Rising above heights at whatever level is a possibility for everyone who looks at life positively always and wants to make things better for all.
Lokaino Mauro Lotyang is a 33 year old married to three wives and hails from Diritipuru village, Lokitelabu Parish, Kotido Sub County, Kotido District.
Lokitelaebu parish derived its names because over times lions used to occupy and attack people from where the sub county is currently located. The lions would also hide in the rocks besides or behind the sub county offices and by attacking the community members and that’s it derived the name “Lokitelaebu” which means forest for the lions.
The area is susceptible to insecurity, long dry spells, cattle raids, especially from the Martheniko of Moroto and Turkana of Kenya where Mauro lost his Daddy and lives of many other people and animals hence affecting the livelihoods and nutritional ability of the households. such raids have left behind several windows and orphans leading to high dependency syndrome and increased poverty levels within the community.
Mauro joined Apolou as a member of the Resileince Action Committee, a governance structure at the community level that lobbys, advoactes, monitors and mobilises for any community selfhelp or government program. As RAC member and with his skills of good documentation, he was elected as a secretary for Riamiriam RAC in Kotido sub county as well as a secretary for Kotido Sub County peace committee. Apolou was able to build his capacity in community mobilisation and senstisation, group dyanamics, among others.
Before Apolou interventions, Mauro was always angered at how service delivery was in his sub county, and he kept wondering as a young boy how he would contribute to the development and improvement in service delivery of his sub county. He used to see a lot of gaps as regard to poor relations between the community and the government officials, no information flow of any government programs and processes, no feedback sessions and non/limited involvement of communities in any of government agenda. They worked as siloes. Having been elected to an executive position as a secretary, He took it as an opportunity to enable government be informed of their communities through reports written during their RACs meetings and activity implementation and also to actively participate in community mobilization for self-help, advocate for improvement of services, Senstization of communities in any aspects of development but to his dismay, majority of their reports were un answered, they severally invited different officials but a few turned up always with unsatisfactory feedbacks. The community grumbled a lot and wondered how the government would serve them.
Through the trainings conducted by the APOLOU program especially on group dynamics where he learnt leadership skills and he was also able to initiate a VSLA within the RAC to promote savings for increased household incomes and access to credit in case of emergencies like treatment, domestic needs, etc
As a result, the zeal to become LCIII Chairperson for Kotido sub county started to develop in Mauro because he felt at this level, He could be at a higher position to influence and advocate for service delivery improvement and development in general. These were backed by his desire to improve coordination between the Sub County and community, improvement in feedback giving of government programs, inclusive and effective monitoring and planning of services. From the VSLA saving within the RAC, Mauro was able to save to tune of 3,560,000/= which he used to buy 4 acres of land, 2 bulls for ploughing and the balance was injected into 2021 campaigns for LC III Kotido Chairperson seat which he won.
Now with a diverse knowledge and as the LCIII chairperson of Kotido Sub County, He is going to make sure there is a good working relationship among the sub county, NGOs and community, Health unit management committees, cooperate with the RACs, Police and UPDF committed in peace building and security initiatives and business community connected to peace actors and above all an inclusive working environment where every actor or stakeholder is involved. These will be through coordination meetings, monitoring visits, feedback sessions, and engagement meetings among others.