Hi Nathan!

You say:

All ideas are welcome to make the project a success.

I don't know if you have looked at the World Connectory group at all, but Iganga district has been designated Worldwide Connectory Area #2245 and would make an excellent partner for a similar sized area in a developed country.

We are currently looking at ways of piloting this. Perhaps you might like to give some thought to whether the BSLA would like to get involved in this in any way?

Yours ideas would be very welcome.

I'm my own worst enemy often times by talking too much. I'm afraid to go on too long, but I want to tell my friends here at Ned a little about why Nathan beginning this thread is important to me.

I've known Nathan online for many years--Is it 8 years Nathan? Nathan and his brother John began exploring with me ways they could be of service to their community and how I could be of service to them. John developed brain cancer and died in and was buried on October 19, 2005.

Nathan started a community-based organization in Iganga Uganda in 2004. The story really goes back further and John was an important part of it all. Nathan is the oldest of five children and when he was just 17 when his mother died leaving the children orphaned. Through great struggle they family stayed together.

Nathan was working at Iganga Secondary School a high school for girls. Through SchoolNet they had a computer lab and Internet connection. That's how we were able to correspond. John and I sent letters.

Through ups and downs Nathan has remained dedicated to a vision of community empowerment. There's been so much to learn and do and it's been a real struggle.

AWISH is an NGO. I saw on their site a proposal for a development project in Nathan's area of Uganda. It turns out that that proposal was not funded and the American, Paul Barkley who wrote the proposal had gone on to become a CPA and to begin his new career. Nathan wrote AWISH at a fortunate time because Paul had just expressed to Michael Karp the head of AWISH his willingness to return his attention to Uganda.

Paul had been a Peace Corps worker in the area. Collaborating with a community group they had formed a store for maize as a way to market at fair prices. This accomplishment formed the basis for an idea to improve economic security in the area.

Paul has given Nathan an intensive education in spreadsheets and accounting as they've worked together to make Paul's plan a reality on the ground.

I've not always been up to speed with these projects. Partly from just ignorance about "how things are done" and partly from my own resistance about "how things are done." But there's never been any question about the goal to create good things in the community.

There has been a difficulty about talking publicly about the work of the BSLA. I've wanted to be mindful not in anyway to undermine the efforts.

Those of you who know me from Omidyar and Ned know that I can say all sorts of cockamamie stuff. Somehow the ability to do so greatly improves how I learn. Being able to put out a first draft and then benefit from the conversation is huge for me. And I've wanted Nathan to be able to share in this sort of learning through conversation.

I nagged about blogs for a while. The essential thing about a blog is that it be a real story, it's not a place for another to tell it. I sort of learned that the hard way. One of the members of the BSLA was graduating and I tried to introduce her to using online tools. I posted a photograph. One of her academic advisers must have Googled her name, anyway he found the photograph and warned her about it. Keeping ones good name is huge and the Internet raises challenges in Uganda in ways I hadn't quite understood.

So my difficulty has been twofold: First struggling to get my head around ambitious plans of another American for the BSLA. Second knowing how important it is for Nathan and members of the BSLA to be able to tell their own stories. I haven't found the ways to tell my stories of working with Nathan and the BSLA, even though it's a story close to my heart and important for others to hear. That Nathan is beginning a public dialog opens a path for me to do so.

It is so important to protect what we've invested ourselves in. A beautiful thing about Ned is how everyone here seems to understand that. So in conversations we can explore and even criticize with a foundation of trust.

There are great challenges in what Nathan and the BSLA are trying to do. We could use some help to find solutions. I very much look forward to be able to engage in discussions here.