Category Archives: Students

COVID-19 saved me from registering a dead year

November 21, 2020COVID-19, News, StudentsPatty Huston-Holm

uthor Winnie Laker, at right, and workmate recording UACE best students at The New Vision newspaper.

By Winnie Laker

Two weeks before the official lockdown of the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was already sick.

At the beginning of March, I started seeing a temporal defeat of life in my health. Fever, dry cough and general body weakness were the signs and symptoms that I was experiencing. In other words, they were not any different from what we had been hearing about the coronavirus. Could I have contacted COVID-19?

Just as with past times that I had malaria, I didn’t let it hold me down. I continued my internship at The New Vision. My task was registering best performing schools and students after the release of the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) information. I was determined not to let health interfere with my career climb and my passion for writing in communications and journalism.

As time progressed, I was sure my illness wasn’t the virus. Still weak, however, I notified my mother who delivered some bad news about my studies at Uganda Christian University.

“After finalizing with your internship, go and register for a dead year,” she said. “Your father and I have lost all means of paying for you this year.”

The author’s mother and nieces visit the soy beans in the garden

On that March 5, 2020, day, the emotion of sadness slipped into my soul, using it as a thorn to prick my heart. I needed a miracle. I wanted my God to rescue me from a full year away from studies. Meanwhile, our return for the Advent semester was pushing closer.

On that day, I vividly remember the high sunlit clouds drifting across a clear blue sky. I sat cross legged, with my head facing the floor. When I stood up to finally get permission from the Editor for my official end of work note, I stumbled on my every footstep. I didn’t have any strength left within me, but I had to talk to the editor on duty, Mrs Hellen Mukibi, about my situation.

Although my decision to end my internship was abrupt, I decided to tell Hellen the whole truth. She provided the around-the-clock emotional support I needed. The friendly exchange of conversation gave me hope.

While at home, I slept more and felt sorry for myself. At that, I began to strategize about what I could do to get back in school. Agriculture, an area I knew little about, emerged as an answer in my country that is rich with crops in many locations. Surely God was somehow involved in keeping my entire class from reporting back to school. I traveled to the village, specifically Gulu (in the North), to work in agriculture production.

When the president announced the official two-week lockdown beginning March 19, 2020, I was in the village doing farming, which I had never done physically my entire life. Farming, particularly small-scale, was a side business I started up in 2018, the year I joined the University. At first, it was due to influence from my siblings, but as time went on I realized it provided for my allowances at school. Nonetheless, I had to expand on the scale this time round, if I really wanted to get back to school.

During the more than seven-month period of lockdown, which included suspension of all classes at UCU, I had an acre of soya beans, one and a half acres of groundnuts and maize and half an acre of simsim. I had clear confirmation that I did not serve a dead God as the education delay was not just on me but on everybody.

The farming life was not easy. It involved weeding and harvesting. I well understood it was easier paying someone to do this job than doing it yourself. But I didn’t have that option. So I would wake up as early as 6:00 a.m. to go to the garden and by the time I am set to rest, I would have forgotten to even switch on my phone for any alerts. My mother and nieces worked hard side by side in the garden. Whether studying or working with my hands, I did not sit and stare. I worked.

At the beginning of October, the soya beans had its market ready for sale after harvesting. My hope was at its peak, being sure of resuming school together with fellows who were also home due to the effect of the pandemic. Moreover, the sale I made from the soya beans was enough to get me started back at school.

Today as I write this article, I am in school (virtually) with my very classmates, with whom I started with in 2018 (in-person studies). And although I have not completed my tuition, I can affirm that the groundnuts, maize and simsim, yet to be harvested by my mother, will be more than enough to pay my tuition. God willing, in October 2021, I will be graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication.

For me, an experience was gained but I also learned a very big lesson. If life lifts a fire of hope and sprinkles water in it, I can always go an extra mile and rekindle it to recover my laughter once more again.

UCU set to reopen for online eLearning on Sept 15

September 10, 2020COVID-19, Faculty, News, Students#AaronMushengyezi, #COVID, #elearning, #Lockdown, #medicalschools, #onlineLearning, John Senyonyi, Uganda Christian University, Uganda PartnersPatty Huston-Holm

UCU staff members discuss on-line learning enhancements in the Mukono campus eLearning Centre.

(NOTE: At the time this was written, the Ugandan government agreed to allow medical school students only to return to in-person education. There were unconfirmed rumors that physical delivery could be allowed for all schools by the end of September. If permitted, this could impact the UCU plan as outlined in this story.)

By John Semakula

Uganda Christian University (UCU) students, who missed their end of Easter Semester (January-May) examinations because of the country’s COVID-19 lockdown, have cause to smile. According to the office of the UCU Vice Chancellor, the students can take the Easter Semester examinations from September 15 to October 15, 2020.

“These will be done as take-home examinations, as it is the practice in universities all over the world,” read a statement from the VCs office dated September 4, adding, “Teaching for the Trinity (normally starting in May) and Advent (normally starting in September) semesters will commence on October 15.”

Students enrolled with UCU for the first semester of this calendar year missed their examinations when all the academic institutions in the country were closed on March 20 as part of a government-imposed, country lockdown to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. These students were mostly completed with their studies except for their final semester examinations. At that time, and despite UCU’s readiness to conduct on-line learning and administer take-home exams, the University’s efforts were denied by President Yoweri Museveni on grounds that the process would discriminate against individuals from poor families.

In early September, UCU had that approval, including from the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) that conducted an early August inspection. According to a letter dated August 26 and signed by the outgoing Vice Chancellor, Dr. John Senyonyi, after assessing UCU’s capacity to undertake online distance eLearning, the NCHE gave the University a green light to resume teaching virtually.

NCHE also cleared the University’s School of Medicine and the newly named School of Dentistry to continue operations after an inspection by the regulatory body conducted on August 10. Early this year, the NCHE had raised some concerns about the standards of most medical schools in the country, including the medical schools at UCU and Makerere University, and asked the institutions to improve or be denied a chance to offer the courses.

In a letter dated August 28, NCHE’s Executive Director, Prof. Mary J.N. Okwakol, noted that UCU’s medical and dental programs met the requirements for the training of medical doctors and dental surgeons within the East African Community (EAC) as set out in the guidelines.

“Upon qualifications, therefore, the graduates shall be eligible for reciprocal recognition within the EAC partner states,” she wrote. “The University may admit students to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Dentistry programmes, ensuring adherence to the recommended number of students for each programme.”

Dr. Aaron Mushengyezi, UCU’s new vice chancellor, speaks at a press conference.

In his August 26 letter to UCU staff, Dr. Senyonyi commended those who worked hard to ensure that both assessments were successful. He said he was sincerely indebted to them.

The University has since advertised vacancies for first year students who would wish to take those science courses advising them to apply online for the courses.

The new Vice-Chancellor, Assoc. Prof. Aaron Mushengyezi, also confirmed NCHE’s clearance for UCU to continue teaching in a letter to staff dated September 4. He also revealed that the University Senate had as a result of the clearance by NCHE met on September 2 and passed several resolutions to pave way for the University to reopen for online distance eLearning.

Key among the resolutions, which Senate passed, was that the University would hold a virtual graduation – a first for UCU – for those students who will have finished their studies. The ceremony is scheduled for December 18, 2020.

Also important to note is that students who are supposed to be in session for both the Trinity (May-August) and Advent (September- December) semesters will first complete the Trinity Semester. To have access to inexpensive Internet services for online learning and while tuition costs are in discussion, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic Affairs, Dr. John Kitayimbwa, advised students to buy MTN cell phone sim cards to access Internet hotspots.

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To support UCU, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

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Anguzu: UCU social work graduate restoring sanity in Arua

September 9, 2020News, Students: #socialwork, #BSWSAGraduate, #GivingHopeArua, #MorrisAnguzu, #UCUGraduate, #UgandaChristianUniversity, Poverty, UgandaPatty Huston-Holm

Anguzu walks out of his office at River Oli Division

By Douglas Olum

Lying in my bed in the Kudrass Hotel in Arua City on the evening of Tuesday, August 4, a sharp female scream pierced through the walls. Even though I did not understand the Lugbara language the woman used, I could tell from the sharp cries that she was in trouble. I rushed to the hotel reception to inquire about the problem.

“I think they are robbing someone,” the young man at the reception said. “There are gangs around here who rob people daily.”

I retreated to my room with a reminder to be cautious wherever I would go around this northwestern Uganda city. Arua is one of the four regional cities created recently in Uganda. It is located 520 kilometers (323.113 miles) Northwest of Kampala, in the West Nile region of Uganda.

Women make and sell popcorn and other snacks along a walk path in Arua City

This incident also reinforced the message delivered hours before in a conversation with Morris Anguzu, a 2018 Uganda Christian University (UCU) Social Work and Social Administration graduate who works in this area. Amidst our discussion, he shared with me his experience of the previous night when he received a 2 a.m. emergency call from a motorcycle rider whose bike was robbed while he was rushing a patient to the Arua Regional Referral Hospital. As the Gombolola Internal Security Organisation (GISO) officer in River Oli Division since 2011, Anguzu’s role places him directly at the centre of handling a complex web of societal problems ranging from domestic violence, child neglect, drug abuse, theft and robberies.

Of the two divisions in Arua City, River Oli has the largest population with approximately 50,700 residents of the estimated 72,400 city population (Uganda Bureau of Statistics Population projection report, 2015-2020). About 80 percent are Muslims. Anguzu said the three greatest challenges in this community are low literacy rate, polygamy and lack of parental guidance. He said most parents spend time looking for money, thereby leaving their children exposed to bad peers who introduce them to stealing, abusing drugs and smuggling goods from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

During the day, the city centre is busy with pedestrians, motorists and cyclists transporting all tribes of goods in and out of the city, crisscrossing everywhere. Sweaty, bare-chest men are seen offloading goods from large trucks, which bring them from Kampala, and sometimes loading them in smaller trucks that buy them from local wholesalers. Along the corridors, walk paths and backstreets, women and children are seen hawking carrots, cassava, ginger, onions, pepper, among other vegetables. In the same areas, others also are seen serving cooked foods, porridge, tea and snacks to the lower class city dwellers and some visitors.

Taking a ride with Anguzu along Lemerijoa road, in the afternoon of Wednesday, August 5, we witnessed a large group of young and older boys, drinking, smoking and chewing the leafy drug called mairungi. Anguzu explained to me that Lemerijoa is regarded as the hub of the gangs that rob people in Arua city on daily basis, and that the gangs are feared by both the community and local council leaders because they threaten them every time an attempt is made to confront or stop them.

Determined to change the narrative, Anguzu is applying various social work skills he acquired from UCU during his studies to help restore peace and security in the city. These skills include counseling and community engagement.

He said UCU equipped him with unique skills that have greatly improved his work results. He holds meetings with parents of boys to figure how they might work together to get the children to drop their bad habits; and speaks with many of the boys in one-on-one meetings. Before the COVID-19 lockdown in Uganda, he was more actively engaging elders, religious and local council leaders to derive a sustainable, effective approach through which they could permanently address problems.

While Anguzu’s colleagues are barred from speaking to the media by the terms of their work, others provided praise.

Benard Ezama, a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) rider, said they have more hope in Anguzu than the Uganda Police because he does not demand money from them and normally quickly responds in case of an attack or robbery.

To Jane Aikoru, a shop operator in the city, the increased insecurity in Arua “cannot be solved by arresting and imprisoning the perpetrators because at some point they still return from jail and continue to wreck havoc on people.” Aikoru thinks that Anguzu is the only hope they have because he is unafraid of the boys and he sometimes helps people recover their stolen property from the gangs.

In June this year, and on his way to lunch, Anguzu saw a young boy snatch a phone from a woman and run away with it as the public merely watched. He chased after the 13-year-old boy and recovered the woman’s phone before taking the boy to police.

For many people, the engagement would stop there. No so for Anguzu. Hours later, he went back to police and had a talk with the boy. Together with the Arua Child and Family Protection police department, Anguzu arranged for a meeting with the boy’s family where they resolved to withdraw the case on condition that the boy start working to turn his life around. The family of the minor, whose name is withheld to protect his identity, said their son has since transformed. They say without the intervention of Anguzu, the boy would have a life on the streets. Anguzu says his vision is to make Arua an educated and self-sustaining society that fears God.

“As a born-again Christian I believe my job is a calling from God and I should serve our people wholeheartedly,” he said. “I face rejections from some members of the Muslim community who mistake me to be fighting their belief, especially their practice of polygamy, but I also am motivated further when people appreciate the things I do for them.”

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Barriers to integrating e-Learning into Uganda’s education system

September 3, 2020COVID-19, News, Students, UCU Alumni#Covid-19, #e-Learning, #Lockdown, #National Council for Higher Education, #on-line Learning, #Uganda Communications Commission, Uganda Christian UniversityPatty Huston-Holm

e-Learning compatible with multiple devices that can be accessed by both staff and students. COURTESY PHOTO/UCU Law Society

(NOTE: This article was written before the Uganda National Council for Higher Education gave late August 2020 approval for UCU to offer on-line courses.)

By Alex Taremwa

On Friday, July 3, 2020, my good friend Rebecca Karagwa, a recipient of a generous Uganda Partners scholarship, should have graduated with her Bachelor of Laws from Uganda Christian University (UCU). Only that did not happen. After waiting for online exams in vain, she celebrated anyway. She cut the cake and ate it.

Her official school completion was delayed partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic that forced schools shut but also due to the Ugandan education system technological limbo in 2020. Since the colonial era, classroom instruction in Uganda – even at top government-supported universities like Makerere University (the 8^th Best in Africa according to recent rankings) has been a blackboard and chalk affair.

While students in countries like Rwanda begin to interact with computer technology as early as primary school with the help of education tablets that the government freely distributes, it is common for a student in Uganda from a rural area like Kazo to join a university without ever touching a computer.

UCU Students browse online reading material in the UCU Hamu Mukasa Library. COURTESY PHOTO/UCU E-Learning

I write from experience. Before I joined UCU in 2010, the best I knew about a computer was to correctly identify the mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was the first-year, UCU Basic Computing Foundation Course Unit that moved me to computer literacy; I scored 98%. This is true today for many students at Ugandan universities.

While the Ugandan government directed that Information and Computer Technology (ICT) be taught compulsorily at secondary level, most schools in rural areas and some in peri-urban areas have at most eight functional computers to be used by a population of 800 students or even more. At the maximum, each student will have interfaced with the computer for about five full hours in a term. To say that this time is insufficient to create any sort of mastery is an understatement.

Nevertheless, students move on to the universities where some semblance of e-Learning can be felt. Lecturers often send course material on Email and can ably grade assignments through academic systems such as Moodle. But from experience, both students and lecturers confess that the traditional approach where assignments are typed and printed is more “effective” than the modern style because the latter requires an internet connection or a physical presence at the University where one can access free Wi-Fi.

But there is an even bigger reason. Most of the courses taught at universities had not been customized for online delivery. When you visit the Uganda National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) website to see the listed of accredited online courses for universities, you’re met with an empty list. There is, however, a list of new guidelines that the NCHE is mooting to furnish universities in a bid to support their customization of online programs.

Online programs have to be immersive and interactive to compensate for when the students are not physically present at the university as the case is now. The challenge is that neither the university nor the government can guarantee that students will have access to a computer and stable Internet to support this kind of learning.

Statistically, only 42% of Ugandans are connected to the Internet, according to the Uganda Communications Commission. This represents 19 million of the 45 million Ugandans. If you break this figure further, the biggest concentration of Internet users is in Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Entebbe, Jinja and other major towns, but most of the rural countryside where the students are during this lockdown is largely uncovered.

To worsen matters, Uganda has the most expensive Internet per megabyte of all the countries in East Africa. It doesn’t help our case that social media platforms like WhatsApp, on which students are currently interacting as they hope for take home exams, also attract a daily tax.

It would have been better and cheaper for the government to lift tax on social media to promote learning via smartphones on Facebook Live and YouTube but instead, the government is settling to buy two radio and television sets for each of the 140,000 villages in the country. While this happens, universities like the United States International University in Africa in Nairobi, Aga Khan University and other ultramodern institutions have already closed their semesters successfully by administering exams online. All the institutions had to do was to use part of the students’ already paid tuition to activate for them data bundles with which to access, write and submit the exams.

Together with an e-Examination system that closed submissions after the permissible three hours, the universities were able to avoid physical access to the premises, keep COVID-19 at bay and still successfully close their academic calendars with minor interruptions.

Selfishly though, the government has refused to allow institutions like Uganda Christian University (UCU) that have the necessary infrastructure to support e-Learning to proceed with their academic calendar, claiming that some students who are in rural areas will not be able to access the learning material – even when the very students petitioned the Speaker of Parliaments seeking permission to sit their exams and move on with their lives.

Uganda has attempted and failed twice to allow finalists to return to their respective institutions of learning to write their examinations. Information from the corridors of power now has it that the government is mooting to force a dead year on students like Karagwa that were hoping to graduate simply because there is no infrastructure to support e-Learning.

As long as COVID-19 is still a global pandemic, education in Uganda will remain on halt and even when schools resume in the near future, e-Learning will remain a far cry until the technological barriers to uptake are addressed.

Alex Taremwa is a journalist, a graduate of UCU and an MA student at the Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC) of The Aga Khan University in Nairobi.

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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

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COVID lockdown in a foreign country

July 23, 2020COVID-19, Students#coronavirus, #COVID19, #InternationalStudents, #Lockdown #Uganda, #Nigeria, #SouthSudan, #UgandaChristianUniversity, UCU, UCUPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

Chizoba sells candy to a customer in Yesu Mulungi hostel

By Maxy Magella Abenaitwe

The COVID-19 shutdown of Ugandan education has halted career-building knowledge and skills for 9,000 Uganda Christian University (UCU) students. The stories of students returning home or stuck a few hours away and picking up odd jobs and doing manual labor to get food instead of engaging in their studies are common. The lesser-known stories involve UCU students from countries outside of Uganda. Since mid-March 2020, international students have been stuck inside Uganda’s closed borders. Some wondered how they could survive a day in a foreign country with no relatives, the added language barrier and poor knowledge of how to get around.

These are two such stories – of Eziuzo Chizoba from Nigeria and Rogers Moras of South Sudan.

Chizoba with her host mother and sisters

Eziuzo Chizoba – Nigeria
Eziuzo Chizoba, a second year Nigerian student of governance and international relations could not imagine how hard life would get if not for the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Ezekiel Kolawole, her host family. To Chizoba, it is not just a roof over her head but a life-transforming encounter.

From her host mother’s girl talks about Christ centeredness, saving capital for future purposes and premarital sex, Chizoba has made resolutions to polish her spiritual, academic and physical life. She now knows that she must build her future today if she must give back to a society that has shown her so much kindness.

“I have made up my mind to be a giver,” Chizoba says. “But in order to do this, I must first work on myself. Mother Ruth Kolawole always says that giving is a medicine for prosperity.”

She adds that her ambition for making money has grown. Chizoba looks at every aspect of life as an opportunity to earn a living. For example, she vended sweets in student hostels when she travelled back to check on her property in Mukono. Chizoba earned $9 (Shs 32,000) every time she sold off a tin of candy initially purchased at $4.5 (Shs 16,000). She hopes to carry on with the business once studies resume.

In one bid to build herself, Chizoba deactivated some of her Facebook pages. She realized she had spent too much time on social media.

“I feel everything I do should have a positive impact on society and on me,” she said. “If it is a Facebook account, I need it to have motivating content. That’s why I intend to resume social media interactions only when I have something (significant) to offer.”

In the lockdown and without university classes, she also mastered cooking. She perfected various delicious dishes and snacks like plantain chips, pizza and chicken soup.

Rogers Moras – South Sudan
By end of October this year, Rogers Moras, a South Sudanese refugee student at Uganda Christian University, was expected to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Procurement and Logistics Managment. To Moras, graduating was a free ticket back home – to reunite with his family in South Sudan and establish himself with quality employment. Unfortunately with the continued lockdown of academic institutions, Moras might not graduate soon.

“Uganda is a very beautiful country,” he said. “I enjoy being here. But I look forward to getting back home because I need to contribute to the growth of my country. Additionally, that it is where I belong.”

With the initial lockdown notice, Moras decided not to go home because of the high cost of travel and because he believed “the situation could settle within the thirty two days as per the (Ugandan) Presidential address.”

In addition to the financial and academic strains for all university students, as an international student Moras suffers added despair with lack of socialization in a different country.

Despite difficulties, however, Moras has used the quarantine period to master skills such as baking vegetable rolex. He hopes to put up a rolex business around campus as soon as the university reopens.

Moras also has adopted a reading culture for purposes of self-improvement and stress management.

“Books help me get over stress and rebuild my hope,” he said. “A novel like ‘Becoming: Michelle Obama’ helped me understand that I choose how I see the world and that my happiness depends on me. If borders are never opened, my life must go on even in a foreign country.”

Unable to access a gym, Moras has improvised ways to stay strong and healthy. He has developed self-made weights of two jerricans filled with wet sand and joined by a stick. He also jogs and climbs Ankhra hill in Mukono.

The lockdown has taught Moras to build relations with productive people, engaging in activities like debates and trade fairs.

He says: “I have vowed to live my life as if the present day was my last because I cannot be sure of what tomorrow holds for me.”

The writer of this article, Maxy Magella Abenaitwe, is a 2018 graduate of Uganda Christian University with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication. Before the lockdown, she was an intern for the UCU Standard newspaper.

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Apac, Uganda, nursing school director credits UCU for her impact

July 2, 2020Faculty of Public Health, Nursing and Midwifery, Students, UCU School of Medicine#FaithPassionAmbition, #healthcare, #HealthInUganda, #MargaretEkel, #UCUGraduateStudentChangingThings, #Uganda Christian Universty, NursingPatty Huston-Holm

Margaret Ekel, founder and director of Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Mid-wifery in Apac, northern Uganda

By Douglas Olum

While growing up in a northern Uganda village in the 1960s, Margaret Ekel admired nursing assistants who occasionally visited to interact with the people, including her parents, Tezira and Jeremiah Okot. As a young girl, she dreamed of becoming one of these smartly dressed, well-spoken medical people.

In 1968, after learning letter writing in her primary six classes, Ekel, then age 11, used that skill to begin applying to the Lira Mid-wifery Training School, seeking admission to the nursing program. Ekel overstated her age as 14. Unfortunately, because she lacked the minimum academic qualification for admission, she received a denial response with the word “regret.” As Ekel narrated this childhood memory in 2019, she could not help but smile.

“I didn’t understand the word ‘regret’,” she said, laughing.

To Ekel, that rejection was mere postponement of her admission. Her target was to get the ordinary level certificate, which she obtained in 1973. With that in hand, she applied for the nursing course while one of her brothers submitted documents on her behalf for the Laboratory Assistant program. She was admitted for both, but dropped the Laboratory Assistant offer.

After enrolling in the Masaka Nursing and Mid-wifery Training School in central Uganda, Ekel encountered challenges with the practical side of learning, including the administration of injections to patients. Giving a shot was terrifying as was dealing with death. When patients died, she hid inside a small room until the body was wrapped and taken away.

“Whenever I would lose a patient, I would cry with the relatives instead of simply empathizing with them as the profession requires,” she said. “I kept wondering why my fellow nurses would not drop a tear.”

With the help of tutors and colleagues, Ekel overcame these professional obstacles. With a midwifery certificate, she pursued a diploma in Nursing from Mulago School of Nursing and Mid-wifery before taking on a tutorship training course.

Realizing the gaps in the Uganda’s health sector, Ekel, who had worked in Government Hospitals, including at Nebbi Hospital in the West Nile region, knew that she could not do that single handedly. She opted for an early retirement from Government service as a nurse to pursue further studies so that she could influence the change she desires through imparting the knowledge and skills for a younger generation to close those gaps. So she decided to establish a school of nursing to train more Ugandans at certificate level in Apac District, Northern Uganda shortly after graduating from UCU.

Margaret Ekel at graduation from UCU in March 2014. She received her Bachelor of Nursing Science degree before enrolling for a Masters in the same field.

Ekel received a Bachelor of Nursing Science degree from the Uganda Christian University (UCU) in March 2014.

“My training in UCU opened my eyes to see the profession from a different perspective,” she said. “I was taken through the details of essentials like nursing care and nursing problems – which deals with how nurses can connect emotionally with their patients, listen to them and discover problems that could delay their healing processes.”

A mother of five boys and a girl, Ekel, who is currently a student in the Master of Nursing Science program at UCU, is founder and director of Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Mid-wifery in Apac, northern Uganda. The school runs alongside a sister hospital, Nightingale Hospital, Apac.

Through her school and hospital, Ekel hopes to restore patients’ hopes in the nursing profession by restoring what she considers the lost image of the profession. Administratively, Ekel says her time at UCU has made her a leader with a difference because through the various fellowships and prayer sessions, she learned that it was important to involve God in everything.

“Seeing the Vice Chancellor go to eat with students at the DH (Dining Hall) taught me key leadership skills like paying attention to the people you lead, listening to them and being humble all the time,” Ekel said.

In August 2018, Ekel suddenly collapsed while she was interacting with visitors from Gulu Regional Blood Bank who had checked into her school. She was rushed to Nightingale Hospital in Apac, where she was resuscitated before being referred to Nakasero Hospital for CT Scan and Naguru Hospital for a surgical procedure. Investigations revealed that she had cerebral thrombosis, a blood clot condition in the brain, which meant the vein that supplies oxygen to her brain was blocked and she needed to stay away from stressful and physically hectic duties. The condition is normally permanent in patients, which meant she had to drop out of her masters program which she painfully did.

But to her surprise, about a year later, a doctor told Ekel that her condition had normalized. She remembers asking the doctor what could have healed her, to which the doctor reportedly responded: “Somehow God has planted a new vein to supply your brain.”

In April 2020, she was considering a return to complete her course with mostly individual research remaining.

Because of that miraculous healing, Ekel believes that: “When you are with Christ, it is different than when you are with the world.”

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Community collaboration is asset to quality nurse delivery in Uganda

June 24, 2020Faculty, Faculty of Public Health, Nursing and Midwifery, Students, UCU School of Medicine#elderly, #healthcare, #SchoolofMedicine, #traditionalhealers, #UgandaChristianUniversity, Nursing, Poverty, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

Elizabeth Nagudi Situma, left, UCU Head of Nursing, and students meet with Magdalene Nayonjo, a community resident

By Caleb Bamwesiga

Magdalene Nayonjo is one of 653 residents of Nakkoba Village, located in rural Dundu Parish, Kyampisi Sub County – about a 45-minute mostly bumpy bus ride from the Uganda Christian University (UCU) main campus. At age 89, she’s the one I remember most during a February 2020 trip with UCU Nursing students and their head of department, Elizabeth Nagudi Situma.

Openly in her Luganda language and while plucking tiny stems from the bitter miniature apple fruit called katunkuma, she says she is barren. She admits that over the years she has been shunned for her inability to have children. Now approaching 90 years, however, she is an accepted part of her community. With her husband who has had other wives with children, she is content.

Segayi Dessan Salongo, coordinator for UCU nursing student visit in Nakkoba

Segayi Dessan Salongo, a village council member and the student nurse contact for the day, agrees. Magdalene is a respected and valued member of this poverty-stricken village. He supports the student visits not just for their ability to apply learning but also for what they teach residents about health care. In this village, safe drinking water is not abundant. There is no health care facility or pharmacy. Knowledge of the importance of cleanliness is sparse.

Elizabeth Nagudi Situma, who sits next to me enroute to and from the village and remains with me as I meet residents, explains that these visits are part of the year four learning for students working toward a UCU Bachelors of Nursing Science degree within the School of Medicine and give opportunity to students get exposed to health care at the grass roots level.

While healthy for an elderly person, Magdalene struggles more than younger residents who spend hours in farming or brick laying and ride motorcycles called bodabodas into towns with stores and clinics.

In order to address rural and urban health care disparities, Elizabeth says that the university joins forces with the Mukono district health service.

“We signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mukono district health service,” she said. “We carry out community health nursing outreach, educating people about the health preventative measure. This program is just one aspect of the university’s efforts to improve health care in rural communities around the university.”

The UCU Head of Nursing notes that the community nursing program’s strategic initiative is emphasizing preventive measures that not only have direct impact on rural areas, but also cultivate learning opportunities for students.

“With preventive measures at finger tips, this places people in the community at a privileged position of not suffering from communicable diseases, and other diseases resulting from poor sanitation are minimized,” she said. “Students are able to address critical issues encountered by health care professionals every day, from the prevention of disease to the delivery of care.”

She also noted that public awareness of symptoms of conditions and diseases (such as strokes) can help improve the speed of receiving medical help and increase the chances of a better recovery.

“On some occasions we encounter people who are sick with diabetes or blood pressure and live without knowing they are sick,” the head of nursing said. “This delays the chances of one seeking diagnosis from medical professionals. The untreated condition can advance and get worse. In these cases, the benefit of treating the disease promptly can greatly exceed the potential harm from unnecessary treatment.”

Residents are encouraged to go to government hospitals where they can access free medical services. Mulago hospital, for example, has free diabetic clinics.

John Bosco Ntambara, one nursing student, noted long-held cultural beliefs and practices keep people from seeking health care facilities. Often, they prefer traditional healers because they are better known and live nearby.

“That’s why they go for medical treatment late,” John said. “They first believe that they will get better. Some traditional healers will tell them that the payment arrangements will be made when they heal.”

However, the university head of nursing notes that one aspect of quality nurse service delivery is understanding culture and also getting to know what traditional healers offer to clients for easy clarification to community members.

“We don’t just talk,” she said. “We listen.”

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Community visits reinforce practical side of Ugandan health care

June 18, 2020COVID-19, Faculty of Public Health, Nursing and Midwifery, Students, UCU School of Medicine#CommunityService, #FamilyPlanning, #healthcare, #MedicalSchool, #Nolockdown, #Nurses, #students, #UgandaChristianUniversity, Mukono, Poverty, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

UCU Nursing student Nankya Brenda Diana visits a village family

By Patty Huston-Holm

Four plastic cups of passion juice. Several crumbling, miniature queen cakes. Bananas. Two melting strawberry and vanilla ice cream cones – a relatively new treat on the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Mukono campus. Laughter.

For 15 of the university’s year-four nursing students, that’s how the ride in a burgundy and white bus in central Uganda’s scorching heat started.

Loosely called a “community visit,” this weekly trek supplements learning that takes place in classrooms and laboratories on the campus. The trips into remote villages enable students to see the practical side of health care in their final months before graduation. In years one, two and three, the book, lecture and Internet knowledge have been complemented with real-world experiences in hospitals and health centers.

Previous real-world experiences have included conversations with traditional healers and professionals dealing with mental illness and observing circumcision and critical care of accident and HIV/AIDS victims.

On this sunny, February 2020 pre-COVID-lockdown day, the student nurses and Elizabeth Nagudi Situma, UCU head of nursing in the School of Medicine, travel on bumpy, dirt-rutted roads 45 minutes away from the main campus. They serve and learn in village of Nakoba – an area too remote to be found on a map. With guidance by Situma, students listen, observe, record and advise two residences each at various locations within an approximate one-mile radius.

“I think it was more than worms,” student Nankya Brenda Diana said about one child’s protruding abdominal area. “When you push on the stomach, it feels like an organ or something out of place.”

Normally, she said, a child’s extended belly means intestinal worms. They contract them from uncooked food, walking barefooted among cattle feces or eating dirty mangoes. In her kit, she has mebendazole, a drug that she can provide to eliminate worms. The better resolution is prevention through proper sanitary practices. This time, however, Brenda is not so sure that the stomachs of a two-year-old and her four-year-old brother are filled with worms. She puts her suspicions in her report.

The mother, Helen, has six children, including two sets of twins. Giving birth to more than one child at a time is a much-esteemed blessing in Ugandan culture. In addition to discussion of hygiene related to chickens that roam freely in the family’s cooking and sleeping areas, a rudely constructed rain water pipe and lack of dedicated space for the household’s bathroom habits, Brenda is ready today to discuss family planning. Steven, the husband and father, is there to get advice, too.

Brenda, wearing a backpack and holding a clipboard, talks to the family in their Luganda mother tongue. Helen sits on a single stool, nursing the baby, as Steven and their other children, barefooted in torn and dirty clothes, lean against trees near their humble home. Across an unpaved, dirt road are more than 20 gravesites, signified by a few stones but mostly by rounded mounds of dirt.

Roughly a half mile away, John Damasen Ntwari has his second weekly meeting with Niyonsaba, a mother of seven who, along with her husband, escaped here from Burundi ethnic disputes in 2015. They are Tutsi who fear death still today from the richer, more powerful Hutu. In broken English, she explains that they want to go back someday. But the time is not yet right.

John Damasen Ntwari, president of the UCU Nursing Class of 2020, visits with a family in a remote village near Mukono.

“I am very happy to see John,” she says. She shares that her family is better off than most with two children enrolled in school. While her young daughter smiles broadly, Niyonsaba says her problems with allergies and a weak heart seem less than John’s last visit and the daughter has healed nicely from a vaginal repair.

John, who is president of the nursing class, scribbles notes as walking to his second site. There, 15-year-old Nabaweesi Zakiah emerges. As when John previously visited, she’s alone. Again, in clear English, she says her mother is away “just one day to visit a friend.” When she returns with school fees, Zakiah can return to school.

Situma emerges and deepens the questioning about what the girl eats, if she is alone, if she is afraid at night, and if anyone hurts her. She praises the surroundings that include a vanilla plant and trees plentiful with bananas and jackfruit. Zakiah carries a large knife to a tree, cuts down some matooke and carries it back to her small living quarters. A dog, kitten and chicken with babies scatter.

“It’s hard to know,” John said. “I’ve asked that her mom be here today, but she still isn’t. Maybe next time.”

For most of the UCU student nurses, including Brenda and John, the desire to work in health care stems from a young age when encountering a void in medical attention for a family member. In addition to this motivation, there is a government promise of a paid job for at least one year after graduation. They are placed around the country with a 750,000 UGX ($200) a month salary for 12 months.

Seat backs filled with ready-to-eat avocados. Fingers dipped into large, freshly opened shells of sweet jackfruit. Some laughter, but mostly vocalized thoughts about the conditions, causes and remedies for health maladies. That’s how a February six-hour day – but not professional careers – concluded.

“Ultimately, I want to work in cancer care,” John said. “But I’m prepared for anything.”

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‘Choose to see the good in the bad thing’

June 14, 2020COVID-19, Students: #socialwork, #coronavirus, #COVID19, #cowhooves, #entrepreneurship, #Lockdown, #prayer, #UgandaChristianUniversity, Gulu, UCU, UCUPartners, UgandaPatty Huston-Holm

A crowd under Ojok's exercise instruction after the MTN marathon last year — A crowd under Ojok’s exercise instruction after the MTN marathon last year

By Maxy Magella Abenaitwe

For most Ugandans, the COVID-19 lockdown has been a financially painful time of watch and see. The presidential speeches have been a wave of hope whose flap never settles. Lives have come to a standstill.

For a few, however, it has been a time of growth and development.

Denish Ojok, a second-year Social Work student at Uganda Christian University (UCU), is among those few. Being alone since childhood presented him many challenges to sail through storms at their worst. The lockdown with the inability to attend UCU classes was yet another to overcome. For Denish, of Gulu, the answers came through food, fitness and market deliveries with a bit of radio inspiration on the side.

Income from his Rock of Ages fitness club helped pay his tuition. When the club was shut down through government orders, he moved workouts online. Clients subscribed at a daily fee of 80 cents (Shs.3000), accessing exercise through such platforms as Go to Meeting and Facebook.

Ojok preparing a traditional dish for delivery

Realizing this wasn’t enough, he thought about how his other skills could be used. Ojok, who is good at boiling a cow hooves, started making door-step deliveries of a much-prized dish known as Mulokoni. Most days, this brought Ojok a minimum of $9 profit.

Ojok’s third idea related to helping people obtain food when they weren’t allowed to travel. With the suspension of public and private means of transport but allowance of motorcycle deliveries, he took orders and made deliveries of sugar, rice and other market goods. Business was so good that he was able to employ a handful of youth to help him.

This voice of hope – one that resonates with biblical scripture – has been echoed by Ojok on Rupiny FM radio. His encouraging words on youth radio talk shows are about growth during a pandemic, thinking “beyond the nose” in a positive way to overcome circumstances, and continuing good sanitation habits after the COVID-19 virus is controlled. Such habits as handwashing will solve other problems such as diarrhea, he said.

“Exercise financial discipline, spend less and learn to cope with any condition that comes your way,” the 24-year-old student entrepreneur said. “Choose to see the good in the bad thing. Stay positive.”

Despite the great work progress, Ojok is dissatisfied with the fact that a large portion of his potential clients are unable to access his services due lack of communications through smart phones and the Internet. This is a circumstance he is working to resolve.

Much as the lockdown has kept him away from people who inspire his spiritual journey, Ojok has disciplined himself to read and understand scriptures. Before he does anything he prays, as inspired by his UCU lecturer, Peter Nareba, who begins every lecture with prayer.

Ojok plans to maintain his online business after the lockdown. He believes post lockdown will be an era of innovations since it was a shock that left the world with so much to learn, think about and take action.

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UCU rescues hungry students amidst lockdown

June 3, 2020COVID-19, Students#Covid-19, #StudentsGetFood, #UCURelief, #UgandaLockdownStarvation, Education, Hunger, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

Some students receiving food relief carry packages from university gate to their hostels

By Douglas Olum

At mid-morning on Thursday, May 14, 2020, and under the sun’s sharp burning rays, small groups of students banned from Uganda Christian University (UCU) under government COVID19 guidelines approached the main gate in Mukono. Students trickled in and out of the university, undergoing hand sanitizer spraying and temperature check exercises before entering.

As with all Ugandan universities since the country’s lockdown and university shutdowns started in late March, the students faced health scrutiny by university security officers and a medical worker. The students were hungry – struggling for roughly eight weeks without access to the regular university meals of tea, bread, rice, beans and, on occasion, chicken. While not the same as regular consumption, the UCU Office of the Director of Student Affairs provided some food relief.

The university’s intervention, supported by the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, responded to television and news reports that revealed that university students were starving in nearby hostels, caught by the lockdown with no public transportation to leave. The news reported by NTV Uganda and the Daily Monitor newspaper, coupled with direct phone calls to the Guild President, Timothy Kadaga, prompted an the necessary intervention.

An estimated 160 UCU students were stuck in various hostels and rentals around Mukono. At least 81 students got the first batch of the relief package which included; 10kg (22 pounds) bag of maize flour, a carton of 124ml (4.23 ounces) boxed milk, beans, powdered milk, cooking oil, (1kg or 35.3 ounces/2 lb.) of sugar and a bar of soap.

Students were interviewed anonymously to avoid shame that most felt about receiving assistance. They came, they said, after exhausting all other possible options to survive.

“I had just received my transport money to return home that evening when the president [Yoweri Kaguta Museveni] announced the ban on public transport,” one of them, a second-year Bachelor of Civil and Environmental Engineering student, said. “I had to use the money for upkeep but it even got finished within a week. I called home again and I was sent some more money, which also got finished. When I called again, I was told to wait because there was no money.”

For more than a week prior to the time of the food relief distribution, the 22-year old said he depended on his friends and well-wishing neighbors.

Just like him, another beneficiary who is on the UCU Sports Bursary, and residing at the St. Michael Historical Hostel, said he lived on porridge for three days and almost died. He recounted:

“My tummy was grumbling. My joints were weak. I kept turning in my bed, trying to find a position in which my tummy would stop hurting to no avail. I got up and tried to make porridge again, but there was no more sugar in the room. At that point, my body was shaking like I was standing on something vibrating. I fell back to bed and that was when I started thinking of alternative options like contacting the guild president.”

At that point, the student said he came to realize that food was not just mere quench for hunger, but life itself.

A female student pursuing a Bachelor of Business Administration echoed these thoughts. She said: “The package may appear small but it means so much to me. At least I can be sure that I will feed myself and live for some time while I explore other options and wait for the end of the lockdown.”

A second batch of students received portions on Tuesday, May 19, taking the total to 150 beneficiaries. They were humbled and grateful, they said.

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2020 Global 5K participants from USA, Canada, Nigeria, Uganda

May 19, 2020Faculty, Scholarship, Sports, Students, UCU Alumni#Canada, #Florida, #Global5K, #markbartels, #NewMexico, #Nigeria, #Pennsylvania, #UgandaChristianUniversity, Scholarship, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

By Patty Huston-Holm

“If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.”

The African proverb was the essence for the first few years of the Global 5K, a five-kilometer (3.1 miles) walk/run/social engagement activity sponsored by the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Partners non-profit organization. Abby Bartels, who lived for 10 years on the University campus and raised three children there with her husband, Mark, is the founder.

The year was 2015 and a time when many organizations were jumping on a 5K fund-raising bandwagon. For UCU Partners, it was less about raising money and more about building a relationship base among alumni of the Uganda Studies Program (USP), a one-semester, UCU learning experience for students enrolled in Christian universities, mostly in the United States. Mark Bartels, executive director for UCU Partners, started USP on the UCU Mukono campus. UCU Partners values USP alumni because they are a unique set of donors who have lived and studied at UCU.

“The event was actually better than expected because it strengthened connections not just with American students but with Honor’s College students and staff,” Abby, now living in Pennsylvania, said. “In addition to a time for remembering and re-connecting about a cultural, Christ-centered experience, it became an opportunity to raise money for Ugandan students in need.”

According to Ashton Davey, UCU Partners fundraising coordinator and facilitator for the 2020 Global 5K, nearly 200 people participated this year. Despite the hiccup of having an event on April 4 in the midst of worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns, more than $3,000 was generated, mostly by participant purchases of the event’s green T-shirt. The funds will supplement tuition for 12 needy students at UCU.

“Many participants found the Global 5K to be good motivation to get out of the house and simultaneously support a great cause,” Ashton said. “The event’s flexibility allowed people to participate alone from wherever they live, which allowed them to adhere to social distancing guidelines.”

So what was it like engaging in an event during an unprecedented worldwide pandemic? From Canada, Nigeria and Uganda, and nearly half of the 50 USA states, here is a sample of thoughts compiled from virtual interviews.

Atimango Innocent (Minna, Nigeria) – former UCU Honors College student who previously benefited from the scholarship assistance and was once a USP staff member; now engaged with The Navigators, two-year discipleship training program

In the midst of focusing on Mathew 28: 19-20 and its message about “making disciples of all nations,” Innocent and a friend, Drew Uduimoh, did 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) for the Global 5K. She has done it every year except for maybe one when the event didn’t get off the ground. For 2020 and while Nigeria reported more than 800 virus cases, she jogged around the town where she lives with no lockdown restrictions.

“I feel personal about it since I was one of the students who benefited directly from the funding,” she said of the Global 5K. “But I also find it a time to do reflections on people and on the Lord.”

Mikaela Hummel (Pakenham, Ontario, Canada) – USP student in 2019, while studying at Houghton (NY) College, where she receives her undergraduate degree in May; preparing to begin studies for a Masters of Science degree in physiotherapy

Mikaela, at right, with her family in Canada

On the day of the Global 5K, it was 10 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) in Pakenham, Ontario, where Mikaela participated in the event with her mom, dad, sister and dog. She wore long sleeves under her green shirt and her traditional African kitenge-design shorts. The area where they ran was a bit quieter than usual as COVID-19 restrictions had most stores closed and gatherings limited to five people or less.

“The experience in Uganda helped me to pause and think about what is really important in life,” she said. “The Global 5K is a time to reflect on that again. The pandemic puts the brakes on even stronger, reminding us to trust God.”

Erin Neilson (Gallup, New Mexico) – USP student in 2006 while majoring in music at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa.; now raising two children and serving on a church music team with her husband, Phil, a middle school English teacher and also a 2006 USP student and USP program assistant 2008-2009

USP alumni, Erin and Phil, and family in New Mexico

On the date of the 5K Zoom discussion on April 20, New Mexico had more than 2,000 confirmed cases of cornonavirus. Sixteen days earlier, the Neilson family of four, living in a small town near part of the Navajo Nation, did 5 kilometers. A special highlight was that Christiana, age 5, made the entire distance on her own. Caleb, a toddler, was carried.

“We had been hoping to hike with friends, but due to social distancing requirements, we ended up with time just as a family,” Erin said. Fourteen years after our USP experience I am reminded of the value Ugandans place on presence and am trying to live that daily with my children.”

Laura Sollenberger (Gainesville, Florida) – USP student in 2018 while majoring in exercise science at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa.; now finishing her Penn State University bachelor’s degree in nursing through on-line classes while living back home with her parents

For Laura, her career move from occupational therapy to nursing was stimulated by a 150-hour internship at the Church of Uganda hospital (Mukono), where she realized the intimate and critical role of health care workers at a patient’s side. COVID-19 has reinforced that decision with some frustration that she can’t be on the front line now; she graduates in December.

Laura’s UCU experience in 2018 was “life-changing with deeper connections to friends and God, clearer purpose, better understanding of systemic injustices, and the challenge of learning from new cultural perspectives,” she said.

Laura planned to re-connect with 10 of those friends by participating in the Global 5K and making rolex afterwards in Lancaster, Pa. Instead, she is sheltered with family in her home state of Florida. Her mom and dad did the 5K with her.

“We did a Zoom afterwards,” she said of her USP friends. She added, “I will definitely go back to Uganda someday.”

Molho Bernard (Kilowoza/Mukono District, Uganda) – 2018 UCU graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Education, working with the Honors College and USP up to February 2020 when Ugandan universities closed due to COVID restrictions while pursuing a Masters of Education in Planning and Administration.

On April 4, Bernard engaged in his second Global 5K by walking around his compound – different than the previous year when there were more people and it occurred on the campus. His “informal” companion during his warm-up with push ups and laps around the compound was a two-year-old named Mathew who lives in the same area and “loves coming to my room to watch me do some art work.” The 5K has special meaning to Bernard as he was once a recipient of the money raised through the event.

“In 2018, my family was going through a financial breakdown, and I was afraid of getting a dead semester,” he said. “Through the proceeds of 5K through UCU Partners, I was able to have my tuition and graduation fees cleared.”

Bernard continues to appreciate the Christian and academic standards at UCU. The environment has enabled him to “know Christ more, and I have grown up more in loving, trusting and obeying Him.”

Ashton, who splits her time between Uganda and Kansas, said it was “heartwarming” to see social media posts of people supporting Uganda Christian University in the 5K green T-shirts – from those “running in rural villages in Uganda and families hiking to wave across the state border at each other to USP alumni organizing a Zoom call to reflect on the lessons they learned in Uganda.”

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UCU Law student creates COVID-19 awareness application

May 12, 2020COVID-19, Faculty of Engineering, Design & Technology, Students, UCU School of Law#attorney, #AuthenticInformationSource, #coronavirus, #CovidGuide, #Lira, #StudentDevelopsApp, #UCULawStudent, Mukono, UgandaPatty Huston-Holm

Christopher Mogal Muchwa narrates his story at Sts. Phillip and Andrew's Cathedral in Mukono — Christopher Mogal Muchwa narrates his story at Sts. Phillip and Andrew’s Cathedral in Mukono

(NOTE: On May 4, Uganda President Museveni announced a 14-day extension of the lockdown measures. Adjustments from the previous order include that some businesses are allowed to operate and all persons must wear face coverings in public places. The ban on personal and public transport, as well as the curfew of 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. remain in effect at least through the middle of May. On May 7, there were 98 identified cases of the coronavirus in Uganda.)

By Douglas Olum

When Christopher Mogal Muchwa first heard about the COVID-19 outbreak in China from his Chinese friend, and the subsequent lockdown in Wuhan, the very city his friend lives in, he never thought the same would reach Uganda. And he certainly never thought he would delve into technology related to the virus.

“My Chinese friend told me that they were not allowed to move out,” Muchwa recalled. “And if they wanted to take evening walks, they would only walk through the corridors and stairs of their apartment buildings, then return to their rooms.”

That, Muchwa thought months ago,“was impossible” for the country of Uganda.

But on Wednesday, March 18, 2020, when Uganda’s president, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, directed the closure of schools and banned all forms of social gatherings including church and political rallies, Muchwa realized he was wrong.

A third-year student of Bachelor of Laws at Uganda Christian University (UCU), an orphan and only child to his late parents, Muchwa did not rush to his home in Lira, northern Uganda, like other students did when the university was officially closed on Friday, March 20. Instead, he went to live with a friend to his late mother, Mary Achoma, who resides in Mukono.

“I did not see the need to return to Lira because I would be all by myself, “ Muchwa said.

He started preparing for the UCU planned take-home examinations but the Government of Uganda stopped these. Muchwa found himself with time to think more about the world pandemic, particularly as it related to Uganda. In a traditional attorney/lawyer way of thinking, he wondered what was true and what was false; he wondered if others could use some help in sorting out the facts.

That’s when he got the idea for developing a free access mobile application to help share authentic information about COVID-19 among Ugandans.

“I knew that all the [Government] Ministries had websites, but most people do not visit those,” Muchwa said. “And many times they rely on social media information which may not be true. Someone can screen shoot a tweet by a Government official and edit the information, causing unnecessary panic among the public.”

Prior to the lockdown, Uganda already suffered from COVID-19 fake news. In late February, there emerged an allegation that two Chinese factory workers living in Seeta (Mukono) had tested positive with the Coronavirus, and that they had been put into isolation by the Ministry of Health. The Ministry denied that claim. Other rumors persisted.

Muchwa saw African IT specialists with his idea, but seeking funds to develop a more accessible, honest information tool. While they waited, Muchwa moved ahead with his “COVID Guide.”

Screenshot of the COVID Guide application

The application uses specific words, or “commands,” to derive and give replies to the user. Some of the command key words include: Ministry of Health (MoH), World Health Organization (WHO) and the names of all 134 districts of Uganda. It contains incorporated links to the Uganda’s Ministry of Health and World Health Organization websites which help one easily get up-to-date information about new cases, total number of infections in the country, quarantine centres, recoveries, risk groups, among other relevant information.

Other features of the COVID Guide are emergency helplines for the ministry and district COVID-19 taskforce. Typing in the name of a district, even without Internet connection, brings the contact of the Resident District Commission of that district and his/her deputy. One can also use the same app to order a product from the market, especially Kampala markets, direct the dealer to put in on a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) and receive it from home.

Muchwa admits that in addition to his passion for law, he is an “IT geek.” He is self taught, learning a little from a cousin who is an IT specialist but also from YouTube videos.

Prior to building this app, Muchwa built the Law Library app sui-genris, through which law students access learning materials, including some books. He also built a hostel-booking app through which UCU students can check hostels around the university and book them even from a far. He built a website for the UCU Law Society and Bobics app, for a fast food business outside the university.

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My experience with the COVID-19 outbreak in Uganda

April 16, 2020COVID-19, Students#CoronaOutbreak, #COVID, #Lockdown, #UgandaExperience, Gulu, Kampala, Mukono, Norway, UCU, UCUPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

Olum Douglas playing a horse puzzle game at home

By Douglas Olum

I wish COVID-19 had consulted me before breaking out in Uganda. At the time it came, I was at a near zero financial balance. As the virus label moved from an epidemic to, by late January 2020, a pandemic, I knew this meant worldwide and my country was likely not to be untouched. With a wife and two children to provide for, I worried about how I would save my family from starvation should our Government order a lockdown to keep us from working and traveling to the store.

When? I didn’t know.

I had spent the whole of February attending lectures for my MA program at Uganda Christian University. Within that time, I had not contributed any stories for the Uganda Partners organization, which is my main source of finances. My car selling business also had gone down since December 2019, when I made a commission on the last sale. I had spent weeks since the beginning of March, trekking between Kampala and Mukono, trying to revive the business. I had a few cars at hand for sale, with a few promises from prospective customers but none was materializing.

On Saturday, March 21, Uganda announced in her first case of the coronavirus infection. The victim was a 36-year-old businessman who had returned from a three-day trip to Dubai in the United Arabs Emirates.

I anticipated very tough times ahead if the numbers of identified cases increased. I thought that if I could just sell one car for a dealer, I would use the money to transport my wife and children from our apartment in Mukono to my village of Gulu in the far north. Personally, I couldn’t go because I had periodical course assignments to do and submit until late June. I knew that going to the village – far away from electricity and Internet access – would hinder my studies. Besides, I still felt we might avoid being swept deeper into the pandemic.

My confidence was rooted as far back as the year 2000 when Ebola first hit northern Uganda. Christ the King Demonstration Primary School, where I studied back then, was among the first institutions to be affected. One of our teachers contracted the virus disease and succumbed to it within the first four days. The Government moved to close schools only after his death. But none of us was ever infected.

My home 20 years ago was located near Lacor Hospital, a private hospital in Gulu that handled most of the Ebola cases. Many of our neighbors worked there to take care of the victims. Our market and public transports remained functional. We interacted without being distanced and without negative consequences. Thinking of that earlier survival time that was not as life changing as the COVID-19 restrictions, I was not discouraged.

Even when I had heard of death cases in China, Italy and Spain, I had the impression that the COVID-19 infection was not as dangerous as the Ebola that took a life in less than 72 hours.

Olum Douglas in his mask, walking in Mukono Town during the lockdown

When a Norwegian newspaper/magazine journalism friend asked me to accompany her in collecting data for a story she wanted to do about the COVID-19 situation in Uganda, I didn’t hesitate even though we planned to work in the business hubs in Kampala. We were supposed to carry out the survey on a Monday. But a cough and cold hit her, necessitating postponement. While I was a bit anxious, she assured me that her condition was not the coronavirus because she had largely been at home, with very minimal trips to buy groceries and no contact with any person who had just entered or returned to the country. We re-scheduled our work for the next day, Tuesday, March 24^th.

As I travelled to Kampala that hot, sunny day, I learned of eight new cases of confirmed infections. March 24 was my last trip to the city – at least for a while. That night, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni announced a ban on all public transport means, with private means limited to carrying not more than two passengers. The ban eventually was extended for everything except for trucks transporting food.

At this point, the virus threat became a reality. Most people were wearing facemasks. Hand-washing containers were at all entries and exits of markets, large buildings, taxi parks and supermarkets. Shop owners and operators were sanitizing the hands of their customers. Unlike the usually welcoming market environment, the traders themselves were barring those who resisted hand washing.

Money to feed my family was uppermost in my mind. With a slight headache and enough shillings for a few days of family meals, I headed back to Mukono. But fear grew with the headache pain as I understood this to be one symptom of the COVID-19 infection. The anxiety lessened when my temperature taken at the UCU gate registered a normal 97 degrees Fahrenheit.

Douglas and his children, Daphine and Victor, feeding their chicken during the lockdown

While financially crippling, the government curfew since March 24 has meant more family time – singing, playing, teaching and learning with my children. And while I didn’t have access to computers on the locked-down campus, I was able to complete some long-overdue writing assignments on a phone donated to me by an American last year. Many times, I did the work just outside the UCU gate where the university wifi was weak but reaching.

At 53 infections and zero deaths as I write this on Easter Sunday, I remain optimistic that Uganda may escape the huge numbers experienced by much of the rest of the world.

How deep, when and where else will COVID-19 strike? I don’t know. But surrounded by my wife and children, I’m watching.

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UCU Shepherds gain notoriety in rugby world

March 23, 2020Sports, Students, UCU Alumni#EastAfrica, #MarchMadness, #rugby, #Sevens, #UgandaChristianUniversity, #UgandaRugbyCranes, sports, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

(NOTE: Across the United States, March Madness refers to National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball competitions – a month when university rivalries are at their peak. While March Madness was cancelled due to the Coronavirus in 2020, these Uganda Christian University sports stories are offered in honor of what was to be. The stories are a collaborative of The Standard and UCU Partners.)

By Maxy Abenaitwe

In the early years of the past decade, the Uganda Christian University (UCU) 7s Shepherds were the untouchables of East African rugby.

As a result, the Uganda Rugby Cranes and other national clubs like the Black Pirates continuously fished from the Shepherds’ pond. It is no wonder that half of the Uganda Rugby Cranes are former Shepherds.

Rugby, which originated in England in the first half of the 19^th century, is a sport involving two teams of 15 players each. They carry, pass and kick a ball into an end zone with winning determined by the greatest number of points. Often, the sport is known as “rugby sevens” for seven players per team engaged in seven-minute halves. The most basic law of the game is that no player is allowed to throw the ball forward to a teammate. In rugby, the ball is moved with sideways or backwards tosses or a player kicking and running with the ball.

Uganda had a deep history of men’s rugby participation ahead of the country’s first official rugby match in 1958. In 1955, the Uganda Rugby Football Union was formed. Much as there were no clubs at the time, games were frequently played between representatives from Kenya and Tanzania (or Tanganyika as it was called at the time) teams, but matches were mostly against the Royal Navy as well as some British and South African Universities. In 2000, UCU took on the rugby mantle and over time developed a great team of influential players.

Shepherds (in red jerseys) representing Uganda at international level

Over the years, UCU players have been recognized for their talent. Philip Wakorach has been the most desired player, whose talent is sought across borders, namely in Kenya and France. Equally, Ivan Magomu has been the best fly half (receiver of a short pass). Pius Ogena was recently awarded Male Rugby Player of Year 2019 under the Uganda Sports Press Association Awards, and Desire Ayera was recently ranked 37th player of Uganda’s 2019 top athletes.

Considering their current maiden performance, the current Shepherds are leaving lasting marks. The team won gold at the 2019 University Side Step 7s events. The Shepherds went ahead to win during the 18th AUUS 2019 games at Kisubi University. And immediately after their remarkable performance, two players were called at the National Rugby Cranes team.

Ivan Kabagambe, a former Shepherds’ player, says the great performance is largely inspired by the success of the Shepherds alumni.

“The alumni have also kept in touch to ensure talent keeps growing,” he said. “This has been done majorly through friendly matches between the Shepherds and their alumni.”

Despite a few challenges, Kabagambe thinks there is no excuse for not making it at UCU. This signifies that with more support from the university, the team could do wonders since the passion and talent is there. If only the Shepherds could participate in more tournaments, have more funding and have enough designated rugby training space, more medals would be brought home.

Why the great performance
Approximately 90% of the Shepherds attribute their success in the larger rugby world to UCU’s favorable environment that best suits sports development. They cite the hilly landscape, availability of drinking water all over the compound, access to good food, and use of gym facilities as well as university administrative support and medical attention.

The good medical attention, specifically the physiotherapy, helps the players to quickly get back on their feet and continue with their struggle.

Additionally, UCU sportsmen and women have a reputation of being the best people to work with. This is because of their remarkably good discipline. The factor of character also has contributed to the quick growth of the Shepherds.

The future of rugby
Close to 50% of the rugby clubs, the national team inclusive, have aging players. This means university students are being targeted and have professional opportunities.

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Ugandan football (ah, soccer) continues to soar for girls

March 17, 2020Sports, Students#EastAfrica, #football, #LadyCardinals, #MarchMadness, #soccer, #UgandaChristianUniversity, sports, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

Akao (in yellow, center) poses with her teammates (Photo by Andrew Bugembe)

(NOTE: Across the United States, March Madness refers to National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball competitions in a month when university rivalries are at their peak. In honor of the “madness” of watching American basketball in March 2020 and in collaboration with the Uganda Christian University student newspaper, The Standard, UCU Partners is featuring stories on this month on some of the sports played at UCU. This week, the focus is on soccer.)

By Eva Kyomugisha

One of the greatest gifts God gave Africa is football. It is very common to find a group of people gathered at a field or around a television in a pub watching a football match, each with his or her own comments as to how the game should be played.

Ugandan football, which Americans would call “soccer,” came to the country with British introduction in 1897. Like USA soccer, the objective is to score goals without touching the ball with the hands. The Uganda Football Association, now called the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA), started in 1925 with a league inaugurated in 1962. The game originally for men only has crossed the gender barrier.

Women’s football in Uganda started in the early 1990s but initially was only played for fun and not professionally. According to the FUFA website, the first time qualification was attempted for the African Cup for women was in 1998 when Uganda hosted Egypt at Nakivubo stadium.

Currently, women’s football in Uganda has gained traction with approximately 50 teams participating in a number of leagues in the country.

Ruth Akao plays a ball during practice (Photo by Andrew Bugembe)

As a little girl, Ruth Akao grew up around boys who loved to play Ugandan football. This exposure ignited the 21-year-old Uganda Christian University (UCU) student’s passion for the sport as she often participated in some of the groups’ games.

“It made me happy when I played,” she said.

She continued playing the sport while at school. She has been engaged in professional leagues for over 10 years and isn’t done yet. While at Hope High School along Masaka Road (between Mukono and Kampala), she was scouted to play for the UCU Lady Cardinals team.

“I play position 11 which is the left-wing,” Akao said. “My job is to get the ball from the midfield and cross it to the box for scoring. Sometimes, we do the scoring ourselves.”

According to Akao, a major benefit from the sport is the fact that she receives half tuition to pursue her studies in Human Rights, Peace and Humanitarian Intervention in the Faculty of Social Sciences. She also states that she has been able to meet new people and make the necessary connections that she may need at a later time in her career.

“Ten years from now, I would like to start my own sports academy for girls,” she said.

Akao was part of the UCU Cardinals’ team that captured many honors in 2019, including a win of the Women’s Elite League. Despite Akao’s success in the sport, not many people in her life support her passion for the male-dominated sport.

“There is a time I went to the village and the people there were not happy with the fact that I am a football player,” she explains.

Akao added that most people find girls’ football to be too slow and boring for them to watch. She attributed this to the limited publicity from television and radio stations, which do not air the girls’ games as much as the boys’ games.

“It is only one radio station, FUFA, which sometimes plays our games,” she said.

Akao has also personally had her own challenges the sport. She explains that the volume of games means that she often has to miss some of her classes to participate in them.

“I have resorted to studying in the night in order to keep up with my studies,” she said.

For Akao, she advises the ladies who want to join the male-dominated sport to get out of their comfort zones and do what they love to do irrespective of what people tell them to do.

“Do not give up, and keep going,” she said.

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Netball – Game of speed, height, discipline

March 9, 2020Sports, Students#Basketball, #GirlsSports, #MarchMadness, #Netball, #PeaceProscovia, #SheCranes, #ShePearls, #UCUAngels, #UgandaChristianUniversity, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

UCU Journalism Student and Netball Player, Hanisha Muhammed

(NOTE: Across the United States, March Madness refers to National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball competitions – a month when university rivalries are at their peak. In honor of the “madness” of watching American basketball in March 2020 and in collaboration with the Uganda Christian University student newspaper, The Standard, UCU Partners is featuring stories on a few UCU sports. Today’s story is about netball.)

By Patty Huston-Holm

For eight years and while serving Uganda Christian University (UCU) as a volunteer consultant and lecturer on the Mukono campus, I watched a bunch of girls move swiftly around a basketball court, passing a ball without letting it touch the ground. This, I was told, is a sport called netball.

I observed the mostly very tall and physically fit young ladies move energetically around an outside basketball court as I engaged in my own end-of-day exercise – stretching and strengthening my arms, legs and abdominal muscles on some nearby metal bars and elevating my heart rate with a rapid climb up and down stone steps. Occasionally, I would sit on the steps overlooking the court and watch the netballers while chatting on the phone with my mother back in Ohio.

Girls playing netball on the UCU Mukono practice court

The ladies had a smaller version of a basketball, an object of familiarity to an American like me. But they didn’t dribble it, which seemed odd. It reminded me of the USA in the 1960s and 70s, when girls were protected from over exertion with female basketball rules of no more than three ball bounces before passing. However, these UCU players that didn’t dribble the ball were not frail.

Periodically, over the years of watching the Mukono, Uganda, girls practice but never seeing an actual game, I looked up the netball sport on the Internet. I learned that it started in 1891 in the United States, which ironically pays little-to-no attention to the sport today. My country’s 2020 teams are mostly comprised of players outside the country.

Netball started for men, but then became a mostly female sport. Netball is the most popular women’s sport in Botswana, Malawi and Tanzania. And it is pretty popular in Uganda.

Finally, in February 2020, I made an appointment with one of the UCU players to learn more. The player, Hanisha Muhammed, is not just any university player. In addition to being on the UCU Angels team, she plays for two national teams – the She Pearls (name connected to Uganda’s reputation as the “pearl of Africa”) for those under 21 and the older women’s She Cranes (named after Uganda’s national bird) team. At age 20, Hanisha is the youngest player for the She Cranes.

On an early evening of February10 and on a day when she is not working her journalism/marketing internship at the Bank of Uganda, Hanisha arrives. She carries her practice ball (slightly smaller than a basketball) in a black bag. She patiently answers questions about her life, and explains the game and why she is so passionate about it.

“I was a swimmer,” she said. “But people kept telling me that because I was tall that I should do netball. I’m 6’3”.”

Short netball players are rare.

One of eight children from two mothers and one dad, Hanisha acknowledges her Ugandan family was more privileged than most. Her mother is a hotel owner from Rwanda, and her father is a retired psychiatrist with mostly Acholi, Uganda, roots. Hanisha calls Kampala her home, but lives in Mukono when UCU classes are in session.

In Secondary 5 (high school junior year), Hanisha exchanged her bathing suit and the pool for a T-shirt, shorts, sneakersand a cement court. She never looked back. Her program of study at UCU is journalism – a career she believes she can do alongside netball until she’s in her late 30s. When her sports career subsides, she will still have something in public relations or journalism.

“In other countries, you quit the sport earlier, but in Uganda, there are players up to 40,” she said.

While little-to-no payment to play isn’t an enticement, travel and the lessons of physical fitness, patience, teamwork and discipline are. The sport has taken Hanisha to Fiji, South Africa and Botswana. She maintains her weight with a healthy diet, sometimes practicing eight hours a day. She drinks lots of water and juice and avoids drugs and alcohol.

Some of the netball rules are: Seven players with two defenders and two shooters on the court. Thirteen players on the team. No dunking. No dribbling. No running with the ball. Feet firmly on the ground when shooting. No basket backboard. Release ball within three seconds.

“The umpires do the counting, but so do we,” she said. “You can’t hold onto the ball very long.”

Hitting the net’s pole so that the ball bounces off of it is a highly honed skill, she explained, adding, “The best players know what they are doing when they do that.”

“The game has a lot of rules,” according to Hanisha, who, like other netball players, pulls her long dark braids up on the top of her head for a game. “Few basketballers can play netball, but netballers can play basketball. Netball is about the feet, how you land with the ball and speed. You have to be as quick as possible.”

While realizing young girls look up to her, she does the same with Peace Proscovia, a UCU graduate with bachelor and master degrees in business administration and captain of the She Cranes.

After Hanisha’s graduation in October 2021, she hopes to begin playing more with international teams. Right now, her life is occupied with studies at UCU, playing netball, reading and praying. Financial remuneration is not important.

“Money doesn’t blow me away,” she says. “It’s just not a priority for me.”

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Shorter-than-normal Ugandan basketball player uses ‘brain’ to excel

March 3, 2020Sports, Students#Basketball, #CaliforniaWarriors, #FayedBaale, #FIBA, #MarchMadness, #NBA, #StephCurry, #UCUCanons, #UgandaChristianUniversity, sports, UgandaPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

Fayed Baale celebrates after winning game 6 of the finals of the National Basketball League (NBL)

(NOTE: Across the United States, March Madness refers to National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball competitions – a month when university rivalries are at their peak. In honor of the “madness” of watching American basketball in March 2020 and in collaboration with interns working at the Uganda Christian University student newspaper, The Standard, UCU Partners is featuring stories on the UCU sports of basketball, netball, soccer, rugby and hockey.)

By Maria Eyoru

Every evening, when returning the Standard newspaper office keys to the Uganda Christian University (UCU) main gate, I watch students, namely members of the UCU Cannons boys team, practice at the nearby court.

My interest in the game especially peaked when I observed the shortest player on the team. He dribbled the ball, gripping it firmly in his hands while smartly ducking to dodge his taller opponents. I was intrigued by this young man who stood at five feet, eight inches – more than four inches shorter than any other player.

His feet appeared to move as light as feathers as he smartly ran fast while still dribbling the ball, ducking down to pass the ball to a teammate. That uncanny speed, especially by a not-so-tall player, caught my attention. The opponents seemed lost and confused. Captivated by what I saw, I decided to talk to this player – Fayed Baale. I simply had to know more about this UCU player of a sport, basketball, which started internationally in 1891 and in Africa in the early 1960s.

Fayed’s journey to become a basketball player wasn’t easy. It was a difficult voyage that involved a game of cat and mouse. Before he developed the interest in basketball, he had a passion for playing football (soccer) as is most common among the youths of Uganda.

One of his coaches, Zayed Yahaya, approached him about shifting his skill to basketball. Zayed nudged and kept nudging until Fayed joined in Secondary 3 (high school junior year).

Fayed said his coach’s persistence was so overwhelming that he found strategies to “dodge” him. Half joking, Fayed added, “He started monitoring me and punishing me, so I played out of fear.”

At the onset, Fayed’s parents were not supportive and asked teachers to discourage him from being on the court. Basketball began in 1963 in Uganda. It was registered under the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and has since grown to have over 20 teams. It is popular but still lags behind soccer that has been around longer.

“My parents tasked the teachers at school to punish me if they ever found me on court, but they did not,” Fayed said.

He eventually developed a passion for the game and started to play with the National Basketball Association (NBA) Junior League; the team won the NBA Junior League in 2015.

Though he loves the game, he understands that height as his could be a challenge. He overcomes his elevation deficiency with being quick on his feet, playing smart and focusing on his goals. He has to put in extra effort and works twice as hard as the other players through speed and quick thinking.

“What it takes for me to make it, you have to have the heart, passion, self motivation, patience and work harder,” he said. “I work out a lot so that by the time I go for the game, I’m faster than others. And I use my brain. That is how I survive.”

His drive comes, in part, from Stephen “Steph” Curry, a Golden State Warrior with National Basketball Association honors in the United States. Curry is taller than Fayed and from a sports family with a role model sports father and basketball-playing brother and volley ball-playing sister. Curry also is a decade older than 20-year-old Fayed, the first born of seven children. Yet, despite differences, the California basketball star serves as an inspiration for the younger and shorter Ugandan.

Fayed is planning on playing the sport professionally when he finishes his education and while being a human rights activist in Uganda. He is pursuing a Bachelors degree in Human Rights, Peace and Humanitarian Interventions within the Social Science faculty at UCU.

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Powerful lesson from reconciled Rwandans

February 6, 2020Students#CARSA, #genocide, #Hutu, #Mirrortothechurch, #reconciliation, #Rwanda, #Tutsi, #UgandaChristianUniversity, #ugandastudiesprogram, UCUPartnersPatty Huston-Holm

Delight Cajo in her first trip to Rwanda

(NOTE: The author of this article is a fourth-year honors student pursuing her Bachelor’s in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Uganda Christian University. These are her August 2019 impressions of a first time trip to Rwanda as part of the American-based Uganda Studies Program.)

By Delight Cajo M. Salamula

The Nyamata Genocide Memorial in Kigali is where I saw, touched and felt the atrocity of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group of people. It was inside a catholic church where Tutsi men, women and children fled, hoping to be protected from the “enemy” – the Hutu. Tutsi men were on the outer end of this five-acre plot to shield thrice their number of vulnerable women and children whose strength could not measure up to theirs. A book, “Mirror to the Church,” estimates that 5,000 Tutsi perished during the massacre at Nyamata and that 8,000 victims are buried in mass graves behind the church.

Bloodshed was the theme of the Easter holiday. But this time, it was not the blood of Jesus Christ claiming its dominance through his resurrection. It was the bloodshed of best friends killing each other. The irony was that the Hutu and Tutsi, along with a pygmy tribe called Twa,were under one king in 1994 in Rwanda. They have the same language and cultural norms.

The movies “Hotel Rwanda” and “Sometimes in April” and the “Mirror” book by Emmanuel Katongole give only a glimpse of the emotional and physical calamity that happened on the Rwandan soil April 7 to July 15 in 1994. The origin of this massacre had an economic backbone. The colonialists split already existing Rwandans into the three ethnicities based on how they looked and how much land and cattle they owned. The Tutsi were the rich with more privileges of higher paying jobs and their children studying in better schools compared to the Hutu and Twa. The Hutu, aggravated to think the Tutsi were the major bottleneck to their development, planned the killing for about a year before it started.

Delight Cajo and students in the Uganda Studies Program learn a Rwandan dance as part of their experience in understanding genocide and reconciliation.

Bad as the genocide was, not all the Hutu participated. An estimated 1.5 million out of 8 million Hutu did, according to Reverend Antoine Rutayisire, who wrote the book “Faith Under Fire.” This book also shows how God came through with miracles saving lives in this massacre.

As I was pondering Rev. Emmanuel Katongale’s words about whether “the blood of tribalism runs deeper than the waters of baptism,” it dawned on me that God can wipe out the ethnic scars of the Rwandan Anglican Church. In 2019, these people sang and worshiped like they weren’t in Rwanda during that horrific time in 1994. Rhetorically, I wondered, had it happened to me, would I forgive the one who made me an orphan and go ahead to fellowship with him?

An experience in Rwanda with the American-based Uganda Studies Program changed my perceptions in many ways. Through an organization called Christian Action for Reconciliation and Social Assistance (CARSA), I listened to stories of two reconciled perpetrator and victim pairs of the genocide. If you want the truth, listen to both sides. Expressions of pain, anger, jealousy, betrayal, vengeance / revenge, ignorance, hatred, obedience to authority, confusion, psychological transformation, murder, awareness, acknowledgement of mistakes, search for forgiveness, change in behavior, bonding and acceptance of mistakes and history were told.

What stood out the most for me from our visit with CARSA was the psychological transformation that yielded into a peaceful human environment. The psychology behind reconciliation is having a common interest. Cows represent wealth in Rwanda and Uganda, but also reinforce peace in Rwanda. The perpetrator and victim(s) of the deceased family share a cow as upkeep. This enables them to shed layers of the grudge. If one can forgive the person who killed his or herbiological family, then it is possible to forgive and reconcile with absolutely anyone.

While not all Rwandans have reconciled, it was powerful to learn from those who have.

God did not plan the genocide. It’s by God’s grace that people whose families had been killed got back together and have hope through forgiveness and reconciliation.

One of those reconciled is Reverend Antoine Rutayisire, who recalled when he was five years old that his father was killed during the genocide. As some feel the world turned its back on Rwanda, he doesn’t. He does not blame America, the United Nations and others for not stepping in and stopping the genocide. According to Rev. Rutayisire, Rwanda should take full responsibility for its situation.Today, there is Rwandan peaceful cohabitation in which all residents are called Rwandans. In fact, the labels Hutu and Tutsi are forbidden for use of identification in the country.

Advancements over the past two decades include economic growth, health care and infrastructure. Through these, I realized one could always rise up when fallen.

The Rwandan economic growth rate averaged at 7.5% over the decade 2008 to 2018, while per capita growth domestic product (GDP) grew at 5% annually, according to the World Bank.On a local level, I learned through Hope International about a savings program that enables medical insurance for the poorest members of a community. One hospital, in Butaro village, treats cancer at no cost.

As I journeyed through Rwanda back home to Uganda, I saw eucalyptus trees planted on either side of the road, palm trees in the midsection of road and all the slopes of this country’s mountainous terrain with contours. Rwanda has a wave of natural beauty tethered by fresh air and temperate weather. Its culture esteems their inimitably defined long-horned cattle as a sign of wealth. With gratitude, people dance with their hands up in a U-shape to imitate the cow horns,amalgamating energy for the men (bulls) and grace for the women (cows).

I acknowledged the slogan, “God worked very hard for six days creating the heavens and earth. But on the seventh day, He needed a break, so He picked Rwanda as the place to take a much-needed sleep. God sleeps in Rwanda, then keeps busy at work everywhere else.”

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Third World people investment – USA visitor to UCU offers insights

December 31, 2019Faculty, Students#beingbusy, #graduateschool, #LindaKnicely, #Research, #Thirdworldinvestment, #UgandaChristianUniversityPartners, #Volunteer, Literacy, UCU, Uganda, WritingPatty Huston-Holm

Americans Patty Huston-Holm (right) and Linda Knicely – volunteer lecturers and coaches for Uganda Christian University post-graduate students (UCU Partners photo)

(SECOND OF FOUR-PART SERIES: This is the second of four stories about a five-year-old, American-led writing and research workshop at Uganda Christian University. The first article contained reflections of the Ohio woman who founded and leads the training. This second article reflects thoughts of an American volunteer in 2017 and 2019. The final two articles feature UCU graduates who helped with the workshop. Parts I, III and IV can be accessed at those links. A video is here.)

By Linda Knicely

“It’s not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?” So said American essayist and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau.

Ugandans are busy. During the four weeks that I and three other American lecturers spent on the Uganda Christian University (UCU) campuses in four different locations, presenting to graduate students and faculty members during the dissertation clinic and trainings and individually coaching the students in 2019, this was apparent.

Sometimes they’re busy earning a living, taking care of children, and handling other tasks needed to survive. Other times, they’re busy relaxing and enjoying fellowship with one another. On campus, they’re learning. Both formally from their instructors and peers in the classroom sand informally during pick-up basketball games, at the canteens or as they walk and talk with each other. They’re learning how to grow into young adults of integrity, guided by Christian principles in the nurturing environment of UCU.

They’re also teaching.

Linda Knicely, left, with one of her students from 2019 (UCU Partners photo)

They teach by example – the genuine and warm “You are welcome” that greets us at every turn brings smiles to our faces and is not as common in other parts of the world as one might think (or wish). They teach by sharing their stories with us and sometimes their language and their culture. They teach by risking vulnerability as they reveal their fears, their hopes and their dreams for themselves, their families, and their country of Uganda.

Americans are busy. Sometimes we’re coping with what, as I explained to one of my UCU students, David, we call “first world problems.” Very minor issues, in the scheme of things. We work hard, both on the job and even at play. We can find it hard to relax and just “be.” Sometimes, unfortunately, we consider ourselves more often as “teachers” for the rest of the world, than learners. What a loss, for those that have that perspective, for there is so much to learn in Uganda.

I’ve been busy. When I first came to Uganda for six weeks two years ago (2017), I had no plans of making a return trip. It wasn’t a personal judgment about Uganda, but more about my craving to explore and experience as many different places in the world as possible.But because of what I learned that year from the people of Uganda, mostly in the UCU graduate school program, and the piece of my heart that I left here, I surprised myself by deciding to return.

In very typical American fashion, as our students (and interns) in 2019 have learned, we (our American team here) like to “keep time” and schedule ourselves tightly in order to be as productive as possible. I came back to teach, of course, and to support the graduate students with whom I interacted, to successful completion and defense of their dissertations.

But I also came back to learn more, and to re-imprint the lessons of two years ago on my memory and in my heart. My time spent here at UCU during this visit has felt even busier. Self-reflection will be a process that may wait until I return to the USA and my life there. But I hope that some of the lessons that I learn in Uganda prompt me to always question: “What am I busy about?”

And then there’s Patty Huston-Holm, the queen of “busy.” Patty was in Uganda for her eleventh visit in 2019 with many of the visits lasting months at a time; she led the student and faculty dissertation training for the fifth consecutive year on behalf of UCU Partners and the UCU School of Research and Post-Graduate Studies. While we (me, Tracy and David Harrison) were along this year, other years she has “flown solo.”Patty is never satisfied with what’s she’s done before, but constantly strives to improve the presentations or extend the program’s reach.

This year, she added coaching sessions at the UCU Kampala campus and faculty and student presentations on both Kabale and Mbale campuses. And the work that we’re directly involved with only represents one of the many roles that Patty has personally embraced in her support of Uganda Christian University’s mission.

I think that even those staff who know her on campus would be surprised at the time that she invests when she is home – continuing to arrange logistics and remain in communication to plan next steps, etc. She commits her tremendous talents and experience to this work out of Christian love for her Ugandan brothers and sisters, both those she knows already and those who will be impacted in the future through the vision and efforts of today’s students and staff at the university.

Patty’s clear sense of what she should “be busy about,” inspires me, and many others whose lives she has touched.

Two years ago, during one of our first conversations about Uganda, she told me that she believed in “investing in people.” I can’t think of a better way to be busy.

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Ohioan Linda Knicely volunteered with Patty Huston-Holm in 2017 and 2019. To learn more about how to become part of this literacy work at UCU, email Patty at hustonpat@gmail.com. For more information about UCU Partners and how to contribute financially to students, programs and facilities at UCU , contact Mark Bartels, UCU Partners executive director, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

Also follow and like our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.

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‘He was my student. But I also was his’

December 30, 2019Faculty, Students#abuse, #ColumbusStateCommunityCollege, #Goldmining, #LakeVictoria, #PattyHustonHolm, #pollution, #prayer, #Research, #UgandaChristianUniversityPartners, #Volunteer, Literacy, UCU, UgandaPatty Huston-Holm

American Patty Huston-Holm (standing) with UCU graduate school leadership, Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo and Joseph Owor (UCU Partners photo)

(FIRST OF FOUR PARTS: This is the first of four stories about a five-year-old, American-led writing and research clinic at Uganda Christian University. The author is the founder and lead facilitator of the training. The second article reflects an experience of one USA citizen who assisted with the clinic in two different years. The final two articles feature UCU alumni who served as interns with the clinic. Parts II, III and IV can be accessed at those links. A video is here.)

By Patty Huston-Holm

I don’t think much about gold. I’m not a wealthy person, so the only gold I’ve ever had is in the wedding band I’ve worn for 27 years. And the only reference I had to this precious metal was during a junior high school history class when I learned it was discovered in some kind of “rush” and then used in coins in the United States in the 1800s.

Until Monday, August 13, 2018…

Sometime around 4 p.m. and at a desk in a room shared with two other people at Uganda Christian University and in a country I had associated with tea, tilapia and bananas, a young student named Christopher Mwandha expanded my knowledge about gold. The mining of it around Lake Victoria, he said emphatically, was destroying the wildlife in this second largest body of fresh water in the world. Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, is home to hippos and fish and more.

That afternoon and in a room filled with East African tropical heat moved around by a fan, Christopher talked about his water pollution research connected to gold mining. In particular, his focus was on the small village of Nakudi near the Kenyan border. It was here in an area previously known for farming and fishing that a group of some farmers and fishermen struck gold when digging a hole to bury a friend. They buried the friend elsewhere and became miners.

Christopher’s dissertation research surrounding this is a requirement for his master’s degree in Science and Water Sanitation. He is one of 150 UCU students I coached and one of more than 300 I’ve taught in five years of leading a writing and research training through the university’s School of Research and Post-Graduate Studies (SRPGS).

He was my student. But I also was his.

I am an education missionary.

Yes, I’m a volunteer – starting when coming to Uganda with a Reynoldsburg, Ohio, church in 2009. Yes, I contribute financially to Uganda’s needy. Yes, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ. Yes, coming from the Mid-West that gets brutally cold in the winter, I sweat and work hard. But I don’t build buildings, preach the gospel or give up my American home so that others can have one in Africa.

A lifelong writer and teacher and an Ohio State University Buckeye with journalism and communication degrees, I invest in minds. I build people. And they build me.

One avenue for this building is an annual, free workshop to help post-graduate students and their supervisors with dissertations and thesis projects to improve the master’s degree graduation rate and to expand global awareness of their research. The workshop includes large-group lectures and one-on-one coaching. The individualized assistance is where the magic occurs – both for coaches and students.

I tell students that writing a research paper can be lonely. Having a coach who believes in you helps fill that void; it’s half the battle towards completion. Coaching them to produce a paper with credible, original, well-written and compelling information is the other half. Good coaches listen – and learn – while nudging students to see what they have to offer their country, continent and world.

With the first clinic in 2015, my husband, Mike Holm, and I began supplementing what university faculty members were already doing with their heavy workloads. Under the guidance of SRPGS leaders, Dr. Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo and Dr. Joseph Owor, we implemented a learning model that keeps getting better. Two interns that we hire each year make us better; likewise for them as they receive resume-building experience and get jobs or further education shortly after working with us.

Columbus State Community College President, David Harrison, with a USU post-graduate student he coached in 2019 (UCU Partners photo)

Americans Linda Knicely and Larry Hickman, career development specialists; Sheila Hosner, an international health specialist; Tom Wanyama, an engineer and professor; Tracy Harrison, a reading specialist; and Dave Harrison, president, Columbus State Community College; helped with improvements by their on-site assistance and expertise at various times over the five years. They came from Ohio, Washington State and Canada – all as volunteers.

Now, semi-retired, I donate my knowledge and skills in Uganda for four to six months a year. Approximately half of that time is with graduate students. The other half involves working with young journalists, public relations employees and other university staff on various literacy initiatives. Occasionally, like now, I write.

As I reflect on what I’ve learned from UCU’s post-graduate students, I recall how they have educated me on such topics as disparities of health care in higher poverty areas, injustices for women when it comes to property and child “ownership,” truthful news reporting in South Sudan war zones, Islamic to Christian conversion, prevalence of counterfeit drugs, differences in preaching and teaching of the gospel and terminology such as “waiting homes” to help economically disadvantaged women prior to delivery of a baby. Interest in their research often finds me digging into their topics after the coaching sessions and late into the night.

Beyond the academic, the young people I meet in Uganda stretch my appreciation and thankfulness.

One such master’s level student in 2016 sobbed from a simple gesture of giving her half of my granola bar during a lunchtime meeting. Through tears, she shared her childhood story devoid of love and compassion. She was abused by a stepmother who denied her food and water to drink or bath, forced to sleep outside in the dirt and required her to walk alone and vulnerable in the dark to get alcoholic beverages for her father’s new wife. She was grateful, she said, for a simple gift of food from me that day. That afternoon, in addition to working on research in the university library, we held hands, prayed and forgave.

God’s work is good. And it’s not lonely.

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Patty Huston-Holm has been volunteering through UCU Partners for half of her decade of service in Uganda. To learn more about how to become part of her work, email her at hustonpat@gmail.com. For more information about UCU Partners and how to contribute financially to students, programs and facilities at UCU , contact Mark Bartels, UCU Partners executive director, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

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