Campaigners fight superstitious beliefs
NEWS ANALYSIS | RONALD MUSOKE | Palabek Secondary Faculty within the northern Uganda district of Lamwo strategy the South Sudan border has turned into the centre of a advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign to lengthen safety precautions in opposition to lightning strikes in Uganda.
Uganda is belief to be one of basically the most lightning-prone worldwide locations on earth, because it receives an estimated 4 million lightning strikes per yr. This yr by myself, on the least 10 folks bear succumbed to lightning strikes, with hundreds extra escaping with injuries across the country.
In point of fact, June 28, which is the World Lightning Security Day, became declared in commemoration of the pupils who died in Uganda 14 years ago. At least 18 schoolchildren had been killed and 36 others injured when a lightning bolt struck Runyanya Major Faculty within the western Uganda district of Kiryandongo on June 28, 2011.
For Prof. Mary Ann Cooper, a retired American emergency doctor who is now the managing director of the African Centres for Lightning and Education Community (ACLENet), the Runyanya lightning event marked a turning level.
“Here is the day that defines World Lightning Security Day for us,” Dr. Cooper suggested The Fair, on June 27, a day old to Uganda’s commemorative event at Palabek Secondary Faculty. “We exercise that day as an illustration to design close a observe at and connect the lives of the general folks,” she mentioned. Lightning has moreover killed several cattle in Uganda, especially cattle, essentially based utterly on info compiled by ACLENet.
But, even inner Uganda, some areas are extra at likelihood of this natural phenomenon than others. Palabek in northern Uganda is belief to be one of these areas the build lightning strikes are somewhat overall. In November 2024, Palabek hit native and global headlines when on the least 14 folks, mostly youngsters, had been killed when lightning hit a makeshift safe haven in a refugee settlement there.
Vibrant no longer too lengthy ago, a lightning bolt killed about 15 cattle in Patanga parish in Palabek Gem Sub-County, the build Palabek Secondary Faculty is chanced on. Final yr, belief to be one of Palabek S.S’s college students became a victim of lightning within the neighborhood. She, fortunately, became no longer severely injured, essentially based utterly on Peter Olaa, the headmaster of Palabek Secondary Faculty. He became on June 27 talking to guests from ACLENet old to Uganda’s commemoration, which became held on the college.
Lightning protection programs
Over the past 9 years, ACLENet has been installing lightning protection programs in faculties positioned in some of basically the most lightning-prone areas in Uganda. The machine that prices hundreds of millions of shillings entails rooftop air terminals, steel down-conductors, and earthing programs buried as a lot as a couple metres deep.
Palabek Secondary Faculty is among the many main beneficiaries of the ACLENet advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign. The most essential set up of the lightning protection machine within the college became accomplished in 2019. Four years later, there became any other set up on newly constructed constructions.
Palabek S.S is moreover belief to be one of the pioneering faculties for a pilot lightning early warning machine. ACLENet has partnered with the French authorities to pilot the machine in 25 Ugandan faculties. Below the machine, sirens will seemingly be introduced about when lightning is detected inner 6 to 10 kilometres, giving lecturers time to usher college students indoors.
“With any luck, with extra involvement of additional sponsors, extra early warning programs will seemingly be installed in additional faculties around Uganda. We don’t deserve to provide protection to the constructions; we would maybe seemingly like to provide protection to the college students and lecturers so as that they in fact feel safe to shield in college, graduate, and turned into productive residents of the country,” says Prof. Mary Ann Cooper.
Why Palabek and Lamwo?
Hilary Onek, the Minister of Relief, Catastrophe Preparedness, and Refugees, who became the manager customer at this yr’s commemorative event at Palabek S.S suggested The Fair that whereas increasing up in Lamwo, folks consistently cautioned youngsters to no longer design close safe haven below the mammoth mango tree shades which will seemingly be overall in this position.
“I knew factual from childhood that you just don’t stand below a tree when it is drizzling or raining for defense because below the trees, no doubt, with the heat of your body, there’ll seemingly be some radiation, and then you definately will seemingly be hit by lightning.”
“There could be extra lightning incidence here than in many substances of the country; the just it is a long way a necessity that faculties are stable is because here is the build plump crowds are,” mentioned Onek.
Requested whether there had been any reports accomplished to win out why Palabek and Lamwo District are extra at likelihood of lightning than any a form of position within the country, Onek mentioned he would not know of any such reports. On the opposite hand, what he is aware of is the many incidents of lightning bolts inserting faculties, churches, and a form of constructions.
“It’s seemingly the geographical design, the terrain, or the bodily environment.” Onek suggested The Fair that even supposing within the past lightning strikes had been overall, they had been no longer killing as many folks as is occurring now.
Ken Nixon, an associate professor on the College of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, who is moreover the president of ACLENet, has frolicked studying the lightning phenomenon on the continent.
He suggested The Fair that if one takes a sharp watch on the African continent, they can witness a in level of fact vast vary of ground flash densities. He says the most effective densities are inclined to be concentrated across the equator. “When you watched referring to the build Uganda or the Democratic Republic of Congo is positioned, they are quite extra special on the equator.”
He says lightning strikes are merely a characteristic of the weather programs. “You specialize in referring to the equator; it’s the an identical morning time and sundown the general yr spherical. Sure, there is a somewhat wetter and a somewhat drier season, on the opposite hand it’s very a form of to whenever you recede to greater latitudes or lower latitudes the build you’ve got a extra special extra sure inequity between summer season and winter.”
“What that formulation is, whenever you like to bear a straightforward statistic, when it’s raining, there’s a factual likelihood there’s going to be lightning. On the equatorial dilemma across the planet, there’s a quantity of rain; there’s lunge to be a quantity of lightning strikes,” says Prof. Nixon.
Combating superstition with science
From its injurious in Uganda, ACLENet is spearheading an Africa-vast mission to provide protection to communities from lightning—particularly youngsters, who’re among the many most prone.
“People across the sector—from France to Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, and South Africa—bear in mind the youngsters who lost their lives at Runyanya,” says Prof. Cooper. She says it is a long way a necessity to win governments attracted to the lightning safety campaigns. Her group’s a form of purpose is demystifying the many superstitions and beliefs about lightning which will seemingly be rife in many substances of Africa. She says due to the these (superstitions), many folks will no longer discuss injuries or deaths from lightning.
There are three styles of lightning: cloud to cloud, cloud to air, and cloud to ground, in overall identified as a ground flash. This particular form of lightning strikes the bottom or something on the bottom. Floor flashes are what ACLENet is most eager about.
Nevertheless the success of the advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign to provide protection to communities in opposition to lightning in Uganda is being hampered by cultural beliefs and superstitions. Myths around lightning abound in many Ugandan communities. Some folks give it some belief’s precipitated by witchcraft, adverse luck, or household feuds. Others say that colour, gender, and even the kind of animals reared in a household attract lightning.
“Now we bear got encountered many myths as we recede on installing the lightning protection programs (lightning arrestors),” says Barnabas Akantambira, ACLENet’s Country Coordinator.
“Some folks say that lightning is attracted by colour (purple); others say it is attracted by a particular gender. Some folks say it is attracted by the kind of trees planted within the compound. We’ve had communities blame reptiles or ancestors. Nevertheless actually that none of these attract lightning.”
“In our communities here, folks bear a quantity of misconceptions, and when there is in overall tension between two households and lightning strikes belief to be one of the household, the a form of household will raise up the instruct of witchcraft,” James Opio, a physics teacher at Palabek Secondary Faculty and patron of the college’s Lightning and Security Membership, suggested The Fair.
.
Palabek Refugee Settlement tragedy
Here is precisely what came about in November last yr, when a lightning bolt struck and killed 14 South Sudanese youngsters and injured dozens at Zone 8, Block 2, in Palabek Refugee Settlement, which is no longer distant from this faculty.
Ideu George, the zone leader, suggested The Fair that that particular incident precipitated tension pondering the fact that the lightning bolt killed mostly folks of the Nuer tribe within the settlement.
“It became no longer straightforward. It introduced a quantity of segregation because there became easiest one tribe that died. It became the Nuer tribe. It made it worse that the church belongs to the Don Bosco sect which in overall draws suspicion and distrust from some communities here.” On the opposite hand, Opio, the physics teacher, suggested The Fair that training is slowly reworking mindsets.
Lightning is a scientific phenomenon
Akantambira says lightning is scientific—it’s electrostatic energy, no longer magic. Prof. Cooper further explains, noting that when lightning comes out of the cloud, it doesn’t know the build it’s going. “It true needs to win to the bottom. It doesn’t know whether the folks down there are carrying purple or whether they’re carrying a cell mobile phone or whether they beat their wife or whether they’re a boy or a lady. It doesn’t know any of that. It true needs to win within the bottom, and whenever you happen to be within the formulation, you win hit by lightning. “By the time you hear reveal, you’re already in likelihood, and as well you ought to be in a safe region, a lightning-safe region,” she says.
“It’s crucial to make consciousness about lightning,” adds Dr. Tony Mukasa Lusambu (PhD), the used Assistant Commissioner for Major Education in Uganda’s Ministry of Education and Sports, who became moreover in Palabek for the commemoration. “What some folks be taught about lightning—that it’s taboo, that some households shield watch over lightning, that it’s due to the adverse luck; that whenever you annoy any individual who has supernatural powers, she or he can solid a lightning strike on you—is no longer correct.”
“We need that consciousness no longer easiest to spread at some stage within the student community but beyond the community about the plot in which it occurs and pointers on how to shield a long way from being afflicted,” he says. “In any other case, if comparatively of one gets to perceive factual from their home that lightning easiest occurs out of adverse luck, then even supposing a siren goes off after they are on the playground, they would well no longer hear.”
Lightning injuries and deaths preventable
Peter Olaa, the headmaster of Palabek Secondary Faculty, says even supposing his college has no longer too lengthy ago benefitted from ACLENet’s lightning prevention machine, extra peaceful must be accomplished at his college.
“The work accomplished to this level on the college to provide protection to the constructions and kids is commendable, but we peaceful need extra since the position is at likelihood of lightning,” Olaa mentioned. “Our faculty has been saved, but for the college students, the build they near from—their properties—they’re no longer safe.”
Specialists grunt whereas lightning is a natural phenomenon, injuries and deaths from it are preventable. Prof. Cooper says about 90% of folks struck by lightning dwell on, but many undergo lengthy-term mind injuries. For youngsters, this can imply studying disabilities, memory loss, and the lack to entire their training.
“For a kid, it is a long way a studying incapacity. So, it’s robust for them to win original info, to win the info that’s saved in their brains, and to raise on as a student. They would seemingly deserve to repeat the yr in college,” says Prof. Cooper. “They would seemingly moreover never be ready to close motivate to varsity. So, it’s no longer true the these which will seemingly be killed. It’s moreover the these which bear the disabilities afterwards. “It’s no longer true tragic—it’s a loss to the country’s future human handy resource capital.”
Here is why, Prof. Cooper explains, ACLENet is investing in multi-pronged lightning protection programs designed to channel lightning safely into the bottom and no longer thru constructions or folks.
Excessive label of lightning protection machine
Prof. Cooper notes that when ACLENet first stable Palabek Secondary Faculty, six years ago, it label about US$40,000 (Approx. Shs140 million). Nevertheless when her team came motivate in 2023 to check the machine as a routine requirement (to examine on the gear), the college had constructed four extra constructions.
“When we came motivate in 2023 to check the machine again, we chanced on four extra constructions, and we made up our minds that we would maybe seemingly provide protection to these constructions. That label any other US$27,000 (Approx. Shs 96 million) to provide protection to these four constructions. Nevertheless we’re a in level of fact small non-profit, so now we must design close all the funds from our pals and from grants.” Given the dinky funding and excessive import taxes on materials—as a lot as 35% in taxes, essentially based utterly on Prof. Cooper—the organisation can easiest attain so extra special.
Curiously, Uganda already has a coverage requiring lightning protection programs to be installed in all original college constructions, essentially based utterly on Hilary Onek, the Minister for Relief, Catastrophe Preparedness, and Refugees. Nevertheless enforcement remains a instruct. “There’s negligence in implementation,” Onek admits. “Faculties must strengthen protection programs. Lightning doesn’t sit down up for policies to rep up.”
In her recorded commemoration message, Janet Museveni, the Minister of Education and Sports, nicely-known that her ministry, thru the Construction Administration Unit, “is dedicated to increasing sure that both original and faded college constructions at some stage in our country are installed with upright lightning safety gear.”
But, given the excessive label taking below consideration installing this gear, it is undecided how the ministry intends to fund the set up of this gear in bigger than 30,000 training establishments across the country.
Nevertheless, as a birth, Minister Onek thinks casting off taxes on lightning safety devices would maybe seemingly moreover recede a lengthy formulation in serving to tutorial establishments to install this necessary lightning-moving gear. In point of fact, Onek would not need protection in opposition to lightning to cease in faculties. He says properties, public constructions and even factories must be stable from lightning.
“The lightning (prevention) devices must be introduced in tax-free because, otherwise, it turns into again any other label to our uncomfortable folks. People are struggling even to construct up a one-room home. If it be crucial to tax everything, there is a misfortune. Already there are enough taxes on mabaati (iron sheets), and on cement. Allow us to spare these small lights protection devices.”
