User:Chero Emmanuel

Chero Emmanuel is a professional statistician, a karimojong, born from the Tepeth Community, who are a minority sub- ethnic group of the karimojong indigenous pastoral people who constitute a minority and are a marginalized tribal group in Uganda. Karamoja is a remote area located in North Eastern part of Uganda covering 27,000 square Kms which constituting 10% of Uganda’s total land mass. It is currently a home to a population of 1.2 million people. It’s semi-arid with rainfall ranging from 500mm-1,200mm per annum. Its main economy is cattle keeping that is pre-dominated by subsistence herding with little crop agriculture. Being a minority within a minority, the Tepeth live in the caves and reside on the slopes of mount Moroto. The Karimojong of which the tepeth are part, are among the core Ateker-karamoja cluster group of Nilo-hamitic people found in Uganda, the Toposa in South Sudan, the Nyangatom of Ethiopia and the Turkana of Kenya. The ‘peripheral Ateker’ include the Itesots, Langi and the Kakwa of Uganda, the Massai and Samburu of Kenya and Tanzania and the Barri speakers of South Sudan among others. These groups have similar Language, Norms, Cultural practices and traditions. Unfortunately, they also share a culture of violence, instability, Marginalization and poverty caused by armed cattle raids, road side ambushes, resource conflicts, and land disputes which are fuelled by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, rogue criminal element Chero Emmanuel was raised and he has grown up in both pre and post disarmament karamoja and has witnessed first-hand violence/insecurity, marginalization and poverty. As is always the case, it’s the children, women and the elderly who pay the highest price. Chero Emmanuel has played an active role in the promotion of peace in Karamoja by taking part in high-level peace dialogues in which warring clans were brought together on different occasions, teleconferences, worked as a minute secretary and translator for government, military officials to the ordinary citizens at meetings. Chero Emmanuel is a Data Analyst at the Africa Leadership Institute, an organisation with experience in governance, peace promotion, civil military cooperation, inclusive development and livelihoods especially among the Karimojong. In addition Chero Emmanuel has volunteered part of his time in the organisation to inception and implementation of a new development program for Karamoja that targets livelihoods, peace and stability through transforming Karimojong youth from being warriors of destruction to warriors of development and inclusive economic development through creating pathways for the Karimojong to move from the gun economy to the formal economy and involving themselves in emerging industries such as mining, tourism and construction.