Presentation Mrs Norah Ebukalin P’KWI (The Popular Knowledge Women’s Initiative)

1. THE 3RD RUFORUM BIENNIAL REGIONAL
CONFERENCE
A UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP WITH RURAL PEOPLE
Presented by
Mrs Norah Ebukalin
P’KWI (The Popular Knowledge Women’s Initiative)
24th – 28th September, 2012, Imperial Resort
Beach Hotel - Entebbe, Uganda

2. History of P’KWI
Popular Knowledge Women’s Initiative (P’KWI) was founded by 12
rural women after the Teso insurgency where armed conflicts and
raids devastated the region and rendered families food insecure
and homeless.
With a desperate move to regain stability P’KWI was initiated in
1993 as a means to hold together and support one another.
P’KWI to date has a membership of 2,500 member household formed
into a co-operative .this is comprised of a structure of 5 household form
a 4H club, 5 Clubs form a socio-economic groups of 25 households each
of this then elects a Leader of Change the P’KWI Key Farmer Trainer
(KFT) who links the Organization to the members who in turn channel
the information to and from the Community Site of Knowledge(CSoK)
which gathers information produced by universities and other research
institutes and adapts this information so that farmers can use.

3. LINK WITH THE UNIVERSITY
In 1995, Professor Adipala Ekwam when visiting the area
got to know the group and through him Makerere
University came down to work with P’KWI.
It has always been a belief that Higher Institutions of learning
have nothing to do with un-educated people more so when
white collar jobs take them to the urban areas. But this got
disproved and through the collaboration with Makerere
university P’KWI was able to establish farmer field schools as
learning sites.
The university also decided to put up a
student farm placement program and
this become a conducive learning
environment for the farmers.

4. RESEARCH & ITS OUTPUTS:
•The farmers learnt that pests attack at different stages of plant growth this study was
able to help us understand the difference between storage pests and those that attack
our crops in the field.
•It also outlined how important agronomy is in pest control, for example planting at
certain spacing may either increase the infestation of pests or make it lesser as it’s the
case with Aphids that attack groundnuts and cause the Rosette disease.
•It too outlined how you can use integrated methods to control pests in the farms e.g.
the use of other plants like Tephrosia that repel pests or the use of biological control
system where certain insects were released to control cassava Midge caused by Meal
bugs and it was a success story.
The outcomes of this research were beneficial to us in that we could see the results
and effects, this gave way for us to own and replicate such knowledge in our own
fields and with the P’KWI Farmer-to-Farmer Extension System we can now disseminate
the information practically.

5. ADOPTION OF TECHNOLOGIES:
With a vibrant link with Universities P’KWI has found it easy
to adopt technologies and adapt this for our own use. It
also explains how easily the scientists can innovate
technologies that are suitable for our use since they are in
contact and can assess the farmer’s needs.
Together with the students farmers knowledge got widened
to the level that we farmers can now innovate new ways to
control certain weeds such as a species of striga that is
available locally but can destroy the renown striga that has
hampered the production of cereal crops for a long time.

6. MARRYING SCIENCE AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE:
In Uganda, 80% of the population lives in the rural areas and 70% of
them survive on agriculture and yet each day land holdings are
getting smaller and smaller but we have high hopes that since now
we can work together with scientists there should be all possible ways
and all suggestions and possible answers to most of this challenges
especially when in old times issues could be resolved ,FOR WHERE
THE SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE IS FOUND THERE SHOULD BE AN
ANSWER. There could be things that the formal education system has
left out as unimportant and yet here is a solution that can impact on
our future.
When looking at nature and what our old people have been doing
you find a case like meat was being preserved without a freezer and
yet it could stay long without going bad. Our parents drank a
substance made from a particular plant and most of them were alive
up to 70-80 years with clear eyes to see and strong teeth to eat meat;
did we miss the step? If so can we get back and reasrch on the sorce
of knowledge they used to keep themselves moving this may help us
today

7. P’KWI TO DATE
Dr. Okori who is pioneering the research on cereal crops has made
it possible for Makerere university to continue pursuing the link
with the communities and this will in the long run help us gain
more benefits including direct access to the university through the
new online project Makerere university is developing through Dr.
Ebanyat.
P’KWI and other farmers have such a thirst for knowledge in such a
way that they even Add Value on their products. We appreciate
Ruforum and Makerere University for accepting us to learn
together with them and to inform us where necessary, we know
that as students graduate we too graduate in a special way by
getting living knowledge that is not kept in shelves but is used
amongst us in so doing benefiting many people.

8. MAKERERE UNIVERSITY –P”KWI CONTINUED PARTERNSHIP

9. The P’KWI 4H-Club Work Pledge .
To Greater To Clear
Loyalty. Thinking.
1-Heart 2-Head
4H
4-Health 3-Hands
To Better To Larger
Joy. Service.