 Director's Note
Our BIG news this month is a grant for nearly $100,000 awarded to ACLENet by the Ludwick Family Foundation.
The Ludwick Family Foundation granted our full application to install lightning protection (LP) at 3 more 'model schools' across Uganda that will serve as centers for lightning safety education for teachers, students, parents and school leaders in their regions.
This grant will also fund projects to decrease the cost of protecting schools by using locally sourced materials as much as possible instead of expensive imports and designing LP ‘templates’ for typical school building configurations instead of custom designing each school's protection plan.
Our goal is to share the outcome of these projects with other countries and ACLE national centers across Africa.
Several well-regarded lightning protection experts have stepped forward to help us with these ideas plus the Uganda Ministry of Education has given ACLENet architectural drawings for primary and secondary schools to begin using our templates for the new schools that Uganda will be building with World Bank funds.
Thanks to the Ludwick Family Foundation!
-- and thanks to all of you for your support in 2017 and 2018.
We could not do this work without everyone's contributions and encouragement.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE UPDATES ON THESE ACTIVITIES!!
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Tell your story
We invite you to share your questions and stories about lightning with readers worldwide who are interested in lightning, especially in Africa. We will do our best to publish it and respond to questions with expert advice from our worldwide pool of research advisers and lightning safety experts.
If you witness a lightning incident, please report it, post images on our social media sites and be part of the effort to 'reduce deaths, injuries, and property damage'.
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 Bits of pig liver, fat, bile and blood are mixed with an herb called idabulitulu (“cross the heavens”), then fried and eaten by a family attempting to ward off lightning.
Another version involves adding other ingredients to the liver, bile, blood and fat, blackening and then grinding the mixture, and adding more pig fat. The Inyanga (''Diviner'') who has made this mixture may apply it in four ways:
(1) rubbed into incisions made on the bodies of the members of the homestead;
(2) dipping a broom into the mixture and flicking it into the air around the boundaries of the homestead;
(3) applying to wooden pegs placed around the homestead including one placed into the mud cap at the top of the roof of each hut; and
(4) drawing a cross on the top of the doorways of the huts, inside and out.
On the next day an iron bar and a peg medicated with the mixture must be buried in the direction from where thunderstorms come and far away from the homestead. Any left-over mixture is given to the family head “to use it as long as it lasts” and he is also given a horn of powdered medicines to use if lightning approaches and the Inyanga is not able to make an emergency visit.
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Panic gripped residents of Kuniyi community, Nigeria, at about 2 pm on Sunday, September 30, when lightning struck 11 people at Kuniyi Primary School football pitch. Nine were revived by the residents, but two teenagers died. The two had just completed their secondary school education and were the pride of their families.
Traditional healers would not allow the families, medical doctors, nor others to go near the deceased or remove their bodies until certain rituals had been done.
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WE NEED YOUR HELP
If you are fluent in other languages spoken in Africa, please help us monitor news reports of lightning injury and damage in these languages -
CONTACT US to find out how!
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Monthly Lightning Injury Reports
ACLENet collects and posts news reports in each country for researchers and those writing grants with us to use.
While we do our best to include all news reports each month, some may not be reported until after a newsletter mailing, as with the delayed report for September that we are including this month.
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Lightning kills two teenagers, hits nine other people
October 2, 2018
Nigeria |
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Parents struggling to cope after girls die from lightning strike over stormy weekend
October 16, 2018
South Africa |
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