It was 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 Celsius) when I saw Rose this morning (August 16, 2018). She wore a smile and a mostly-black sweater. In Uganda, such weather is cold. My arms were bare. In Ohio, temperatures like this are refreshing.
Sitting with me at the Uganda Christian University Touch of Class canteen, she apologized for the sweater – a man’s sweater, she admitted, and one she bought used from her brother’s shop. I encouraged her to see the garment’s beauty. And I asked her to keep it close to her over the next four months.
You see, my young friend Rose will on Friday (August 18, 2018) take her first-ever plane ride to her first-ever trip to the United States. Her emotions are mixed. She is honored – the only African chosen for a semester of writing courses at The Kings College in New York City. She is anxious. While the college is Christian, she will be living in the liberal community of Greenwich Village. She feels guilty knowing how much the scholarship she got could buy for her family, friends and village.
While holding her hands and praying with her today, I reminded her that God gives us gifts like these, that she is a gift, and that others she meets in New York City will surely see her that way.
I met Rose when teaching journalism with Professor Angella Napakol last year at Uganda Christian University. Right before I left, I matched up Rose and two other students for a one-week internship in northern Uganda with two professors (Diane Ross, Pegi Lobb) from Otterbein University (Westerville, Ohio). Like many, they enjoyed her eagerness to learn and help others. If that wouldn’t seal the deal for wanting to hang around with Rose, her deep dimples on both sides of her cheek do.
This morning as Rose removed the sweater in embarrassment and clutched it in her hands, I insisted she pack it in the small green suitcase I gave her. I told her the story about the “traveling pants.” I suggested she write about her traveling sweater. I hope she reads this and that she does.
God speed, my young friend.
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For more information about how you can sponsor a student who might make a difference as Rose is, contact Mark Bartels, UCU Partners executive director, at mtbartels@gmail.com. Also, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Celebrating World Refugee Day in Itambabiniga Settlement
In recent years, Uganda has been ranked by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as the most favorable country for refugees from neighboring countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and South Sudan. Once refugees are resettled in Uganda, they are given many opportunities. These include access to land, employment, starting small- and medium-sized businesses, and quality education. All of these are necessary for helping refugees to integrate in different communities across Uganda and to take care of their families. It creates an opportunity for them to live a dignified life—a life that is different from their counterparts left behind in conflicting communities.
This month, Uganda Christian University Partners is highlighting the experiences of some Uganda Christian University (UCU) alumni who are accompanying Burundian and Congolese refugees in distinct roles at Kyaka II settlement community. Mark Muzira is a UCU alumni who graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and Social Administration. He has been working with refugees for over four years with the past two years as a Psychosocial Counselor with the American Refugee Committee (ARC). Before joining ARC, he was working with an urban refugee program in Kampala, at a refugee resettlement organization called Inter-Aid Uganda. (This interview has been edited for clarity.)
Mark Muzira on World Refugee Day
What inspired you to study at Uganda Christian University?
I was motivated to join Uganda Christian University because of the quality of education that was guaranteed there. The UCU motto, “a center of excellence in the heart of Africa,” inspired very many secondary school (high school) graduates, including myself, to attend the institution. But it is not just their quality education; it also was their identity with Christian values of servant leadership. The three-to-four years I spent at UCU, my professors equipped me with soft and hard core skills needed to thrive in my current work within the non-government development field.
What are some of your experiences since graduating from UCU?
For a while I volunteered with different non-government organizations in Kampala. I was really interested in working with urban youth. I did some online job searching and that’s where I found Inter-Aid Uganda. While I was there, I worked as a Youth Liaison in their urban refugee program, mentoring teenagers and leading their peer-to-peer program. It was with Inter-Aid that I found my passion in working with refugees resettled in Uganda. I am currently based in Kyaka II settlement community. I think the time I spent studying at UCU equipped me with certain Christian values, such as treating people from different cultural backgrounds with respect, on top of being a great role model in communities where we are working and living. I owe a lot to UCU for making me a leader, and planting in me seeds of excellence in ways I interact with refugees here.
How did you hear about American Refugee Committee?
While working with Inter-Aid Uganda, we had a partnership with ARC in working in the Urban Refugee Program. During my spare time, I would do research on ARC, and I found that the refugee work they were doing was both complex and interesting. Later, I found out that they needed a psychosocial counselor. I applied for the job, and I got it.
How many refugees are you working with?
With the refugee influx we are experiencing in Kyaka II settlement, we are currently receiving new refugees every week. We are having over 60,000 refugees coming in every day. And the fact that the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is on-going, we expect more and more refugees will be entering the border of Uganda and eventually to Kyaka II settlement.
Share with us about your work with ARC. How is it different from other Implementing Partners (IPs) in Kyaka II Settlement?
My role is to identify refugees who may need mental health and counseling support, and refer clients who may need extra help to an expert in therapy. There are many non-profit organizations working to implement different refugee resettlement activities in the area. However, each organization is mandated by the UNHCR to implement a specific project. In that respect, ARC’s mandate is to provide mental health and psychosocial support to refugees resettled in Kyaka II and neighboring communities. ARC also implements youth activities geared towards enhancing mental health including sports such as football, and competitions in music, dance and drama (MDD). This makes mental health and awareness our main focus and contribution to the wider wholistic approach to rehabilitating and reintegrating refugees.
Other partners, such as the Danish Refugee Council, implement Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) projects and education. Still others implement livelihood related projects such as agriculture. We do this in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Office of the Prime Minister.
Refugee women presenting a song during World Refugee Day
What has been your highlight working with refugees in Kyaka II for the last two years?
The resilience and positive attitude of refugees towards their future. Refugees experience very difficult challenges.
Many (refugees) are not aware that they are struggling with the trauma arising from the daily witness and experience of armed violence.
Additionally, they struggle integrating into the community, finding a job and building a new life here. Because they engage in different community integration processes, they eventually emerge from being unemployed to employed, to leaders in their own communities, to business owners, and to musical artists.
Finally, Nelson Mandela once that, “education is a powerful tool that can be used to transform the world.” How do you translate those words in your life at UCU and now with ARC?
Education has definitely been a wonderful tool to have in my life. If it were not for the good quality education I received from the UCU, I would not be able to work with a respectful organization such as ARC. My education has created for me a foundation to be where I am and be able to give back to the refugee communities. The classes (such as counseling, gender, and research methodologies) I took during my time at UCU are now fundamental to my work here with ARC and the wider community.
For more information about how you can sponsor a student who might make a difference as Mark Muzira is, contact Mark Bartels, UCU Partners executive director, at mtbartels@gmail.com.
By Rev. Kamoga Alex, Chaplain – UCU Kampala Campus & UCU Alumnus, Child Development (25 January 2018)
Lubega Christopher is 26 years old. He comes from a humble background and is a son to a retired civil servant and a retired midwife. He went to Mugwanya Preparatory School Kabojja for Primary Leaving Examinations, Namilyango College school for his O’ level and Makerere College school for A’ level. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Uganda Christian University and is currently doing a Masters of Arts in Financial Services at Makerere University in Uganda.
Lubega’s interest in business started when he was in O’ level at Namilyango College. His mother would give him pocket money and he would save a fraction of it. During that time, his family was starting up an events company dealing in tents and chairs after realizing the need to create a source of income for the family. Every end of term he would collect his savings and add them to what his mother had saved and they started making tents. He remembers the joy he would feel whenever they would load the poles on the small pick-up driving back home. It felt like victory in his heart.
When joining Uganda Christian University, Lubega registered late and he was not able to get placement at main campus in Mukono, so he was sent to the Kampala campus. This put him down as he felt so unlucky not to get to the main campus. But little did he know that this was to become a blessing to him in the long run.
While at UCU’s Kampala Campus, finding food for meals many times was very difficult as restaurants were not common in the area. At times, Lubega and his friends had to go from Mengo, the site of UCU’s Kampala Campus, to Makerere near Makerere University to find good and affordable food. He noticed this gap of service in the Mengo area and he decided to pursue this opportunity; he made a deal with a restaurant: he would buy large amounts of food from them at a reduced price and sell the food to staff members at UCU’s Kampala campus. One time one of the staff members called him and gave him an opportunity to supply food for 12 people at campus. “Fear sprung in me but something was telling me you need to do this and therefore I did it and it turned out successful,” Lubega narrates. After that, he knew that the time to start his own catering company had come.
He started organizing himself, secured some funds, and started small. His catering company started growing slowly as he started getting bigger contracts. He was committed to delivering quality services and this has taken him to greater heights. Today, Lubega employs several men and women in his catering company, and every time there is a party at UCU’s Kampala Campus, he is the first person who is contacted to provide food. Recently when Chaplaincy was concluding the ALPHA Course at UCU’s Kampala campus, it was Lubega who served the food. His organization, hygiene, and customer care are exceptional!
Lubega (in front, in blue) serving his customers at an recent party
Lubega is so proud of the many values he learned from his time at UCU, such as honesty, humility and prayerfulness. Applying such values has been of great significance in his business and this has made his services distinct. He further asserts that UCU has nurtured him into who he is today. “It is from this great institution of UCU that I have got exposed to the businesses I am currently doing, especially the guild government where I served in the period of 2013-2014 as the guild deputy speaker. The position greatly helped me build my confidence, decision making and communication skills”. He is especially indebted to Mr. Baguma Edgar, the UCU Kampala campus’s Director of Student Affairs, who has helped him make many connections for his business to grow.
He is motivated by the parable of the talents. He desires to be like the servant who was given 5 talents and produced 5 more; he wants to make sure he uses his hands, ears, nose and legs to get him to places. He says his master God made him perfect and put him in the perfect world to make it a better place to live in. He plans on extending his catering services beyond the borders of Uganda, and eventually beyond Africa, so that he can employ as many people as possible and leave a lasting legacy.
An example of a full spread of food in Lubega’s business
He advises students to be the best they can be in character, work hard, and focus on relationships with people around them. He challenges students to look at the opportunities that are within the challenges around them and make good use of them to find benefit within such challenges; he thinks that It is important for students to position themselves as problem solvers in life.
He shares that: “we should stop complaining and start on creating what we want to become… Let us change the mindset and look at working on the solution but not the problems because the solution solves the many problems we always want to look at.”
By Rev. Kamoga Alex, Chaplain – UCU Kampala Campus & UCU Alumnus, Child Development (25 January 2018)
Zalwango Prossy is a 22 year old recent graduate of Uganda Christian University. She was born in 1995 in Seeta, Mukono District, in a family where she lived with her father, mother, and two sisters–Nakalema Suzan and Nantale Damalie. When she was 3 years, her parents divorced; one key reason for the divorce was that her mother had only given birth to girls. A year later, while in Primary Five, her father brought a step mother to his home; this step mother treated Prossy and her sisters poorly, she denied them access to things such as education, food, speech, and friendships. This forced her elder sister, Nakalema, into marriage at the age of fourteen because of the desperate straits they were experiencing at home.
Due to the tough situation at home, Prossy and her young sister escaped to their mother’s place. Though her mother had little financial capability, she continued looking after them and she strived to educate Prossy until her Senior Four year of school. However, Prossy’s mother developed a back injury during these years and she could no longer operate the restaurant she had previously opened. When this happened, she became unemployed and could not pay further tuition for Prossy and her younger sister.
At this point, though Prossy had little hope to go back to school, God raised a neighbor in the community who helped to pay school fees for her from Senior Five to Six. Because of the great responsibilities that surrounded him, this neighbor could not continue to pay for her studies.
At this point, she did not see much hope for proceeding with further studies. Yet she had a burning zeal to go for further studies and had faith that one day she would make it. So, she applied to UCU, and by the grace of God, she was able to enroll. Together with her little sister, she worked hard to raise her tuition and the money to sustain her through small jobs, such as tilling people’s land and doing laundry for people around the village, in order to get part of the tuition and money. Additionally, Prossy would also teach at a primary school, Kisaakye Primary School in Seeta-Bajjo in order to obtain tuition though this made it difficult for her to balance work and studies.
Her life at Uganda Christian University was a hustle from her first to her final year. She would often be laughed at by her classmates. She narrates a past experience with her classmates in this way:
“… Dust would be all over me, old shoes and faded clothes, that one could easily explain the situation I was in. I could walk a long distance from home to university. I remember one time during the community worship hour, a tent was pitched and my classmates were looking for me. One of them peered from below the tent and told the neighbor, ‘look! I have seen some old shoes, that should be Prossy,’ and, Yes, I was the one!”
Throughout her campus life, she never stepped into the university restaurants, and she would always fail to meet the tuition payment deadlines as it would be tough on her to clear tuition balances. She would always dwell in tears towards the end of the semester for being among the very last students to pay tuition balances.
Despite all of these challenges, she still was able to excel in class. She graduated with a first class degree with honors, with a GPA of 4.79 and emerged the Best Overall Female Student and also the Overall Best Performing Student in the Faculty Education. Prossy is immensely grateful to God who made it possible for her to graduate on 27th. October, 2017, and is now proud to be a qualified and skilled teacher with a first class degree from Uganda Christian University.
Prossy receiving her first class award from the Vice Chancellor
As she looks back on her past three years of her BA program, alongside her several side jobs, she is so thankful to God for the different University programs that helped to support her as a student. These include such programs as the Guild Fund (a scholarship fund established by the students government), and the Work and Study program under Financial Aid office( where a student can work for the university and earn some money towards their tuition). She was also member of the Honours College, a leadership programme at Uganda Christian University, and learned much about being a leader in this program. Besides the mentioned programs, several departments, such as the Chaplaincy, also helped her through supporting her with money for upkeep and encouraging her despite her personal hardships. Every time she felt like giving up, she would go to Rev. Rebecca Nyegenye, the University Chaplain, for counsel. She remembers a time when Rev. Rebecca was preaching in community worship and shared the Biblical concept: “You are a chosen generation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood.” This message encouraged Prossy to continue to work with diligence and to be faithful to the Lord in her studies.
Above all, she praises God for giving her faith that helped her look to Him; He was her Father who would watch over her despite being abandoned by her biological father. She had confidence that the Almighty God would not leave her as an orphan or forsake her, but would come to her rescue and make her victorious in her studies. So, she praises God for blessing her and she is so thankful for the trust she had in Christ that helped her walk rightly with the Lord and discover her identity in him through these past three years of her BA program.
She is currently a volunteer in the Vice Chancellor’s Department at UCU while she looks for employment opportunities. She would like to do a master’s in educational planning and management in the future and she hopes to impact her community in the future, including through starting a primary school oriented towards needy children and youth, God being her Helper.
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