In Kyangwali Refugee settlement, there is a weekly market which used to operate every Sunday. At the beginning of this year, for reasons I do not know, the market was shifted to Tuesdays. We had no idea what effects this would have on our work in the settlement.
On a typical Tuesday, the majority of refugees, men and women, young and old, would now trek to the market to do business or just hang around there. As it turned out, this affected our work, especially our community activities on Tuesday. Community outreach registered very low turn outs; special clinics in health units like immunization, antenatal and dental clinics, which used to be held on Tuesday were not attended. Efforts to change the market day back to Sunday were not successful.
During one of the project management team meetings, we brain stormed possible solutions to the situation. We realized that the market was a good platform for our community moblisation and senstisation programs. We scheduled community moblisation and senstisation activities to Tuesdays, and rescheduled community activities for other days instead . With a large number of people from all corners of the settlement gathered in one place, the market has made moblisation and senstisation easier and more effective. I learnt a lesson from this experience that if I cannot change a situation at hand, then I have to work around it and make good out of it – a practice of identifying bright spots. Though we failed to change the situation, we found ways of taking advantage of it.