement with World Youth International (http://www.worldyouth.org.au).

I am aiming to raise a few thousand dollars that I will be able to use in the orphanages/medical centres and community centres that I will be volunteering in.  So if anyone would like to donate to my cause, please send me an email to laura.chipp@vic.democrats.org.au and I will give you more information. Any donations are fully tax deductable.  

I will be writing about my experiences on this blog roughly every week, so you can see how and where your money has been donated and used. 

Also, lets all hope that the political violence stops in Kenya with the upcoming peace talks.

“Poor democracy without Democrats”
By Laura Chipp - January 1, 2008

This isn’t an obituary, nor is it a definitive plan. It’s merely an emphatic declaration that the Australian Democrats are still needed and that we are determined to fight back. Ours is a dream too good to forget and a role too important to abandon.

For three decades we have knocked the harsh edges off extreme and ill-considered laws. We have provided compassion, decency and ideas to a Parliament in which these were at times lacking.

For almost as long, political pundits have prophesised our demise. At last year’s election, Family First and the Greens improved their vote only marginally, despite all the hyperbole surrounding them. In fact, so dismal was support for minor parties on election day that, six months from now, the major parties will hold all 12 Senate seats in NSW and Queensland.

But we must recognise this was a government-changing election, where the focus was very much on ousting a prime minister who had overstayed his welcome. The minor parties were bound to miss out.

In July, when the newly elected senators take office, Labor will be in a position to pass laws only with the support of the Coalition or the full crossbench: five Greens senators, Family First’s Steve Fielding and the anti-pokies crusader Nick Xenophon.

Consider this alarming fact: in nine years of holding the balance of power in the Senate, the Greens only once voted with the government. Fielding cast his deciding vote on media ownership laws and voluntary student unionism without seeking any concessions from the Coalition, and Xenophon has been a loose cannon in the South Australian Parliament.

It’s a recipe for a double dissolution and it’s why we need, now more than ever, a moderate third player in the Senate.

The Democrats strike a balance between ideological extremes, whereas our minor party rivals sit on the far left and far right of the political spectrum, each of them shackled to special interests and unwilling - or perhaps unable? - to use the parliamentary system as a means to an end.

The Greens have shown they’re far better at getting media coverage and rousing protesters than they are at getting results. Family First has nothing much to offer other than lower petrol prices.

These coming years will be tough for the Democrats, to say the least, but our supporters remain loyal and our members enthusiastic.

If we are ever to regain our pre-eminence as the third team in Australian politics, I suspect the changes we make now must be sweeping. All options should be on the table, including mergers with like-minded micro parties and rebranding.

Creativity and innovation are needed to propel the Democrats forward. We need to build grassroots support by contesting and winning seats on local councils, as we’ve done in the past. And, thankfully, there’s a new generation of Democrats willing and able to take up the challenge. Our youth divisions have never been stronger.

We also need to work harder to sell our policies to the masses. Alas, it has been difficult over the years to sex up commonsense ideas.

On top of this, our victories are rarely celebrated - either by us or others - meaning they’re all too easily forgotten. We were the ones who transformed the Senate from a retirement village into a genuine house of review. We strengthened the economy through moderate industrial relations and taxation reforms and we put the environment on the political agenda for the first time.

I admit we’ve never quite lived up to my father’s pledge to keep the bastards honest - that’s an impossible task - but as the journalist Phillip Adams pointed out last year, we’ve managed to “dramatise their deceits and duplicities”. Without us, he said, “Australian politics would have been even more mendacious and mediocre, more sleazy and cynical.”

In Australian politics, we still desperately need a third force that owes its allegiance to no one - not big business, not vested interests, not trade unions - and which is committed to holding governments to account, whatever their political hue.

Laura Chipp is the national spokeswoman for the Young Australian Democrats and the daughter of the late Democrats founder, Don Chipp.

Check out the article about my Dad, Don Chipp and the Democrat’s future in today’s Australian.

Please click to enlarge..