We are delighted with our progress in transforming our base camps into centres of excellence. Our Lira Centre is near completion and is essentially already in use. It is located on Plot 5 Makerere Road, in Lira City, a prime location, right opposite the Lira Hotel and neighbouring the golf course.

Within a serene environment, when completed in 2019 it will host a Reading Room with academic reference publications, as well as novels; a 100-Seater Training and Meeting Room; a restaurant, CPAR’s Kitchen, specializing in Ugandan cuisine; a business centre; a Staff Guest House; and the rest of the grounds have agriculture for food demonstration gardens.

In 2020, we will embark on establishing our Oyam Centre at our properties in Akaidebe and Alicia villages in Loro Town Council; and our Pader Centre at our property in Pader Town Council.

Our centres, we are establishing within the ethos that the future holds for non-profit organisations with entrepreneurial minds. We were persuaded of this wisdom by our banker, DFCU Bank, during a Conversation it sponsored and convened with non-profit organisations and under the theme “Let’s Talk The Future of NGOs.”

During that conversation, DFCU gave us and other non-profits tips on “how NGOs can develop a mindset of an entrepreneur.” Read more here.

A bit of history, for close to 30 years – from the late 1980s to the early 2010s – there was insurgency in the Northern Region of Uganda; which insurgency, for the most part, is credited to the activities of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony; a Christian extremist terrorist outfit with a convoluted misinterpretation of the Bible.

At the peak of the insurgency, in the early 1990s, the Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR) were among the key international aid agencies that took on a significant role of providing aid and relief for the affected communities of the region.

In order to facilitate its operations in the region, CPAR accessed and acquired land in the region on which it established base camps in Lango and in Acholi.

Typically, the CPAR base camps included buildings that served as offices, training and meeting halls from whence its relief operation was effectively and efficiently coordinated and executed. The CPAR base camps also included buildings that provided accommodation for its aid workers and others.