Clinton School student Shamim Okolloh, who is completing her final public service project with Heifer International in Eastern Uganda, has a report on her blog about recent mudslides that have impacted the region where she is helping develop a curriculum for a secondary school based on sustainable agricultural principles.
Below is an excerpt from Okolloh’s blog. Click here to read the full post:
On Sunday August 28th, I was caught in heavy rains while at the market close to my apartment. It rained for close to 12 hours non-stop. Monday morning we woke up to headlines that a mudslide had occured in Bulambuli – being new to Uganda, I didn’t really have a concept of where or how far that was and when I saw the images on TV I thought ‘man, that’s really tragic’.
A few days later, the news hit close to home. Bulambuli is about 30 kilometers from Mbale town. We got reports that we had Heifer supported farmers in the mudslide area that have been affected and since I’m based at the Heifer Uganda Eastern Regional office, I got a chance to head out to the field. This was my first time at a disaster site and nothing in the world could have prepared me for it.