Category Archives: Students

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

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

Faculty, Students, , , , , , , , , , , ,


American Patty Huston-Holm (standing) with UCU graduate school leadership, Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo and Joseph Owor (UCU Partners photo)
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)
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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UCU legal aid clinic hope: Darkness to light

Students, , , , ,


Attendees listen to professional counsel during the legal aid clinic at All Saints Cathedral, Nakasero.

By Constantine Odongo

Kafumbe Kiiza is a taxi driver in Kampala, Uganda. Although his dream was to earn a living off of cars, he never saw himself as a driver. His first love was repairing cars.

As such, six years ago, he enrolled into an institute in Kampala to pursue a course in motor vehicle mechanics. Kiiza had a steady flow of income to pay tuition for his course. The now 30-year-old was a salesman at a shop in the city suburb of Nsambya, opposite the St. Francis Hospital gate and about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the city centre. His widowed mother, Petrolina Nakalema, and one of Kiiza’s brothers operated adjacent shops – all on land owned by and supporting the family of 12.

Solomon Byamukama, left, a fourth-year law student at UCU, is interviewed by a reporter from The Standard newspaper.

Darkness
One Monday morning in 2014, Kiiza and his family woke up to a rude shock. Five shops, including the ones where Kiiza, his brother and his mother worked, were razed and the plot of land fenced off with iron sheets.

They were alarmed and questioned who  might do this when they still had 23 three years on the lease. Never did it ever cross their minds that some other people also claimed ownership of the same plot of land. When they sought answers from authorities, Kiiza says the family was informed that a neighbouring school was responsible for fencing off the land.

In the process of seeking justice, Kiiza’s family changed lawyers three times, due mostly to high legal costs.

Light
Such is one case brought to light during a legal aid clinic conducted by Uganda Christian University’s (UCU) law fraternity on Saturday, September 21, 2019, at All Saints Cathedral, Nakasero. Kiiza did not plan to attend the clinic. In fact, he did not even intend to be at All Saints Cathedral that Saturday.

Kiiza was going about his usual duties of driving a commuter taxi that day.  He received a call to transport people to and from a wedding at the cathedral. While waiting on his passengers for the return trip, he roamed the cathedral. He wandered pass UCU’s tear drop banners into a white tent for the free legal aid clinic conducted by UCU.

“It’s the first time I’ve heard ‘pro bono’,” Kiiza said of the term that means legal work without cost.

Lazaka Tibakuno, a development assistant at UCU, said the team that day was comprised of five lecturers (with four practicing lawyers) in the university’s faculty of law, 15 law students and representatives from the university’s law society. The clinic was timed to promote the Sept. 29, 2019, “UCU Sunday.”   The third annual UCU Sunday is set aside by the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda, marked on the last Sunday of September every year.  The purpose is to support UCU as the Anglican Church joins in solidarity to support her provincial university in prayer, to increase awareness of UCU value and accountability and offer UCU financial support.

Tibakuno says the university asked faculties to submit proposals about a corporate social responsibility event. From the submissions, he says, the law faculty’s legal aid clinic proposal was found to be the most cost-effective while also touching a core of community need. Two clinics were held on September 21 in Nakasero and on September 22 at St. Philip & Andrew’s Cathedral, Mukono.

Last year’s collection was $52,000, which was earmarked for two projects – 90% towards equipping the laboratories of the UCU School of Medicine and the remainder for scholarships for the clergy and their children under the Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology. Tibakuno says the collections this year will benefit the same purposes.

Solomon Byamukama, a fourth-year law student at the university who has participated in several legal aid clinics before, said Saturday’s event had topics similar to other he has attended with questions involving custody of children and maintenance of the state of a deceased; land matters; the dos and don’ts in writing and executing wills; and issues pertaining to domestic violence.

While most at the clinic were seeking advice on the regular, expected issues like Kiiza’s land dispute, a security officer at a checkpoint asked for help for a brother wrongfully imprisoned on a murder charge.

“Someone had convinced us that we could bribe the prisons staff with some money, so they can release my brother,” he said. “However, I have been advised that we should instead look for ways of supporting the defense team so that they can better represent my brother in court, and, if possible, also secure bail for him.”

For Kiiza, he came, consulted, and left the clinic tent feeling optimistic about a nearly six-year-old land case.  As his wedding passengers entered his taxi, he held a piece of paper with contacts of people and organizations that the lawyers advised could be of help to his family, and for free.

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Individuals can be part of the UCU Sunday by contributing towards the special collection in all Anglican churches in Uganda on September 29. Money also can be deposited in Uganda on the UCU Sunday collection account number 16300370000131, in PostBank Uganda or deposited as mobile money on 0772770852.  For Americans and others wishing to contribute, go to https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/ and indicate “UCU Sunday” in the special instructions/comment box or send a check in the mail payable to UCU Partners with instructions for the UCU Sunday designation and to Uganda Partners, P.O. Box 114, Sewickley, Pa. 15143.

Germans Tabea Hofmann and Stephanie Guenter with some women of Dunamai Church in Mukono, Uganda (UCU Partners Photo)

‘Without Jesus, I would not be here’

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Germans Tabea Hofmann and Stephanie Guenter with some women of Dunamai Church in Mukono, Uganda (UCU Partners Photo)
Germans Tabea Hofmann and Stephanie Guenter with some women of Dunamai Church in Mukono, Uganda (UCU Partners Photo)

By Patty Huston-Holm

“Going to bed hungry is an experience I’ve never had.”

Tabea Hofmann finished a soggy banana and folded the blackened peal on the circular table just outside the Uganda Christian University (UCU) student cafeteria. Inside, at 1:30 p.m. on a Sunday, and amidst the hum of voices blended with sound from a single, large-screen TV, was the usual meal of rice and beans, with an optional banana.

Tabea Hofmann(UCU Partners Photo)
Tabea Hofmann(UCU Partners Photo)

Tabea, 21, from Germany and less than a week into her one semester of UCU studies, reflected on the food, her career path, her faith, her life in Uganda and in her home country 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away and about the message from a three-hour church service off campus that September 1, 2019, morning. Reminders that God does not abandon His people – even when they are weary from lack of food – came from the New Testament chapters of Corinthians, Romans, Matthew, Ephesians and James.

“God has predestined that you overcome everything,” said Pastor Stephen Wanyama of Dunamai (meaning “to be able” with Greek origin) Church in Mukono. “God loves you so much that when you go through pain, He is right there with you.”

Tabea was among 60 people and one of two German youth who heard the sermon from the pastor and a Luganda mother-tongue language interpreter. Tabea and Stefanie Guenter worshiped from plastic chairs arranged on a dirt floor inside a small, sheet-metal building.  Children ran and twirled joyously around the room. Local villager laundry flapped outside two small openings, while bare-footed residents walked or rode bicycles beyond the single entry opening.

“The main message is that when things don’t go well, you don’t have to understand all of it,” Tabea said. “You just need to know that God is there working for your good.”

Lack of popularity in high school, losing two grandparents within three months, eating unfamiliar food and missing a fiancé back home are small concerns compared to those of the people Tabea has met in East Africa. She reflected on the “gap year” experience with the Maasai ethnic group in Arusha, Tanzania.  She had just turned 18 and was mentoring a mostly female population in a children’s home.

“The girls had a hard past,” she recalled. “Some had been hit with sticks by teachers. Some were early married. I’m not sure what men did to them. Yet, they were smiling.”

Helping people has been Tabea’s passion from an early age in her home city of Linkenheim, Germany.  While she has worked with various populations, including a Bible study internship in a men’s prison, she has especially gravitated to nurturing children and girls. One 12-year-old girl she last saw when leaving Tanzania in July of 2017 is still in her heart.

“She was mentally disabled,” she said. “She was often disappointed in herself. I spent a lot of time with her to turn that around.”

Education and interactions in Tanzania and Uganda are informing her career that is a combination of theology and social work. Tabea, who also has musical skills (piano, violin, guitar), sees her Christian faith as inseparable from anything else in her life. She’s especially driven by verses 38 and 39 in Romans 8 that she associates with her Lutheran church confirmation class when she was age 14.

“The message is that nothing can separate us from God,” Tabea remarked, recalling one professor who said that while education is important, “in the cup of knowledge, when you reach the bottom (of what you can know), there is God.”

She is concerned that her generation, especially in Europe, doesn’t see Christianity as “cool.”  In a fast-paced culture where “time is money,” fewer young people go to church.

“Jesus gives us rules, and most my age don’t like rules,” she said. “One thing I like about here is the slower pace and the stronger faith.”

Bare feet on dirt that is sometimes frequented by chickens and other animals can result in jiggers, according to Akena Luck, a leader of the congregation at the church on that September morning. He asked the 50 people there for shilling donations that could someday put cement over the church’s dirt floor. To Tabea, who had never heard the word “jiggers,” the danger of the insect that can emerge from the ground and burrow in the skin was explained. At the same time, Tabea recalled a Tanzania wedding custom of having goat meat as the “wedding cake.”  Immersing in African culture, she said, is fascinating and rewarding.

Changing her German diet from salads, meat and potatoes to rice and beans is part of the lesson that “it’s most important to feel full and not hungry” in a country where the government doesn’t feed its people.

“We have poor people in Europe,” she said. “But if they need food, the government provides it.”

Where the young woman’s future life and career will take her is uncertain. But what is certain, she says, is that “without Jesus, I would not be here.”

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In addition to Tabea Hofmann and Stefanie Guenter, the other German students studying at Uganda Christian University through mid-December and through a partnership with Internationale Hochschule Liebenzellare:  Chris Buehner, Hanna Koelz, Joel Müller and Johannes Keisers.

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To support Uganda Christian University, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.

Agriculture students combat ‘silent hunger’ in rural Kumi

Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Students, , , , ,


Nelson Mandela attends to a farmer’s pig in Olupet village, Kumi District
Nelson Mandela attends to a farmer’s pig in Olupet village, Kumi District

By Douglas Olum

Kumi is a district in Eastern Uganda. On average, it takes six hours by road to get there from the capital, Kampala. Like most parts of the country, Kumi is agro-based, but farming is largely done for survival only. Often farmers suffer from famine as pests and diseases destroy their crops. Sometimes, long droughts burn down the crops. The ultimate tragedy is starvation and death, including among children.

Odeke is a farmer in Olupet Village in Kumi Sub-County. While he was considered a commercial farmer in the village, Odeke said for a long time he was losing his crops to pests and diseases because he lacked the knowledge to control them.

Students from Uganda Christian University’s (UCU) department of Agricultural and Biological Sciences have been in Kumi District since May 2019 on an internship program targeted at contributing to innovations for sustainable rural development in Uganda. A team of six students was dispatched to three sub-counties, with a pair taking each sub-county under the program.

(L-R) Newton Kucel, Nelson Mandela and a farmer assess the crop quality as they harvest vegetables from a garden

Olupet Village received Newton Kucel and Nelson Mandela, both of whom are third-year Bachelor of Agricultural Science and Entrepreneurship students. The pair that has spent at least three months in the community carried out needs assessment, held farm clinics where they helped and trained farmers to identify different pests and diseases, taught preventive and control measures, and also established demonstration farms from which they taught the farmers commercial vegetables production, piggery, poultry farming and record keeping.

Mandela said that at the time they went to the village, they discovered that the farmers were suffering despite investing so much effort in their farms. He said crops were dying in the gardens out of treatable causes and even the little that the farmers could harvest would not help much because the farmers lacked ideas on how to market their products. And because of that, they designed measures to address those specific challenges.

Odeke said the students’ measures have helped them to manage and control various pests and diseases, improve their crop yields by making and using organic manure, cut their costs of production and also see new opportunities in poultry and piggery. He said they also learned to study the eating patterns of various pests, when to spray their crops and what quantity of pesticides to use. These were areas in which the farmers had no prior knowledge.

“To be sincere, these students have helped not only our group but the entire community,” Odeke said. “People have been calling me and flocking to my home from as far as five kilometers (3 miles away) to attend the farm clinics.”

The local farmers credit UCU for helping them.

“I am really so thankful to the students, their lecturers and the university for thinking about us,” Odeke said. “I feel indebted that you people are offering us a very important service for free yet we should have paid you. I am going to use the knowledge you have given us to teach my children and other farmers.”

At the time of this visit, the farmers were already harvesting sorghum and cow peas. The students were helping them to manage the post-harvest processes to control possible waste. They also were connecting with markets outside the region to establish competent prices for various products in order to save the farmers from exploitation by middle men.

Odeke said they were able to get a good yield of the two crops due to the encouragement of the students.  They are integrating sorghum with cow peas to control pod-suckers, a kind of pest that had bothered them and caused them so much loss in terms of yield for a very long time.

Ms. Ruth Buteme, a lecturer at the department who also doubled as the coordinator and students’ supervisor under the program, said the testimonies were quite encouraging and showed the need to carry more of such extension services to more villages and also other parts of the country.

“I am happy that the students were able to solve some problems here,” she said. “The world needs problem solvers. We are hoping that we can continue bringing more students here and also take them elsewhere in order to help our country develop. Uganda has to develop. And there is no way we are going to realize the desired development without involving the common man in the villages.”

In line with UCU’s vision to become a Centre of Excellence in the heart of Africa, Buteme said the department targets to become a Centre of Excellence in vegetable research to help combat silent hunger in Uganda.

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To support UCU students, programs and facilities, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.

UCU takes health awareness to Mukono market

Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology, Students


A Bachelor of Divinity and Theology student (holding wheelbarrow) offloads a sack of waste at the collection point while his colleague (in grey shirt) directs him. On his right, a vendor puts chopped fish in the frying oil while other vendors go about their businesses – Uganda Partners’ photo

By Douglas Olum

The Kame Valley Market, also known as Kikko, is the main market in Mukono District. It is located northeast of the Uganda Christian University (UCU) main campus, and it is where most university staff and non-resident students go to buy fresh foods like vegetables, fruits, cassava, potatoes, fish and many others.

The market sits in a valley, with an open drainage line carrying both rain and waste water from restaurants passing through its midst, to join a nearby swamp.With a population of more than 2,500 traders, most of the businesses are under make-shift structures and umbrellas due to limited structures.

Students carry the collected wastes to the collection point,while Dr. Zac Muddu (in green t-shirt) interacts with one of the vendors

Because of its setting and large population, the market chokes in filth as the traders do not have any designated area to throw their wastes. Many times, they fill them in sacks and hide them under their stalls. Others even spread them along the tiny walk paths, thereby attracting a swarm of flies to feast on the decaying matter,yet they even have cooked food vendors among them. They buy and have their meals from the stalls. This kind of practice exposes the entire population to the risk of acquiring hygiene related diseases like cholera.

On Wednesday July 23, the UCU Health and Safety Committee mobilized students and staff to carry out an outreach at this market as part of their activities for the Health Awareness Week that ran from Sunday July 21 to Friday July 26.

The students and staff swept the market, sensitized the traders about a wide range of diseases, filled potholes that were holding stagnant water around the market,and also collected wastes and piled them at an accessible point for final collection.

Racheal Nakamya, the UCU Allan Galpin Health Centre Administrator, who coordinated the activity said they decided to extend the health awareness to the market in line with the UCU core value of servanthood.

“We need to reach out and support the community around us as a way of giving back to them,” Nakamya said.

Geoffrey Serunjogi, the chairperson of the Market Vendors Association said the activity was a great relief to them because the market had already choked in filth for more than a week following the breaking down of the Municipal Truck that usually carries the wastes.

Serunjogi said even when the truck was there, many times the market is not properly cleaned because there are only three cleaners employed to serve the entire market.

Zainah Nakibilango, the area councilor for Mukono Central Division, said she was impressed to see the students stoop that low to touch the dirt in the market with their hands because she believed university students were members of the upper class in society who do not do such dirty works.

Violet Baluka, a vendor in the market appreciated the students and staff over the level of discipline and spirit of hard work exhibited.

“They have done a more thorough cleaning than what the people employed to do the same job do and yet they remained very polite, unlike the cleaners who normally arrogantly bark at us and yet still do shoddy work. I am so grateful, and I pray that God should bless them,” Baluka said.

Health Awareness is an activity that is carried out in UCU once every semester. During the Health Awareness Week,health experts from the university’s Allan Galpin Health Centre usually sensitize the university community about various health issues and best practices. This semester’s week ran under the theme: Am I doing enough to live healthy? Apart from the outreach, other activities carried out include: cervical cancer screening, blood donation, aerobic activities, HIV testing and counselling, and Hepatitis B testing and vaccination. The services are mostly offered free of charge or at subsidized price for all students and staff.

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More information about Uganda Christian University can be obtained at http://ucu.ac.ug/.

To support UCU students, programs and facilities, contact Mark Bartels, executive director, UCU Partners, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org, or donate directly at: https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/

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UCU Law students help Uganda fight prison case backlogs

Students, UCU School of Law, , , , ,


Uganda Christian University Law alumnus and International Justice Mission advocate, Conrad Oroya Obol (third right), shakes hand with Uganda’s Chief Justice, Bart Katurebe (left), during the launch of a plea-bargaining week in Gulu, Uganda, in June.

By Olum Douglas

In August 2016, a court sitting in Kampala, presided over by high-court judge, Wilson Masalu Musene, sent Stephen Kato, a 26-year-old married man, to a 10-year jail term for raping a 60-year-old woman.

Many Ugandans thought the sentence was too lenient. They went wild over the social media, condemning the judge for what they termed “bias,” given the fact that the country’s Penal Code Act (Section 124) prescribes a death sentence for a convicted rapist.

But the sentence was a product of an initiative by the judiciary, the plea bargain, through which the convict pleaded guilty instead of going through a trial, thus saving the court time and resources.

Plea bargain is an initiative in the criminal justice system where the defendant enters an agreement with the prosecution to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecutor to drop one or more charges, reduce a charge to a less serious offense, or recommend to the judge a specific sentence without going through normal court procedures. Once a deal is struck, the prosecutor, together with the advocate, presents the signed agreement with proposed punishment before the magistrate who either approves or rejects it.

In Uganda, the judiciary adopted the plea bargain initiative in 2015 to try and reduce the challenge of case backlogs that have proven a great menace to the justice system in the country. The problem is mostly attributed to inadequate human and financial resources in the judiciary.

A Justice Law and Order Sector January 2018 report revealed that many people continued to languish in the prisons with case files unattended. In one of the worst case scenarios, three suspects facing capital offences were forgotten in prison, after a judge adjourned their cases to the next convenient session, which only came after a decade of waiting.

Eliminating backlogs like these is where Uganda Christian University (UCU) Law students come in.

Students of UCU, through a partnership with the Christian-based Pepperdine University in California, help bridge the gap. Since the adoption of the initiative four years ago, students pursuing the Bachelor of Laws at UCU have been participating in the processes that include: studying files of accused persons, especially those facing charges of capital offences; examining accused persons; counselling prisoners; and bargaining for them.

Mirriam Achieng, a lecturer at the UCU Faculty of Law, said the students’ participation is part of a requirement for a course, Clinical Legal Education, where students must carry out projects and have hands-on experience of justice delivery.

In 2018, the initiative saw at least 600 cases disposed within five working days. This year, a report published by PML Daily Correspondent, a Uganda-based, online publication, revealed that at least 300 cases were disposed of in Northern Uganda’s Gulu area alone during a week-long, Plea-Bargaining Prison Camp held in the district in June.

The Uganda Judiciary Services body organizes the camp. Accused persons in prisons are sensitized, registered for the process, and their files are shared with the students for assessment and prior preparations. The students then meet the accused persons, listen to their issues and counsel them about the rights they will forego should they opt for a plea bargain. They also prepare the accused persons for the process, and participate in the negotiations until a final agreement is reached.

The down side is that sometimes prisoners plead guilty and serve their sentences in order to end anxiety and the uncertainly of whether they will be tried or not, even when they are sure that they did not commit the crime for which they are being accused.

Achieng says the students’ participation in the program has not only helped future lawyers in research and dissertation writing, but also gained for them connections with their colleagues from Pepperdine as well as attorneys and other legal minds from the United States of America.

Through this participation, UCU students have contributed towards reducing case backlogs, decongesting prisons, reducing anxiety among prisoners and enabling the accused persons to participate in determining their own punishments.

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To learn more about the UCU Law program, go to http://ucu.ac.ug/academics/faculties/faculty-of-law. To support UCU students, programs and facilities, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.

UCU student mixes entrepreneurship with artistry

Students, , , ,


Onyong Yubu Prince, a student in UCU Journalism, Communication and Media Studies

By Patty Huston-Holm

Creativity and resourcefulness have long been part of life for Onyong Yubu Prince. So, for the gospel singer-turned university student, it was only natural that he should jump at the chance to do something new – like writing children’s books.

He is one of more than 300 Uganda Christian University (UCU) students and staff members who were engaged in the UCU Literature Department mother tongue translation project – an initiative designed to enhance literacy and increase excitement for reading and writing among Ugandan children. At the end of 2018, nearly 700 stories had been translated into 26 mostly-Ugandan languages.

Onyong, a student in UCU Journalism, Communication and Media Studies, wrote one of those stories. It was entitled “How to become what I want.” After that, he translated somebody else’s story called “Arrow of God.” Lastly, he wrote a final book entitled “Satan is a lazy man,” which became popular in a short amount of time. Within a few months, he sold more than 200 paperback books for 8,000 Ugandan shillings (around $2.25 American) each.

Onyong, age 24, acknowledged his success is as much about his overall reputation as it is his literary talent.

“I’m famous in northern Uganda,” he stated. “I have been a gospel singer since age 17, writing and performing my own songs.”

His notoriety is connected to his appearance and his talent. He openly discusses his size. He is small in stature and will remain so throughout his life – the result of a birth defect caused, he said, by medicine given his mother before she gave birth. It has hindered relationships with some.

“I am still discriminated against because I look smaller than most people, but it doesn’t bother me,” Onyong said. “God loves me, and He wants me to prove to others that I can achieve through what He has created in me.”

Onyong’s success also is about social media. With Facebook “friends” at a maximum of 5,000 per account, he has three Facebook pages. From there, he makes connections for performances and has made contacts to sell books in English, Lango and Acholi languages to schools and children ages 10 and below.

Onyong is uncertain where his career will take him when he receives his bachelor’s degree this October, but he is hopeful about getting a television anchor job.

His favorite scripture is I Corinthians 1:7, which addresses shaming the powerful. It gives him courage.

“I have accepted Jesus as my personal Savior,” he said. “He always answers my prayers.”

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To learn more about the UCU mother tongue translation project, go to https://www.ugandapartners.org/2018/10/mother-tongue-translation-project-elevates-literacy-for-ugandas-children/.  To support UCU students, programs and facilities, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.