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 Karate for LifeFighting
HIV/AIDS through the martial arts and life skills development In December of 2010, I received a
message from a former Ugandan student of mine, Felex Forward. He
told me that the Ugandan government had recently redrawn the national
map, subdividing some larger districts and, in the process, creating
several smaller, new ones. As a result of this process, Felex’s
hometown had been elevated to the role of district capital.
Normally, such political machinations wouldn’t have much effect on
the day-to-day affairs of the local citizens. In this case, however,
it did. Feeling that the appearance of the town did not live up to
its new status, the local powers-that-be passed new regulations, what
we would call zoning laws in the US, requiring that all “old-style”
buildings be torn down and replaced with newer, more attractive
structures. Sadly, Felex’s family home was one of those slated for
demolition. 
Obviously, this put Felex in a
tight spot. Not only was the 200,000 shilling ($80/£50) a month
salary that he earned as a primary school teacher not enough to pay
for the new construction, he only recently had attained status as a
government teacher, which meant that the local banks were unwilling
to loan him the necessary funds either. Faced with the real
possibility of homelessness for both himself and his younger brother,
Felex was turning to me and the Karate for Life Foundation as his
last chance for assistance.
 The Karate for Life Foundation has
its roots in the Bushenyi Primary Teachers’
College Karate Club that I helped to found in November 2004 during my
service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The initial purpose of the club
was simply to provide the college students with a fun and unique
extracurricular activity to which they would otherwise not have
access and also give me a nice opportunity to continue my training.
However, after attending a Peace Corps course on life skills
development education and its usefulness in combating the HIV/AIDS
pandemic currently facing Uganda and most of sub-Saharan Africa, my
wife (Sarah) and I realized how well the two projects (martial arts
training and life skills education) could work together. Thus, in
March of 2006, the Bushenyi Life and Activities Skills Team (BLAST)
was founded.
The goal of BLAST was to develop a dedicated group of
students who were dually trained as both martial arts instructors and life skills peer educators. These students could then use
martial arts clubs as a method to introduce other youth to the
Ugandan life skills curriculum, a curriculum that would be actively
reinforced by the martial arts training itself.
Unfortunately for the project (but
fortunately in other ways), Sarah became unexpectedly pregnant in the
spring of 2006, and we had to leave the country before any of my
students had received enough training to reach instructor-level
certification. Hence, after arriving back home in the US, Sarah and I
worked to found the Karate for Life Foundation with the goal of
supporting our Ugandan students in any way possible to continue their
development as martial artists and life skills peer role models.
Foremost among these students that
we hoped to help was Felex who, in the absence of any direct support,
guidance, and instruction and in the face of many difficult
circumstances, continued to train and continued to strive. I would
often receive messages from him describing his efforts to continue on
the martial path, his dedication to hard physical training, and his
work to spread his knowledge of both karate and life skills to
others. Considering that he had every reason to give up, these
emails were always heartening and made it clear that not only was
there good work left to be done but that there was someone there, on
the ground, who was ready, willing, and able to do it. As a result,
much of the Foundation’s initial efforts were focused on helping
Felex to continue his education, as stability and security must be
achieved before noble causes can be sought after. 
Several attempts
to bring Felex to the States were thwarted by US visa requirements,
while further studies in Uganda were slowed by distance from the
university, time necessary to continue his coursework, and a larger
need to provide for his younger siblings. Still, progress was being
made. That is, of course, until the local government came in and
took away what little stability and security Felex had managed to
accrue.
 So, out of this negative
situation, the "Ask Me About My Bruises” campaign was born. One
cool T-shirt design with art by the awesome Jeff Suntala, a
fundraising seminar led by Iain Abernethy, and a lot of amazing,
world-wide support later, and Felex is well on his way to having a
new house. In fact, the first stage is fully funded and under
construction, with enough money left over to cover about half of the
remaining work.
 Of course, there’s still plenty
to be done. First and foremost, enough funds need to be raised to
complete the second-stage of Felex’s new house. However, our goals
don’t end there. Once the house is finished, we want to get Felex
back to school, allowing him the chances that only a good education
can provide. And then, there’s the matter of the karate/life
skills curriculum. Towards that end, the Karate for Life Foundation
has a mid-range goal of helping Felex purchase a plot of land in his
home region that will eventually be used to house the first karate
dojo in Southwest Uganda, perhaps the first outside the capital city
of Kampala. Using this as a base of operations, Felex can then begin
to build his initial class of karate/life skills peer educators.
From there, who knows where the program can go?
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