Positive Deviance Wisdom Series, Number 4, pp. 1-8. Boston, Tufts University: Positive Deviance Initiative.
“When you’re given to an LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) commander, you are his forced wife. You are expected to take care of all his needs. Everything! I returned from the bush a few days ago but am still haunted by frightful dreams. I hear children crying. We are being attacked, or fighting, walking for days in the hot desert without food or water.” “I’m happy to be back, but I have no hope of returning to school. I don’t know what the future holds for me.” – Cecilia, a returned abductee in Northern Uganda²
Seventeen-year old Cecilia, abducted from her home in Gulu district of Northern Uganda and held in captivity for five years, is one of the lucky survivors of the brutal civil conflict that has ravaged the Northern Ugandan landscape since 1986. For over two decades, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in the name of the local Acholi people, has engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Ugandan government, avowing to establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives, displaced over a million people, and led to the abduction and enslavement of over 50,000 children, including the likes of Cecilia. Accused of widespread human rights violations, the LRA’s crimes against humanity include murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, and forced soldiering.
“They (the LRA) take an axe and split your head with it. They don’t waste any bullets on you,” recounted Cecilia. POSITIVE DEVIANCE is an approach that is uniquely effective in addressing intractable and highly complex social problems. What could be more complex than the reintegration of unwelcome abductees like Cecilia? Instead of being welcomed home, returned abductees like Cecilia are often treated by their community members as pariahs. After all, the abducted children were forced to side with the rebel army, killing and ravaging their own people. Physically scarred and emotionally-traumatized, some returned abductees also bear the burden of mothering an enemy’s child: “My eldest is Elma Alimo, meaning ‘difficult moment.’ I named him that because I was just 13 when I had him,” noted Cecilia. Unwelcomed and having no education or skills, many girls like Cecilia resorted to transactional sex, that is, sex in exchange for food, clothing, or even a place to sleep. How might these young vulnerable girls take more control of their lives?
LIFE AFTER THE LRA In March of 2007, Save the Children launched a pilot project to assist in the empowerment and reintegration process of vulnerable girls in northern Uganda’s Pader district using the Positive Deviance approach. The PD project targeted 500 young mothers and vulnerable girl survivors as well as 50 adult mentors who provide communitybased guidance, farming and financial advice, and general psychosocial support. One of the participating young mothers in this PD pilot is Hélène, a Positive Deviant among her cohort, whose daily practices led her to not just survive, but rather to thrive Anyira, lagam me pekowa, tye botwa… Girls, the answers to our problems lie within us…
Much like a sunflower reaches toward the sun, Hélène’s garden grows nurtured by her dreams and aspirations. In the same soil, with the same amount of water and sunlight, a few sunflowers still find ways to plant their roots more firmly and reach higher. Some tower high over Hélène.
“I mixed all of my seeds, sunflower, cucumber, and others, in one basket and spread them in the field. These plants grow well together. I learned this skill from my father, he was a good farmer. He taught me about intercropping.”
Positive Deviance is rooted in the belief that the answers to a community’s problems lie in existing local wisdom. Bed lanyut maber Be exemplary The role of local and outside experts in PD is to act as listeners and facilitators. They can facilitate communitywide PD Inquiry, which allows community members to self discover the existing demonstrably successful strategies used by some to solve or prevent a particular problem. A PD Inquiry can help identify people in the community who, without any extra resources, address the problem more effectively. The idea is to make the PD behaviors visible and actionable so that others can replicate the uncommon but effective practices.
Similar to the sunflower plant that sinks its roots deeper to reach higher, Hélène, despite the hardships of abduction, early pregnancy, and motherhood, engages in certain practices which make her a valuable and integrated citizen in her returned community. Through her PD practices, Hélène presents social proof to her peers that overcoming the odds is possible. If she can do it, so can they. And since Hélène’s behaviors are already in action, others can begin immediately, without extra resources. Tii pi kwoni Work for your life Hélène’s practice of intercropping produces a healthy harvest. She has access to the same resources as other girls in her community, yet Hélène maximizes her harvest by practicing the wisdom passed down by her father. Her intercropping method is a rich source of local scientific wisdom. With guidance from Anna, her abayo (aunt and mentor), she will hire others to help with the harvest and will be able to sow more for the next season. From a mentor’s perspective, Anna is very proud. As she builds the capacity of children, she builds her own capacity…
