| The brutal warfare of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army brought destruction and devastation to the villages of Northern Uganda. Poverty, death, and displacement became the reality for this population. Now that the warfare has ceased, numerous organizations are seeking to help the country rebuild and recover from the significant losses, but as one can imagine, the damage is profound. In order to contribute to a deeper contextual understanding of what is needed for the people of Uganda, the aim of this study was to begin with questions: what does well-being mean for this population and what is needed to increase it? Using grounded theory analysis, the researcher conducted open-ended interviews and community forums with Ugandan adults. Results revealed a rich communal understanding of well-being with both similarities and differences to previous theoretical conceptualizations of this multi-faced construct. The four core categories revealed were: United Communal Support, Active Engagement with Needs Met, Psychological or Characterological Attributes, and Faith and Trust in God. All themes were interwoven with one another and contained multiple subthemes that revealed a crucial bi-directional relationship between communal support and being engaged with and contributing to one's community. Future research assessing potential differences between genders and a deeper understanding of how to implement programs and interventions to bolster these components of well-being is encouraged.;Keywords: well-being, Uganda, community, grounded theory. |
