What it Means to be a Care Provider

Florence Kaluuba sorting produce for the staff and residents at CORE

Local leaders who are caring for Uganda’s vulnerable tend to know and support one another. People doing “good work” operate like a loose and informal network, sharing techniques and strategies, inspiring each other with new ideas, and consulting on each other’s projects. Being part of this network is about having certain resources and status to make things happen, and it is also about a shared sense of vision. 

What are the qualities of that shared vision? From my vantage point, there seem to be several. One is a desire to serve Uganda’s most needy, above other goals (e.g., accumulating wealth, advancing in education, moving or traveling aboard, etc.) that relatively well-off Ugandans might pursue. For this kind of care providing leader, resources and status serve the goal of charity, rather than the other way around. 

A second is a devotion to the spiritual side of the work. This involves the belief that caring for the needy is transcendently important, a kind of activity that expresses one’s fullest humanity; and that needs of the body, the mind, the heart, and the spirit are intertwined, and must be addressed together. These leaders see the world through the lens of sacred mutuality. Each part of the person is interdependent, as are the parts of their human community; and it is this mutuality that gives their own caregiving role meaning. They are deeply aware that they themselves are empowered by empowering others. 

A third is a quality of independent, pragmatic thinking; or in other words, a willingness to question the general dogmas of the NGO world if and when they aren’t working, and a desire to create new strategies that do really work—particular to this place, for these people. Although Uganda is full of organizations seeking to meet needs and solve problems, they vary greatly on a spectrum of autonomy. On one end are those dependent on foreign agenda-setting; and on the other end are those that enact the agendas of local Ugandan leadership, even if they receive foreign donations. Being a domestic or community-based organization does not determine where a given agency fits on this spectrum. You really need to look at who is setting the agenda and envisioning the programs, to know how autonomous a provider they are. 

Leaders who share these qualities tend to find each other, especially if they are working in similar geographic areas or on similar problems. For our project, we relied heavily on this peer knowledge to find like-minded care providers. The project manager, Josephine, already knew a few personally, and after interviewing those she would ask them to refer us to others. We made it clear we were looking for leaders that are local, autonomous, and effective; and those leaders usually knew who to connect us with. 

 Any kind of leadership exists in mutual recognition: both the leader herself, as well as her peers and those she serves, must recognize her leadership role. What makes a care provider in Uganda is thus a social process of recognizing a person as one who truly cares (in attitude and action), having both the capacity (i.e., resources, energy, time, status) and the will (i.e., vision, desire, concern, commitment) to do so. 

One thing I learned through this project is that social researchers’ own typologies and categories must respond to these dynamics of recognition, rather than impose existing labels based on superficial indicators. Just because a person runs a registered NGO or community-based organization (of which there are thousands in Uganda) does not make them a care provider or leader. The latter, I believe, are rarer; but also, much more impactful.