If music be the food of love, Give me excess of it......Jessica Anderson, Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.

Cameron Upchurch, our speaker last week, gave us a very interesting talk on an unusual topic - a Career in Church Music.  he spoke on the educational aspects of church music, the discipline involved by the choir and surprised us with the level of excellence and dedication of the young people involved.  He spoke of the long-term benefits to the participants and played us St Henry's Marist Brothers Schola Cantorum in Durban singing plainsong in Latin and St John's College Choir singing Renaissance polyphony in Latin where he is currently the full-time organist.  He said that his position as Director of Music at Holy Trinity, Braamfontein was particularly rewarding as the Jesuits who ran the parish gave great support  to music and that at the latest auditions for the Schola Cantorum that consists of 8 black and 2 white young men and women, 50 people turned up for the audition.  Don Lindsay, in thanking our speaker, confirmed that his involvement in Sacred Music as a chorister had given him an abiding love for choral music.  As none of us have heard him actually sing we couldn't comment!

 Here are some of our members at the last meeting.  What are they thinking about?

Allan Beuthin & Sue Peiser announced there impending marriage last week.  Naturally a wedding present comes to mind and with the Club's approval the Board has come up with the idea of presenting them with the painting that Paul Kasango & Peter Rolfe are proudly standing in front of.  Its presence has loomed large in many photographs of Club Meetings and knowing their home as we do we are sure it will be prominently displayed with great pride for many years to come.

Our speaker this week is  Jessica Anderson.  She has conducted field research pertaining to issues of conflict, violence and transitional justice in Ghana, South Africa, and Uganda.  She is currently a Startingbloc fellow and Rotary International Scholar.  She is also wrapping up a short film on gun violence in urban America with another Tufts alum.  Her bachelor degree is in International Relations from Tufts University. 


She is currently doing a Masters at Wits in the popular Forced Migration Studies Programme where she is a researcher.  She is also a Director of Collaborative Transitions Africa and she will be talking to us on The Northern Uganda Remembrance Programme. 


The Barlonyo Remembrance Book 

The Barlonyo Project is about individual, family and community remembrance of one of the largest and most “forgotten” massacres of the Civil War in Northern Uganda. CTA, in collaboration with local cultural leaders (The Lango Cultural Foundation, “LCF”) and the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) are creating a photo memory book that tells the story of the Barlonyo community, commemorates survivors’ and victims’ experiences, and contributes to collective memory and truth-building in a community in which truth is highly contentious and uncertain.

Background and Project Description

In less than three hours on 21 February 2004, over 300 people in the Barlonyo Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp were brutally murdered by the rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army. Today in Barlonyo, there is a cement covered mass grave along with a memorial built by the Government of Uganda. The memorial only testifies to the death of 121 individuals, but more than 300 were killed1.

The Barlonyo massacre represents over 300 lives that have remained unaddressed and largely ignored by formal remembrance processes. The community lacks a collective memory of the massacre. In order to recover from mass violence, communities need an agreed-upon “truth” as a point to begin healing the trauma. LCF thus approached CTA hoping to find an alternative way to memorialize the massacre and contribute to the community’s process of establishing collective memory.

This Remembrance Book is way to transmit this valuable information to survivors, in addition to supporting personal remembrance processes. The book is mainly comprised of photographs, which is important because a large portion of the Barlonyo community is illiterate. There is also a map depicting the massacre, a detailed timeline of the massacre with several narratives, photographs showing how the community has developed since the massacre, a section to address the current needs of the community, and a final tribute to the victims. The Justice and Reconciliation Project based in Gulu, Uganda, carried out an in-depth documentation of the massacre prior to CTA’s work, which was they shared with CTA to design the memory book. The memory book will be in Luo, the local language, and will be mass distributed to all community members at a major community memorial event.



“It is becoming so that they cannot remember . . . We need to remember the massacre and to give it to our children so that they can remember our beloved ancestors.”
—A Survivor of the Barlonyo Massacre

Ambassadorial Scholarships, The Rotary Foundation's oldest and best-known program, was founded in 1947. Since then, more than 40,000 men and women from about 100 nations have studied abroad under its auspices. Today it is one of the world's largest privately funded international scholarships programs. Nearly 700 scholarships were awarded for study in 2009-10. Through grants totaling approximately US$16.2 million, recipients from about 70 countries studied in more than 80 nations.

"The Rotary Foundation does some terrific things, not the least of which is the Ambassadorial Scholarships program." — Michael R. Whiteman, international programs director, University of Idaho

The purpose of the Ambassadorial Scholarships program is to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries and geographical areas. The program sponsors academic year scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for qualified professionals pursuing vocational studies. While abroad, scholars serve as goodwill ambassadors to the host country and give presentations about their homelands to Rotary clubs and other groups. Upon returning home, scholars share with Rotarians and others the experiences that led to a greater understanding of their host country.

Generous contributions from Rotarians worldwide represent a continued faith that today’s Ambassadorial Scholars will be tomorrow's community and world leaders.