Tag Archives: Poverty

Rev. Ocen shows one of the houses already at roofing level

‘We cannot keep preaching the gospel to the poor without helping them realize their potential’

News, , , , , , , ,


Rev. Ocen shows one of the houses already at roofing level
Rev. Ocen shows one of the houses already at roofing level

By Olum Douglas

On September 14, 2020, Milton Olanya, a retired primary school teacher, and his family were left under the open sky when their grass thatched hut was gutted by fire from an unknown source. All his belongings, including valuable documents and garden harvests for the first season were burnt to ashes.

Like Olanya, thousands of families in northern Uganda have suffered similar losses for decades. The losses are a common occurrence among the majority rural poor who predominantly use grass-thatched huts as their shelters.

But Uganda Christian University (UCU) graduate, Rev. Deacon Ocen Walter Onen, has designed a permanent solution to this problem. Through his Tochi Community Transformation Initiative’s “Get out of grass-thatched huts” program, Rev. Ocen has mobilized people around his home village of Palenga in Omoro District. The mobilization calls for villagers to support each other and build modern, two-bedroom houses with iron sheet roofs to save them from such sudden losses.

Under the program, individuals are encouraged to lay bricks, acquire a few other building materials and start up construction with the support of their colleagues. Every month, members of the group make financial contributions, ranging from Uganda shillings of 10,000 ($2.70) to 50,000 ($13.50) to support a member. The money is used to buy cement, building stones, sand, and steel, and also pay the technical labor force.

Rev. Ocen (extreme left) with a group of women at his neighborhood after a prayer meeting in September 2020
Rev. Ocen (extreme left) with a group of women at his neighborhood after a prayer meeting in September 2020

They also provide manual labour like fetching water and mixing sand. When the structure reaches roofing level, the Church, through its networks, appeals to well-wishers to make contributions as low as a piece of iron sheet for the member.

As of late September, the 40 people registered for the program were either at the brick laying stage, putting up the wall or already at roofing. At least 33 iron sheets had already been collected for Patrick Onen, 49, whose building has reached the roofing stage.

Rev. Ochen said his target is to have every family in the village living in decent houses in the next five years. He also plans to establish solar energy suppliers for cheaper solar systems that can light the houses.

Alfred Lugeny, 52, said for most of his life, he has been trying to leave grass-thatched huts, but each time he laid bricks, he would be forced to sell them because he could not raise enough money to buy the other construction materials and pay labor force.

“I have been struggling to leave my grass-thatched huts, but I could not,” he said. “Yet grass is becoming increasingly harder to get due to increased human population. Termites also eat them, causing us to keep repairing the huts every year. The coming of this program has therefore given me greater hope of acquiring a good iron-sheet roofed house.”

Apart from the building program, Rev. Ocen moves door-to-door to meet youths and women to encourage them to engage in economically beneficial activities. He also meets groups of women under their Village Saving and Loan associations, to preach the gospel, pray with and encourage them. Besides, he also is setting up a community-funded scholarship program to support needy children through school.

Rev. Ocen says his approach to evangelism is an integral mission, combining the gospel with attendance to community needs.

Grass hut housing
Grass hut housing

“We cannot keep preaching the gospel to the poor without helping them realize their potential,” Rev. Ocen said, “Like Christ who attended to the needs of the community (John 2:1-11, John 4:46-47, Matthew 14:15-21, Matthew 15:32-39 and Luke 17:11-19), we Christian ministers should also do the same.”

At 27 years, Rev. Ocen was ordained into ministry and posted as a curate at St. Peters Church of Uganda, in the Bobi subcounty in Omoro District on February 23, 2020. His ordination came exactly one month before the COVID-19 lockdown was instituted in Uganda on March 23, banning Church services among other social gatherings.

With his workplace closed, Rev. Ocen decided to continue spreading the gospel while also helping people around him transform their lives.

“I noticed that so many of our people were having dependency syndrome, thinking that they could not help themselves,” Rev. Ocen said, “That is why I decided to bring this Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach, based on the Half-Glass concept with the view that everyone has something to contribute in order for development to be realized.”

Bishop Johnson Gakumba, the Bishop of the diocese of Northern Uganda, under whom Rev. Ocen serves, said the works of Rev. Ocen will not only benefit the Christians, but the diocese as well.

“Poverty has been a great challenge among our Christians. As a result, giving in Church has been very poor,” Bishop Gakumba said, “And him (Rev. Ocen) coming to address that problem is such a blessing that must be supported by all who wish well for the Church.”

Bishop Gakumba said for the short time Rev. Ochen has been in service, the diocese has started benefitting from his creativity through his valuable input towards the development of the five-year Strategic Work Plan of the diocese, a thing that makes him so proud of the young servant of God.

Rev. Ocen said he prides himself so much in his UCU education that opened his eyes to see the world from a new perspective.

Jesuit Stephen Okello, a high school student at Pope Benedict XVI Integrated Schools Palenga, and one of the selected beneficiaries for the scholarship program, said that he feels that God is working miracles in his life through Rev. Ocen.

“I had lost hope in going back to school after my Senior Four, but this program came suddenly to me,” Okello said. “I cannot thank God and Rev. Ochen enough for this lifetime opportunity.”

++++

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

Anguzu walks out of his office at River Oli Division

Anguzu: UCU social work graduate restoring sanity in Arua

News, Students, , , , , , ,


Anguzu walks out of his office at River Oli Division
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
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.”

++++

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

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

Community collaboration is asset to quality nurse delivery in Uganda

Faculty, Faculty of Public Health, Nursing and Midwifery, Students, UCU School of Medicine, , , , , , ,


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

+++

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.

UCU Nursing student Nankya Brenda Diana visits a village family

Community visits reinforce practical side of Ugandan health care

COVID-19, Faculty of Public Health, Nursing and Midwifery, Students, UCU School of Medicine, , , , , , , , , ,


UCU Nursing student Nankya Brenda Diana visits a village family
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.
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.”

+++

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.

Paul Mukhana, left, is a member of Mary’s “family,” helping others in time of need

‘COVID is bringing me a new way to minister’

COVID-19, Faculty, , , , , , , , , ,


Paul Mukhana, left, is a member of Mary’s “family,” helping others in time of need
Paul Mukhana, left, is a member of Mary’s “family,” helping others in time of need

By Mary Chowenhill

On a typical, sunny Ugandan day and in front of what most call the Thelma building but is soon to become the Uganda Christian University (UCU) business incubator on the Mukono campus, seven students and I got the news. They were telling me about their incubators – also known as business startups – related to piggeries, organic fertilizer, crocheted baby clothing and more. As their economics and entrepreneurship lecturer, I offered advice.

Then, we got the news of the lockdown, and everything changed.

Mary Chowenhill, left, before Ugandan distancing and lockdown guidelines
Mary Chowenhill, left, before Ugandan distancing and lockdown guidelines

I think that day was March 30.  But like most people living in the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, the exact date then and even the day of the week now escape me. I knew the coronavirus was spreading, including in my state of Florida in the USA.  Yet, I didn’t see it coming to Uganda or my small apartment where I have lived on the UCU campus for the past four years.

Within days, I watched thousands of university students, including mine, as well as half of the Americans living and working at UCU, pack up and leave.  Having recently sold my house in Florida and suffering from asthma, I felt it healthier for me to stay out of airplanes and remain here.

UCU offices are less than half full as Ugandan employees were ordered home and into isolation.

To the best of my knowledge while writing this on April 30, 2020, the deadly virus still isn’t here on the mile-long campus and in our houses, in my garden or on my patio. In fact, as I write, only 89 cases have been identified out of 39,000 tests administered in this country. It’s hardly in Uganda at all.

But the threat and precautionary measures are. And in Uganda, there are penalties for disobedience of such government regulations on social distancing, curfews, and taking public transportation. In addition to consequences of no income for people unable to go to work, there are government fines and imprisonment for disobedience.

In preparation for the inability to leave the campus, I immediately purchased 1.5 million shillings ($395 American) of food – something that the average Ugandan is not able to do. I divided beans, rice, posha, and sugar into various portions. My friend and gardener, Paul Mukhana, delivered these to many in greater need than me – a family with new twin babies, an elderly woman walking with a cane, among others.

Food purchased to help neighbors
Food purchased to help neighbors

When this ran out – and it did – I sent Paul to the market to get more.  He went to buy posha and other items for me and another customer.  Under Ugandan COVID guidelines, Paul was permitted to use his boda-boda (motorcycle) to pick up food.  But due to some misunderstanding and while he was inside the market, the local police confiscated his transportation.  Like many others who had their vehicles taken, he was required to pay 700,000 schillings ($184) to get it back legally or 200,000 shillings ($52) under the table.

It took two weeks, including prayer and a lesson about what Jesus thinks regarding bribery, to get Paul’s boda back.

The Christian love and human kindness of Ugandans, woven with the acceptance of a country fraught with bribes, is ever present in the COVID environment.

What has changed most is that my frenetic schedule of teaching economics and entrepreneurship and children’s Sunday school has ceased.  It has been replaced with solitude and church on my patio and from the computer with six children and eight adults. After our most recent “service,” we moved and sat six feet apart under a tree, discussing the meaning of loving each other as depicted in 1 John 4:7-12.

A neighbor named Ebenezer, age two and a half, wraps his arms around my knees. He doesn’t understand why he can’t cuddle on my lap.

While the campus is quiet, there are places we can’t walk because a few international students still living here violated the distancing rule.

Depression from change and isolation contributes to the lack of motivation to accomplish tasks I was never quite able to get around to but could now. Yet, COVID is bringing me to a new way to minister.

I have always had people who are not students as part of my Ugandan family.  But recently with students sent home, I am seeing more and more staff coming to my door. Some want to harvest greens from my garden. Some want a prayer. Most need a listener. Many need money for children’s school fees when that education returns.

It is an opportune time to teach people to fish.  Not a hand out but a hand up. It’s what I’m trained to do.

One worker cleans out bat feces – 7 sacks full – from between the ceiling and roof of three apartments, including mine.  I hire a man to fix my patio.  Grateful for the work, he writes “Hebrews 13” in one section and ”Praise God, Jesus Lives” on the cement in another.

God is allowing my brain to be relaxed while I see deeper how people are hurting.  Yesterday, I read Job 19. I know my redeemer lives. Is this easy?  No.  But it’s necessary. He will see us through.

Mary Chowenhill, a teacher in South Sudan until the war caused her evacuation, is a sponsored educator and missionary with the Society of Anglican of Missionaries and Senders (SAMS) and sponsors a student through UCU Partners. She hails from Jacksonville, Florida.

+++

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.

+++

Also, follow us on Facebook, and Instagram

Madonna waiting for her dad to come home from work

‘I can’t hug her the minute I get home’

COVID-19, UCU Alumni, , , , , , , , , , ,


Madonna waiting for her dad to come home from work
Madonna waiting for her dad to come home from work

By Constantine Odongo
Emmanuella Madonna is three years old. Every weekday, after taking her after-school nap, the kindergarten pupil engages her friends in the neighbourhood in games, such as dodge ball and hide-and-seek.

That was before mid-March 2020 and COVID-19.

On March 18, she got an abrupt, indefinite school holiday after the Ugandan government announced a closure of schools and a ban on work, unless it was an essential service. The ban was to enforce the health guideline of social distancing and staying home to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has become a pandemic. Madonna now spends more time with her mother at home and keeps wondering why I, her father, cannot stay home with them.

Emmanuella Madonna studying from home
Emmanuella Madonna studying from home

As an employee of Uganda’s New Vision newspaper (i.e. news jobs are considered essential), it means I’m gone much of the day and conceivably more exposed to the potentially deadly virus.

Madonna doesn’t get that. She doesn’t understand why I can’t hug her the minute I get home between 6:45 and 7 p.m.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni on March 30, 2020, announced a two-week stay-home order and capped it with a 11.5-hour curfew from 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. The order and the curfew were then extended by another three weeks.

Since, most times, the normal working hours at my office are not enough for me to accomplish my tasks, I often work up to the 11th hour.  My workplace, being a media house, is open 24 hours. But, nowadays, the newsroom is almost empty, save for security personnel, especially past 6 p.m. People abandon office early, in order to get home and beat the curfew time of 7 p.m.

It usually takes me up to 25 minutes to cover the 14km (8.5 miles) distance from my office located in the capital of Uganda, Kampala, to home in Kawempe, a city suburb. I spend close to half of that time at roadblocks, trying to explain to security why my media movement permit sticker is on the dashboard and not on the car screen.  Some motorists had lost their outside car stickers to thieves, who would pluck them off cars and sell them in the black market in Kampala, sometimes as high as one million shillings (about $280).

As I arrive home after work and oftentimes after the routine security interrogation, I see Madonna run to arms she can’t yet embrace – until I am cleansed of possible contamination to her and others in my family. I watch a fight brewing between Madonna and her nanny, who is seven times her age, but understands her job to keep a daughter from her dad in the world of COVID fear. I always ensure I bathe as soon as I arrive home, before getting into contact with anything or anyone, so that I do not become a conduit for the coronavirus.

Every morning, if Madonnna wakes up before I set off for work, she tries her luck in convincing me not to go to work that day. When President Museveni banned public and private cars from the roads on March 30, I carried my computer home and set up myself to work there. However, an unstable Internet network, an unfavorable work station and distractions by children hindered my ability to work.

Madonna’s sibling, Morgan, will be making one year on May 5. Throughout the day, I arbitrated disputes between her and Morgan. April 1 was day two of my full operation from home. We were both at our workstations, Madonna’s about two metres (6 feet) away from mine. When I stepped away from the room to receive a phone call, Madonna removed a keyboard key.

Madonna’s grandmother, a lady she was named after, lives and teaches in a primary school in Tororo district, located 220 kilometers (136.5 miles), east of Kampala. One-and-a-half weeks before the lockdown, schools were closed. Initially, teachers saw joy in the holiday. But it was short lived as they experienced more than one negative aspect of the lockdown.

Constantine Odongo
Constantine Odongo

The weekend after schools had been closed, as one example, Madonna’s grandmother attended a funeral in Tororo, without knowing that she and some friends were going against the guidelines of the Ministry of Health – that only close family members bury the dead due to social distancing. There were water points for the mourners to wash their hands before getting to the funeral, but not many even understood why the water and soap had been provided.

Such stories justify why the Government enlisted the services of the security forces to enforce the observance of the lockdown guidelines. I remind myself of this each time I am stopped. Life as we know it has changed for Madonna and me. With God’s guidance and understanding, we will appreciate the fruits of the difference and get through it.

(Constantine Odongo is a deputy chief sub-editor for New Vision. He received an MA degree in Journalism and Media Studies from Uganda Christian University.)

+++++

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.

+++

Also, follow us on Facebook, and Instagram

Journalists Paddy Nsobya of Bukedde newspaper, Samuel Sanya of New Vision and John Semakula of The Standard newspaper of Uganda Christian University in an April 20 meeting to strategize for the post COVID-19 period in Mukono District, Uganda. (Courtesy photo from Samuel Sanya)

Coronavirus pandemic has reshaped me into a better person

COVID-19, Faculty, , , , , , , , ,


Journalists Paddy Nsobya of Bukedde newspaper, Samuel Sanya of New Vision and John Semakula of The Standard newspaper of Uganda Christian University in an April 20 meeting to strategize for the post COVID-19 period in Mukono District, Uganda. (Courtesy photo from Samuel Sanya)
Journalists Paddy Nsobya of Bukedde newspaper, Samuel Sanya of New Vision and John Semakula of The Standard newspaper of Uganda Christian University in an April 20 meeting to strategize for the post COVID-19 period in Mukono District, Uganda. (Courtesy photo from Samuel Sanya)

By John Semakula

When governments in Europe and the United States came up with altruistic measures to help their citizens during the Coronavirus lockdown, in Uganda, we were left to fend for ourselves.

Despite the fact that the majority of Ugandans live hand to mouth and expected help from government during the lockdown, a selected few received food items. Many communities, including mine, were forced to mobilise ourselves to help the most vulnerable like the elderly, the poor and children in child-headed families. This experience has reshaped my personality and worldview.

For a video showing food distribution in Uganda, click here

Before the lockdown, I did not care much about community. If I had food on my table, I was mindless about the needy in the community; someone always did that job anyway.

John Semakula of The Standard newspaper of Uganda Christian University
John Semakula of The Standard newspaper of Uganda Christian University

However, the lockdown has molded me into a better person. I have learned to share with others and be keen about what goes on in my community. When the government of Uganda declared a partial lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic on March 17, I plunged into thoughts about how my family would go through it. I stay with seven relatives in Mukono town, central Uganda.

Although I am a salaried employee at Uganda Christian University, the lockdown was abrupt and yet the situation required that I should help close family members whose incomes were affected by the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. Some of them operated casual businesses that had to close.

However, as I was still lost in thought, wondering what to do, I received a call from my father in the village offering us food from his garden. This has turned out to be our lifeline. Whenever we run out of food, I send a motorist to collect from my dad.

This kindness from my father has helped not only my siblings and me but also some of my neighbors. My siblings and I had to share the little we get from dad and the meager monetary resources I had saved up before the lockdown. My father has taught me an invaluable lesson in adulthood and I had to reciprocate his kindness.

I have also seen hundreds of other Ugandans donate food, cash and other critical items to the coronavirus national taskforce that was set up by the government to receive financial and food aid from members of the public for distribution to the most vulnerable. This was uncommon before the outbreak of the pandemic. I have discovered that Ugandans are a good people and that if we had been helping one another before, we would have been a better society.

I have also had to help several of my neighbors who need small cash handouts to feed and support their families in other ways during the lockdown.

On Tuesday April 14, a father of six including a pair of twins came to me at 8 p.m. to ask for a loan of $6. He said, “…if you do not help me out today, my family will go without food for the next three days…” I was forced to surrender part of my week’s small budget to him.

Within less than a week, on April 19, another neighbor, who had a patient at a nearby hospital, also asked me for a favor of sh40, 000 ($12) to transfer him for specialised treatment to another facility. I gave it to him out of sympathy. Before the Coronavirus pandemic, he worked in Kame Valley Market in Mukono town and like other traders, the lockdown has rendered him helpless.

Although markets are allowed to operate, only those trading in food items are allowed to work, the rest of traders like my neighbor, have to close.  That is how my life has changed during the lockdown. But I thank God who has been merciful to my family because we are still alive when thousands of others around the world have succumbed to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, since the University where I work shut down on March 17, I have been operating from home, preparing for the reopening and the next semester. I am also going through students’ research proposals and internship reports. In addition, I am taking this time to come up with and bounce off different COVID-19 related research ideas with colleagues; hopefully we will have a research paper at the end of the year.

I see light at the end of the tunnel.

But the Coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown have taught me a lot of lessons in life that will remain fresh on my memory until death. I have never seen people the world-over suffer and die at this rate. I also have learned that in Africa we survive by the mercy of God. I will continue to exalt Him as the most supreme.

++++

John Semakula is the supervisor of The Standard newspaper under the Faculty of Journalism, Media and Communication at Uganda Christian University (UCU).  He is a UCU graduate of Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Masters of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies.  

+++++

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.

+++

Also, follow us on Facebook, and Instagram

UCU students Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala pose with chess and “overcomer” coach Robert Katende. All are from Katwe. (UCU Partners Photo)

Uganda has many ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ of Katwe, including at UCU

Faculty of Engineering, Design & Technology, News, Scholarship, , , , , , , , , ,


UCU students Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala pose with chess and “overcomer” coach Robert Katende. All are from Katwe. (UCU Partners Photo)
UCU students Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala pose with chess and “overcomer” coach Robert Katende. All are from Katwe. (UCU Partners Photo)

By Patty Huston-Holm

In the game of chess, if you lose the queen, most players forfeit.

Not so for Robert Katende, best known as the chess coach for Phiona Mutesi, the Ugandan slum girl featured for overcoming the odds of poverty in the “Queen of Katwe” movie. Not so for Ugandan Madina Nalwanga who had never seen a movie before being plucked from a line up to portray Phiona in the 2016 movie.  And not so for chess players and Katwe slum residents Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala, studying at Uganda Christian University (UCU) in 2020.

The list of Katende-influenced, overcomer names is long and growing.

Children learning about life and chess at SOM Chess Academy in Katwe (UCU Partners Photo)
Children learning about life and chess at SOM Chess Academy in Katwe (UCU Partners Photo)

The game of chess and the Sports Outreach Ministry (SOM) Chess Academy compound in Katwe are the visible ties between Katende and his protégé students. Yet, the most valued of 16 chess pieces – the queen who can move in all directions on 64 squares of the game – symbolizes much more. Katende and his young chess players have suffered losses that would cause most people to quit. But they didn’t.

On a hot, sunny day in early January 2020, more than 50 children surround Katende at the academy. He calls them “kings” and “queens” because, he says, they can rise to the top despite their poverty and other vulnerabilities.  They call Katende “coach” as they learn not only how to play the game of chess but how to maneuver through life.

On break from regular school, the poorest of Kampala’s boys and girls ages three to teens, play or silently watch two-player teams at a dozen handmade, wooden chessboards. They sit or lean against each other under an avocado tree, within a three-sided tent or in the building that also houses Katende’s small office at the academy. Katende tells some of his story behind the better-known one about Phiona.  It also is detailed in his newly released book, “A Knight without a Castle.”

Coach Robert Katende at the academy in Katwe (UCU Partners Photo)
Coach Robert Katende at the academy in Katwe (UCU Partners Photo)

Katende lost his “queen” – his mother – who abandoned him before he was a year old.  As he grew, he felt so abused and unwanted that his only deterrent from killing himself was that he couldn’t scrape up enough money to buy rat poison to do it. He persevered with a life that often found him sleeping on cardboard with his grandmother and a younger child, suffering injuries that included a dislocated wrist wracked with pain as he successfully completed written exams, and digging his fingers into gardens and laying bricks to work his way through school while oftentimes being cheated out of wages.

Today, the former mathematics teacher with a university degree is the backbone of the Academy located in Katwe, which is the poorest slum in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala. The Academy is a haven in a village best known for high illiteracy, poor housing, prostitution and low employment except for metal workers who get accolades for their skill in crafting beds and sheds. The chess coach also leads the newer Robert Katende Initiative, a child-uplifting, fund-raising arm based in the United States.

“I see myself as a moving miracle,” he said. “It is not of my own making. God has chosen me to glorify His name. I have no reason to be alive but for His Purpose.”

Katende’s story is one he would rather tell through the next generation that he might have inspired.  That generation includes:

  • famous Phiona, now studying business at Northwest University (Kirkland, Washington), where another Katwe chess player (depicted in the movie as the boy clicking his fingers a lot) named Benjamin also is enrolled with a dream to become a neurosurgeon;
  • teenagers named David, Lydia, Gloria and Stella who auditioned as young, poor Katwe children and received supporting roles in the movie;
  • two student chess players enrolled in engineering at the Mukono campus of UCU. There, with the hand of the university’s Vice Chancellor, the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) exists to serve the underserved with the Academy – if there is financial support.

Through the UCU Partners organization, based in the USA state of Pennsylvania, San Antonio, Texas, resident, Sandra Lamprecht, offered that first support. She sponsors the two UCU students, Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala.  Already an admirer of UCU quality curriculum and character-building education and with family in Uganda, the United States woman saw the “Queen of Katwe” movie in 2016, met Katende in 2017, and felt led to help.

With Katende’s recommendation and facilitated by the MOU at UCU, Lamprecht first agreed to be the American “mom” for Ivan Mutesasira, who is a lesser-known character in the “Queen of Katwe” movie.

“I’m the guy with the hat,” Ivan commented amidst the young chess players, including one hanging onto his leg on this January 8 day. He smiled as he referred to his movie portrayal as a member of the chess team that traveled more than a decade ago with Phiona to Juba, South Sudan, and the tournament where she won and garnered international attention through the media, a book and then a movie.

Like Katende, Ivan, who is now 28 years old, believes his life outside the movie better defines him and God’s purpose.

“The movie touches me because I lived it – paying for water and fetching it in a jerry can, sharing pit latrines, no electricity,” Ivan recalled. “My parents divorced when I was age five. There were five of us as children with a mom supporting us by selling vegetables at the market.”

While he was raised Christian and went to church, Ivan saw his life take an upward turn when, at age 12, he met Katende. Through moves on a chess board, the young Ivan learned discipline, responsibility, strategic planning, action consequences and that someone – the coach and God – believed in him and loved him.

“My friends were dropping out of school and having unplanned children,” Ivan said. “I was learning to accept and appreciate what I had, trusting in God, praying and playing chess.”

What Ivan learned through the chess academy is continuing at UCU, where character building is incorporated into his program in Civil and Environmental Engineering.  Upon his graduation with a bachelor’s degree in July 2021, he hopes to make a difference in the place where he grew up.

“That building is wrong structurally,” he said, pointing to a crumbling residence towering three stories above the Katwe academy. “Effluent from the upstairs bathroom is flowing down into people’s rooms. That’s part of what I want to fix to improve lives.”

Mildred Nampala, 21, and the second Katwe youth sponsored at UCU by Sandra Lamprecht, likewise wants to be part of the solution to her country’s poverty issues. She is a year behind Ivan at UCU and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering.

One of three children, Mildred never knew her father who died when she was a toddler; her mother died when she was 12 years old. She served as a house cleaner and cook in exchange for school fees and a place to live with an uncle, his wife and five children until one of the biological children got pregnant out of wedlock. Out of fear that the same would happen with Mildred, the uncle kicked her out of the house. She found refuge in various homes, including that of her sister who works as Katende’s accountant.

Mildred found refuge in chess.  The game also reinforced the value of teamwork with all the pieces working together under the guidance of the players. And the “Queen of Katwe” movie that Mildred has “watched more times than I can count” reinforces that she and others in poverty can be more.

While he has had offers to relocate with other organizations and in developed countries, Katende says he is called to remain in his Katwe birthplace. As he looks around and admires the mechanical skills of the less-educated population of the slum, he aspires to grow the chess academy focus into a vocational school within the next few years.

“The school will go there,” he said, pointing to an area near the academy’s single avocado tree and below crumbling houses and rows of laundry blowing in the dusty wind.

This Katende and others know: Millions of people around the world play chess. Losing a queen early on doesn’t mean you lost the game.

+++

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.

+++

Sheila, center, is shown with some faculty at Bishop Barham University, Kabale, where she assisted in her role as an intern with the fifth annual dissertation writing and research clinic in 2019. (UCU Partners photo)

Sheila Ainembabazi, 2019 UCU Literacy Project Intern: ‘God will make a way’

Scholarship, UCU Alumni, , , , , , ,


Sheila, center, is shown with some faculty at Bishop Barham University, Kabale, where she assisted in her role as an intern with the fifth annual dissertation writing and research clinic in 2019. (UCU Partners photo)
Sheila, center, is shown with some faculty at Bishop Barham University, Kabale, where she assisted in her role as an intern with the fifth annual dissertation writing and research clinic in 2019. (UCU Partners photo)

(LAST OF FOUR PARTS: This article features one of 10 interns hired to assist with the five-year-old Uganda Christian University dissertation research and writing training. She was selected from among 200 applicants. In addition to serving post-graduate students through the clinic, interns build their own resumes and obtain jobs or further education opportunities. Parts I, II and III can be accessed at those links. A video is here.)

By Patty Huston-Holm

When Sheila was born in 1996, she was given the Ugandan name Ainembabazi, which in her Runyankole mother tongue language means “God has grace.”  She was the first born of Frank Kamukama, a vocational agricultural teacher, and Grace Kiconco, a housewife and part-time shop owner who sells basic household items in their Western Uganda Mbarara District.

Her younger sister, Franklin, got the name Ainomugisha, which means “God has blessings.”  Her two brothers, Kelvin Ainamaani and Alvin Ainebyoona, have Ugandan names translated to “God has power” and “God is everything,” respectively.

God, obviously, is central to the family.

Sheila Ainembazi, intern
Sheila Ainembazi, intern

Thus, on the September 2, 2019, morning of this interview, Sheila praised the Lord for placing her in the next phase of her studies to be an attorney.  While disappointed that she would be in a nine-month Law Development Centre (LDC) program in Mbarara and not alongside her best friend, Ruth, chosen to study in Kampala (269 kilometers or 167 miles away), she was grateful. Sheila and Ruth, who graduated in July 2019 with Bachelors of Law degrees from Uganda Christian University, received entry into the country’s LDC program with classes starting September 23. Due to some Ministry of Justice disagreement, this cohort of students was not required to take the usual pre-entry exam to qualify for this phase.

Coming from humble beginnings, Sheila has been able to find blessings and patience wherever she has been placed.

At UCU, she was a work study student who rose early each morning to clean offices, dust library books, prepare tea and make deliveries before her classes as part of her tuition reimbursement. She learned the value of being “the least of these” and appreciation to those who noticed and thanked her for her work, including Dr. Joseph Owor in the School of Research and Post-Graduate Studies (SRPGS).

While studying law on the UCU Mukono campus, she became especially concerned with Ugandans who were mistreated due largely to their literacy levels.  Her final research paper focused in the inequalities and legal violations related to land ownership and transfer rights, especially as it pertains to women.

“Most Ugandans are illiterate,” the 23-year-old said. “They go in and buy a two-page book and write sale agreements and think they are done until they save money and go further to register their land.  Then a richer, more literate person comes in and agrees to pay more and gets a title. For women, a husband dies or leaves, and the clan pushes her and the children out even though she legally has ownership.  These are some of the issues I want to help with.”

Noticing injustices, Sheila reflected, has been part of her life for quite some time.  A leader in her high school, she often noticed student issues and brought them to the attention of administrators.

“I remember we were being served old food at the canteen,” she said.  “The mandazi (fried doughnuts) were molded.  We broke them open and saw it.  I brought that to the attention of our school leaders, and it was resolved.”

Sheila understands being shunned and humbled.  Not all around her at UCU understood or valued her janitorial work.

“One student (in Law) told me that doing a maid’s work was not good for my career,” she recalled.  “He said people don’t trust a cleaner.”

But one such person who did trust her was the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, UCU’s vice chancellor.  He observed her diligence and hard work and, along with his wife, Ruth, decided to provide Sheila with lodging at their house as part of their support of her scholarship in her final two years. Being able to work and live on campus and have her housing and some food provided enabled Sheila to focus more and excel higher in her studies.

For this, she is grateful, along with being chosen as a 2019 intern for the UCU Partners and SRPGS co-sponsored clinic to help post-graduate students. She learned a lot about technology, organization, time lines and service.

Today, she is concerned about paying fees for her next nine-month law study program.  Some of her payment of $400 for three months work in the internship will help. She is praying for more support.

“God will make a way,” she said.  “God has made a way.”

+++

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

+++

Aisha Nabukeera, left, with burns shortly after her abuse at age 13; and, at right, wearing her UCU graduation cap and gown.

UCU graduate uses personal scars to reinforce war against child abuse

UCU Alumni, , , , , , , , , ,


Aisha Nabukeera (upper left), a survivor of child abuse, is shown in the field educating children and others about abuse and their rights as part of her foundation’s work. The 26-year-old USU graduate was purposely burned over 80% of her body at age 13.
Aisha Nabukeera (upper left), a survivor of child abuse, is shown in the field educating children and others about abuse and their rights as part of her foundation’s work. The 26-year-old UCU graduate was purposely burned over 80% of her body at age 13.

By Joseph Ssemutooke

In 2006, Aisha Nabukeera drew national attention after suffering child abuse that nearly claimed her life. Age 13 and in Primary Six at Nyendo Primary School in the southern Uganda town of Masaka, Nabukeera suffered third-degree burns on 80% of her body after her step-mother forced the young girl to wear a petro-soaked dress while lighting a kerosene lamp. A neighbor who came with a bucket of water saved her life but not the physical scars she still wears.

Today, the 26-year-old Nabukeera is one of Africa’s foremost youth champions of the fight against child abuse and, despite the scars and horrific memory, was a finalist and named Miss Popularity in the 2015-2016 Miss Uganda beauty pageant.

Aisha Nabukeera poses with her foster father, Frank Gashumba, on her graduation day at UCU.
Aisha Nabukeera poses with her foster father, Frank Gashumba, on her graduation day at UCU.

A 2018 Uganda Christian University (UCU) graduate with a Bachelor of Social Works and Social Administrative degree, she is the founder and director of a fast-growing, anti-child-abuse initiative, the Aisha Nabukeera Foundation (ANF), which was started in 2017. In 2019, Nabukeera was named one of Africa’s 12 beneficiaries of the Generation Africa programme.
The ANF advocates for children’s rights and assists abuse survivors. Representatives of the foundation visit schools to promote awareness and prevention about child abuse. The Generation Africa programme, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks “to help young Africans whose personal experiences have shaped their determination to help others facing challenges across the continent through telling their stories globally.” The dozen selected each year receive training in global development skills to further inspire change.

Aisha Nabukeera, left, with burns shortly after her abuse at age 13; and, at right, wearing her UCU graduation cap and gown.
Aisha Nabukeera, left, with burns shortly after her abuse at age 13; and, at right, wearing her UCU graduation cap and gown.

“When you tell someone your story, they get hopeful about life,” said Nabukeera, who received the Generation Africa training in Johannesburg, South Africa, in mid-2019. “For many children facing tough conditions that have seen them go through abuse, seeing me and hearing my story gives them hope.”

Nabukeera uses her experience of excruciating agony and pain from her abuse as well as the pain still with her today in her passionate fight against child abuse.
“My mother told me many years after the incident that she even thought of poisoning me and killing herself because she couldn’t bear to see me in pain and having no money to fund the treatment,” Nabukeera said, pointing out the added psychological damage of bullying because of her bodily scars. “At school some called me things like ‘roast chicken.’ When I contested in Miss Uganda, some said I wasn’t beautiful enough to be there.”

When Nabukeera’s biological mother reported the case to the local authorities to try and get justice for her daughter, the step-mother insisted that Nabukeera had simply tried to self-immolate herself. Her biological father sided with the step-mother.

As part of her child abuse battle today, Nabukeera urges the government to strengthen penalties on persons who hurt children. She says oftentimes when children’s rights are abused, responsible authorities don’t take serious action, which widens the door for other perpetrators.

“Stop telling abused children that their pain is not a big deal and that there are people worse off than they are,” she said. “No one should ever belittle someone else’s suffering, instead people should work to heal those who are suffering by bettering their conditions and helping them get justice where they have been served injustice.”
She also advises children to speak out. She says that if one fails to get assistance from close relatives, the child should talk to neighbors or nearby authorities. To parents, she calls for equal attention to their children, whether they live in polygamous or monogamous families.

She credits several adults for her ability to pull away from her childhood incident. Among these is Ugandan socio-political commentator Frank Gashumba who pledged to unofficially adopt the “burnt girl” and become her “father.” He helped her through school. In 2009, the late founder and director of the St. Lawrence schools, Prof. Lawrence Mukiibi, gave her a six-year scholarship at St Lawrence School, Horizon campus. And after passing her UACE exams in 2014, she joined Uganda Christian University.

“Most of my (biological) family abandoned me,” Nabukeera reminisces. “Going to school was just out of question for me. I was treated as a hopeless case, and so I lost all hope. I thought it was the end of my life, which made me so bitter and angry at the world.”
Acts of kindness from Frank and Lawrence – two one-time strangers – turned that around. She has since found forgiveness and grace for her step-mother and others.
“Now, I believe her act of malice might have been the greatest gift of my life,” Nabukeera said. “I have moved on.”

+++
To support Uganda Christian University 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.

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

Conrad Oroya displays some accolades at his office in Gulu

‘…thank you note from a poor person is more worthy than a Mercedes-Benz’

UCU Alumni, , , , , , , ,


Conrad Oroya displays some accolades at his office in Gulu
Conrad Oroya displays some accolades at his office in Gulu

By Douglas Olum

In today’s Uganda, the pursuit of a law degree is a top choice of school children and their parents, largely because of the career path’s reputation for securing private and public jobs that yield money. Most law schools receive overwhelming applications. For the 2019 intake, for instance, Uganda Christian University (UCU) received more than 1,000 applications, but only admitted about 400 due to capacity limitations.

For many, it’s about the money.

UCU graduate Conrad Obol Oroya
UCU graduate Conrad Obol Oroya

For Conrad Obol Oroya, a 2011 UCU Bachelor of Laws graduate, it isn’t. He channels his knowledge to pro bono (free legal) services. His journey along this path started from UCU where one of his professors, Brian Dennison (now living and working in Georgia, USA), included community legal support training. During his legal profession preparation, Oroya says he participated in land conflicts mediation and helped people to write their wills, among other free services.

His passion to help the less fortunate continued as he received his postgraduate certificate in legal practice in 2012 from the Law Development Centre, where he took a job at the institution’s Legal Aid Clinic. He was soon employed as the Court Reconciliator. He later joined Legal Aid, a pro bono legal service provider in Uganda where he served as the Assistant Legal Officer before he was promoted to Legal Officer. After that, he worked for the International Justice Mission, another pro bono legal service provider.

Oroya says he is passionate about helping the economically disadvantaged get justice. He believes that poor communities like those in northern Uganda really need his services. A 2016-17 report by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics estimated that at least 10 million of the estimated 37.7 million Ugandans live in poverty.  People in Eastern and Northern Uganda, depending largely on subsistence agriculture, are the poorest of the poor.

“It would be fancy to work in Kampala and make a lot of money but that would be serving personal desires without impact on the community,” Oroya says, “To me, a thank you note from a poor person is more worthy than driving a Mercedes-Benz.”

Oroya is a full-time lecturer at northern Uganda’s Gulu University. He also owns a law firm, Conrad Oroya Advocates in Gulu, and is a Regional Counsel Member of the Uganda Law Society, representing lawyers from northern Uganda. But he continues to offer free legal service both at a personal level and through his previous employer, Legal Aid.

Every Wednesday, he travels to a court in the neighboring Nwoya District as a lawyer on State brief (without pay) to defend individuals caught on the wrong side of the law. In his office, there are two huge piles of files – one for paid services and the other for free services. He says most of those pro bono files are for poor men and women who generally have only the clothes on their backs and a small piece of land being grabbed by wealthy individuals.

“I am happy to be serving in this community because I am making some impact,” Oroyo said. “I have won at least 300 cases and restored more than 400 families to their land after wealthy individuals grabbed them. My pro bono services also have greatly helped to decongest the Gulu Prison.”

A call to servant-hood was so strong that Oroyo turned down a prestigious opportunity to work in Europe. In 2016-2017, he got the Commonwealth Scholarship to pursue a Master in International Human Rights and Criminal Law at Bangor University in the United Kingdom (UK). Of 29 Ugandans that year, he was the only Ugandan legal scholar. And he emerged as the best Master of Law student. His dissertation was titled, “Law Reform Examination and Property Rights and Gender Equality: Women’s rights to property upon divorce and separation, a comparative legal study of Uganda, England and Wales,” also was voted as the best dissertation in 2017.

Those achievements earned him two accolades and he immediately got an offer from a professor to work with him as a Research Assistant, a position that would have automatically earned him a teaching job – and more money – in the UK. But Oroya says beside honouring the terms of agreement he had with his then employer, International Justice Mission, he knew that the poor in northern Uganda needed him more. So he turned down the opportunity.

Upon his return to Uganda, Oroya embarked on a move to try and reform the systems in place. He trained fellow lawyers, prosecutors and police officers on best practices of investigation and the need to respect individual human rights during arrests and detention. Detention without trial, torture, and grabbing of land that deny individuals the right to own property are the most common forms of human rights abuses meted by law enforcers in Uganda.

Many times, suspects are arrested before investigations are done and they are held in custody for weeks or months beyond the mandatory 48 hours as police investigate. Besides, it is a common practice for the wealthy to buy favors and win cases against poor individuals who cannot afford the cost of legal representations.

For Oroya, there is much more to be done. And he feels led to help do it.

+++

To support Uganda Christian University 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. Also  visit us on Facebook and Instagram.

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’

Students, , , , ,


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.”

+++

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.

+++

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.

The Rev. Emmanuel Mukeshimana, right, with a widow he has helped.

Piggery project gives boost to aging widow in Bugujju, Uganda

Faculty, , , ,


The Rev. Emmanuel Mukeshimana, right, with a widow he has helped.
The Rev. Emmanuel Mukeshimana, right, with a widow he has helped.

By Rev. Emmanuel Mukeshimana

In the early days of 2016,a Mass Communication student at Uganda Christian University (UCU) identified a family that needed urgent help. He was staying at a Hostel located in Bugujju, Mukono where the widow identified as Jane and her family lived.

As unemployed student, he had nothing much to offer but small things like sugar, a blanket, bedsheets and some of his clothing.

During his time of service as a volunteer in the Communications and Marketing Department at UCU, he worked with Patty Huston-Holm, a passionate lady from the USA working for Uganda Christian University Partners.

Patty introduced Lhwanzu to me, the Rev. Emmanuel Mukeshimana, a lecturer, UCU graduate and pastor in the UCU chaplaincy office. I am also the head of Square Ministries, a nonprofit with a vision of reaching out to the needy with the love of Christ in East Africa.

In a nutshell, Lhwanzu shared the widow’s story to me and immediately, the two visited the widow and found out more challenges she was going through as an aging, poverty-stricken woman trying to raise her children and grandchildren amidst conflicts within the family.

The starving widow was married to a husband who died of HIV/AIDS in 2005.

“I spent so much money when my husband was sick; his first wife did not put any effort; it was me responsible,” the widow narrated.“I am so lucky I did not get HIV. What could I have done with this disease with this kind of poverty?”

The widow is staying with her four children and three grandsons.

The first born ended her studies after senior 4 (10th grade) with no hopes of getting more fees for further education. The family could not even afford to take her for a short course. She later conceived,and currently she has three children.The second born is a young brilliant girl who completed senior 6 (12th grade) and got stuck. She is working in a restaurant as a waitress to get a coin for a day.

The last two are still in school. “I can’t explain how I can get over 1.5 million shillings for both of them every term,” she said as she wiped off tears off her cheeks.

Before the husband’s death, he wrote a will that could benefit this widow of taking 60% of his property and the first wife taking only 40%. But she received nothing from this because of family wrangles.

Square Ministries came in to give a hand. The organisation is starting to implement her dream with a piggery project that will help her get some income to support her family.

“I am so thankful to God that I found hope in Square Ministries,” the widow confessed.

The widow stays in a very old house that leaks whenever it rains.

“We wake up in the night whenever it rains because sometimes the water fills up the children’s room,” she said.

“We can’t sleep whenever it rains at night due to tension,” one of the children said.

The women looked so much stressed after mentioning this.

What can you do to this kind of situation? The story will continue in the years to come as God uses his people to help a widow such as this.  Square Ministries has helped her to build a pigsty and gave her an expecting sow hoping that very soon she will begin to have support for herself and others.

+++++

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.

Rev. Canon Odora interacts with a member of the congregation outside St. Phillip’s Cathedral in Gulu shortly after a service on January 1, 2019. (UCU Partners photo)

Rev. Canon Odora: Ministering in post-war Northern Uganda

Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology, , , , , ,


Rev. Canon Odora interacts with a member of the congregation outside St. Phillip’s Cathedral in Gulu shortly after a service on January 1, 2019. (UCU Partners photo)

Rev. Canon Odora interacts with a member of the congregation outside St. Phillip’s Cathedral in Gulu shortly after a service on January 1, 2019. (UCU Partners photo)

By Douglas Olum

(In the morning of Thursday, December 6, I took a walk through a small town called Lacor, about three miles west of the larger and better-known Gulu Town in Uganda. I was on my way to meet a clergyman to write his story. It was only 9 o’clock, but already I saw men, both young and old, most of them dressed in torn, dirty clothes flocking alcohol shops that line the road. Many are people who lost their property to wealthy land grabbers. All are languishing in chronic poverty, thereby using alcohol as a mean of escaping unemployment and other stability problems. This, then, is an account of one pastor doing his work in Northern Uganda.)

++++

In the face of poverty, trauma and alcoholism, Christian preachers in Northern Uganda are faced with double-edged challenges as they strive to balance their ministry and the dire circumstances under which their flock live.

The situation is worse in rural areas where illiteracy is at its peak. In many sections, children cannot access schools. The health facilities, if any, are non-functional. And, due to the subsistence nature of agriculture, which is their only source of livelihood, people cannot afford decent lives. But these are the flocks that clergymen and women in the region herd.

“As a priest in this area, many people come to you to ask for food stuffs, financial assistance and other issues such as conflict resolution and mediation, addiction and failure to meet personal needs,” Reverend Canon Francis Willy Odora says.

Rev. Canon Francis Willy Odora, delivering a message at St. Phillip’s Cathedral in Gulu
Rev. Canon Francis Willy Odora, delivering a message at St. Phillip’s Cathedral in Gulu

Rev. Canon Odora is the Vicar at St. Phillip’s Cathedral in Gulu, about 275 miles north of Uganda’s capital, Kampala. His daily chores include: ministering at the Cathedral, office planning, counseling, praying with the sick, weekly ministering on a local radio (102 Mega FM) station, teaching at the Janani Luwum Theological College and pastoral visits to churches, families and elderly people who cannot walk to the church.

As he sets out to go to work in the morning, his wife, Mrs. Grace Odora, also leaves for the garden. She does most of the farming, but sometimes her husband accompanies her before he goes to work.

Residing in a small, one-level, two-bedroom house within the diocese’s premises, Canon Odora and his wife often are approached by needy persons. They seek food, school fees and other basic necessities. They only give food.

“Those that ask for what to cook, we give them food stuffs because we do not buy our food. We produce it. And it is easier for us to give because that is the only thing we have,” Canon Odora says.

Following the more than two decades of insurgency in the region, Canon Odora says, the level of desperation among Christians is extremely high. Besides the relief syndrome that has left the people constantly expectant and dependent, they are also faced with social and emotional injuries among the community, including trauma among those who returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) captivity and those who lost their dear ones to the conflict. These victims of what is also known as the “bush war” need reparation.

“People who have lived desperate lives and are socially injured demand a lot of attention,” he says. “The good thing is that we had a partnership with a group called ‘Healing the Orphaned Hearts,’ that trained us, the clergy and catechists on trauma healing.”

At 58 years, Canon Odora feels exhausted, yet the demand for his service among the community is continuous. He wants to retire from priesthood. However, his greatest worry is the replacement.

Like him, tens of other senior priests are in the evenings of their service as they are counting down years before they clock their retirement age of 65. These older clergy do not match the number of new entrants into priesthood.

Many of the younger men and women coming on board are pursuing only Certificates and Diplomas in Divinity. Canon Odora says clergy with lower credentials are sometimes undermined by some members of the congregation. They are deemed incapable of analyzing, interpreting or preaching the word to congregation expectations.

“We have had instances where some parishes have rejected some clergy because of their education background or their fluency in the English language,” he says. “These are common especially in the urban areas. You know, society has changed today. The level of understanding of the people has also changed. So, they now require clergy who are highly educated who meet their standards.”

He thinks having more people pursue theological education at higher levels will keep the Church abreast of the changing society and also save it from losing believers to the mushrooming Pentecostal Churches that preach prosperity and wealth instead of true evangelism.

But, while his reasoning could be a necessity for the continuity of the Anglican Church of Uganda, the Diocese of Northern Uganda, where he belongs, is faced with a huge financial challenge: it cannot support the education for its current and future clergy. A huge reason for the gap is the financial status of most Christians that affect not only tithing but also weekly collections.

Patrick Lumumba, the Diocesan Secretary, says many times they have secured half-scholarships from Uganda Christian University (UCU) for their clergy to upgrade but have failed to raise the other half of the tuition to push them to conclusion. As a result, many of them have dropped out.

The need is great. Uganda Christian University and UCU Partners are doing what they can by offering half-scholarships to students from every diocese in Uganda. While there are still many who need help, this scholarship program graduates dozens of new clergy every year.

++++

If you are interested in supporting UCU clergy training or other programs and services at UCU, contact UCU Partners’ Executive Director Mark Bartels at  mtbartels@gmail.com or click on the Donate button on the Partners Web site.

Also, follow our Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin pages.

Douglas Alum, far right, at age 12 and shortly after his release from the Lord’s Resistance Army and another returnee, far left. Others pictured are Douglas’ family. All consumed World Food Program supplements in the 1990s.

Karamoja food poisoning: Wake-up call for Christian values in relief service

News, , , ,


Douglas Alum, far right, at age 12 and shortly after his release from the Lord’s Resistance Army and another returnee, far left. Others pictured are Douglas’ family. All consumed World Food Program supplements in the 1990s.
Douglas Olum, far right, at age 12 and shortly after his release from the Lord’s Resistance Army and another returnee, far left. Others pictured are Douglas’ family. All consumed World Food Program supplements in the 1990s.

By Douglas Olum

At the peak of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels’ insurgency in Northern Uganda in the 1990s, the World Food Programme (WFP) distributed a food supplement called BP-100 biscuits in what were known as the Internally Displaced People’s camps.

As a child then in that area, I ate some of the biscuits and exchanged some for books or pens with my school colleagues.  It was a high-energy, ready-to-use, therapeutic food that did, as I recall, ease our hunger. Because we had no lunch at school and our parents would spend their days looking for what to cook, we had biscuits for lunch while being well aware that when we returned home at the end of the day, we would hardly find anything to bite.

Uganda map showing Karamoja area
                             Uganda map showing Karamoja area

Roughly two decades later, similar supplements are being provided in the Karamoja districts of Kaabong, Kotido, Abim, Moroto, Napak, Nakapiripirit and Amudat in the Eastern and Northeastern parts of Uganda. The nutritional need there today is a war of a different type.

The bore holes in these seven districts cannot yield water and the valley dams built for their livestock dry down for eight of 12 months a year. From September through April, the scorching sun cracks the clay soil, the trees are stripped bare of their leaves and the stunted grasses are wilted. Whirlwinds form dust storms sweep through the villages, carrying away nearly anything that stand in their way.

The districts that form the region cover approximately 27,000 square kilometers (10,400 square miles) of an arid and bush expanse, and is home to at least 1.2 million people (Uganda Investment Authority, 2016) who are often forgotten.

A 2011 survey by the Uganda Department of Geological Survey and Mines at the Ministry of Energy revealed that Karamoja is rich in minerals such as gold, limestone, uranium, marble, graphite, gypsum, iron, wolfram, nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium and tin. Despite the hard work and long hours by local men, however, they can hardly afford to provide for their families.

Additionally, such adverse climatic conditions affect food production. People and their animals migrate to find food. But hunger strikes, costing many lives of both livestock and humans, especially among children and elderly who cannot trek long distances.

In an attempt to combat such mortality, the United Nations, through the WFP, has since the 1960s, just like God did for the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16:13-17), provided food relief to the community. However, in 2011, the relief agency brought a new policy that only provided for food distributions to children. Alas, when men, women and children are hungry, food is consumed by all.

Unfortunately in early March, the agency found itself in an unforeseen crises when the very relief it intended caused sickness. At least four people died and more than 220 others were admitted to various hospitals in the districts of Napak and Amudat following the consumption of a food supplement, ‘Super Serial’ that was distributed. People who consumed the food supplement, purportedly meant for expectant mothers and malnourished children, vomited and developed general body pains and weaknesses, mental illness, high fever and headache.

In April, a joint investigation by the Government of Uganda and WFP into the causes of the deaths and illnesses was taking place. The food samples, as well as blood and other extracts from the sick and the dead were taken to laboratories in Mombasa (Kenya) and South Africa for specialized analyses. At the same time, the UN agency that has supplied food to needy Ugandans for decades, is researching its supplement expiration dates and overall policies for management of food reserves.

As the supply has been halted and the beneficiaries have been asked to return whatever was not yet consumed, the incident reminds both the organization and its workers of the need for education and Christian values in exercising duties and caring for the less fortunate. That’s part of the responsibility of education and being good stewards of Christianity.

As a student at Uganda Christian University, I recall how faith was integrated into all our learning. Thinking back on those days, I can’t help but wonder not only about the lack of attentiveness to the details of expiration dates for food provided to Karamoja, but also about the attentiveness to a population of people that is every bit as equal in God’s eyes.

For these 1.2 million of Uganda’s 42.8 million people, what happened in March of this year is an efficiency, effectiveness and Christian values wake-up call.

+++++

For more of these stories and experiences, visit https://www.ugandapartners.org. If you would like to assist a current student or otherwise support the university, contact Mark Bartels, Executive Director, UCU Partners, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org or go to https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/

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

Servant hood: Hand-washing students’ clothes yields money and Good Samaritan attention

Scholarship, , , , ,


Justine Nanyanzi washes clothes at her residence
Justine Nanyanzi washes clothes at her residence

By Olum Douglas

It was lunchtime when I first met Justine Nanyanzi. Her colleagues had scattered to various eateries. But to her, this was not a time for food, but for meeting or private reading.

As I reached out for her hand with a smile on my face, I noticed she was struggling to forge a smile back. Wearing a light dress with black-and-white flowery tint, and a pair of sandals with several traces of sewing on the strings’ base, Nanyanzi’s lips were dry and coarse, with white, scaly peals that clearly revealed dehydration and hunger. The weaves on her head were half-finished, leaving a large portion of her jumbled hair bare.

At that moment, it became clear to me that the story I had read online was true. In early February, an online paper in Uganda that reports events at universities, Campus Bee, broke the account of Nanyanzi under the headline, “The story of the UCU girl who is washing fellow students’ clothes for tuition.”

The story went viral and a few days later, a local television, NTV-Uganda, interviewed Nanyanzi and broadcasted her story. The focus was on her washing business, which was unusual because the Ugandan perception is that university students are middle-class and above such odd jobs.

A few minutes into our chat, I asked Nanyanzi what inspired her to begin washing fellow students’ clothes. She smiled and said the answer was long.

Justine Nanyanzi at the university
Justine Nanyanzi at the university

Born in Mukono District to a peasant-turned-evangelist and his wife, Justine Nanyanzi is the first-born in the broken family of three children. When she finished her Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) in 2014, Nanyanzi who excelled highly in mathematics, economics and geography, had to stay home for at least a year because she did not have any source of funding to take her to the next academic level.

During that time, she got employed as a cleaner at a local hotel. In 2016, the hotel owner rewarded the hard-working employee with a place to sleep and sponsorship at Uganda Christian University (UCU), where she pursued the Bachelor of Procurement and Logistics Management.

She completed her first-year without much challenge. Trouble started in her second year. The facility housing the hotel where she worked was sold to a new owner who pushed Nanyanzi’s boss and university sponsor out with no funds to continue supporting Nanyanzi.

Nanyanzi dropped out of school and got a job as maid to save for her university tuition and help pay rent at her new residence that she shared with a friend and single mother of three. But the money she earned was barely enough for food and rent. That’s when she turned to classmates.

“I told my classmates that I am tired of life and suffering. And if they ever heard that I was dead, it should not surprise them,” Nanyanzi said, “At that time, I was feeling alone, worthless and full of hate for everyone. I wanted to die because I knew that would save me from suffering and would not hurt anybody.”

To her amazement, UCU students collected over 1.7 million shillings ($460 American) for her tuition. Some gave her food. With the student assistance and another job cleaning university offices, she still fell short of needed finances by about 500,000 shillings ($135).

That’s where washing clothes came in. In Uganda, washing of clothes is predominantly done by hand. Individuals either wash their own or hire people of lower economic status and education to wash for them. Nanyanzi humbled herself for that job among her fellow students.

Her servanthood yielded publicity, including the call from a stranger to help further. That Good Samaritan took her to a bank. The man, who asked to be anonymous, paid her tuition and other fees for all the remaining semesters.

Nanyanzi said she asked the man if he was an angel and not human. He laughed before explaining that he and his siblings also grew up with much hardship. After pulling out of poverty, they resolved to help whoever they could help.

“It took me time to accept that, indeed, that was not a dream,” Nanyanzi said. “And because of that, whenever I pray these days, even when something is really bothering me, I have that confidence that the God that catered for my tuition is able to do everything.”

With a Cumulative General Point Average (CGPA) of 4.44 of 5.0 for her previous three semesters, there is little doubt that Nanyanzi is headed for a first-class undergraduate degree.

After that she desires to obtain a master’s degree in Statistical Economics.

“I may not have food or rent today but I believe my God is always with me. Like Jesus said, ‘man does not only live by bread alone.’ When I lack food, I pray to God and I believe he is preparing my happy days ahead,” Nanyanzi concludes.

+++++

If you are interested in supporting Uganda Christian University students in need, contact Mark Bartels, Uganda Christian University Partners’ Executive Director, at  mtbartels@gmail.com.

Also follow our Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin pages.

New video conveys shift in mission goal

Scholarship, , , , , , ,


Diane Babirye, right, UCU student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies, produced the video. BrendahNdagire, UCU graduate and UCU Partners communications assistant, was an editor. (UCU Partners photo)
Diane Babirye, right, UCU student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies, produced the video. Brendah Ndagire, UCU graduate and UCU Partners communications assistant, was an editor. (UCU Partners photo)

How can you best pull a country out of poverty?  Education support.

And what does that education support look like?  Books, supplies, technology, buildings, faculty and student scholarships.

Such is the message of a new video from Uganda Christian University (UCU) Partners, a Pennsylvania-based non-profit focused for the past 15 years on providing funds for these necessities at UCU.

The video contains part of this interview conducted on graduation day at the UCU-Mukono campus in October 2018 with UCU Partners Executive Director Mark Bartels. (UCU Partners photo)
The video contains part of this interview conducted on graduation day at the UCU-Mukono campus in October 2018 with UCU Partners Executive Director Mark Bartels. (UCU Partners photo)

“There is a shift in the idea of missions and ministry overseas,” said UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels. “Rather than bring as many Americans as we can to help, we know the best people to address Uganda’s challenges and problems are Ugandans.”

Bartels, who lived in Uganda with his wife, Abby, and children for 10 years until 2014, asserts that UCU is best equipped to deliver quality, university education for East Africans. UCU’s strength is not just because of its strong academic programs in eight faculty areas, but because Christian character building takes place alongside the high-level knowledge and skills.

The five-minute video contains remarks from Bartels and UCU’s Financial Aid Officer Walter Washika as well as testimonials and appreciation from seven scholarship recipients.It was produced by Diane Babirye, UCU student studying journalism and media studies; and edited by Brendah Ndagire, UCU graduate and UCU Partners communications assistant; and Patty Huston-Holm, UCU Partners Communications Director.

The video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlie4AmRJCk

***

For more stories and experiences, visit https://www.ugandapartners.org.   To assist a UCU student or otherwise support the university, contact Mark Bartels, Executive Director, UCU Partners, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org or go to https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/.

Also follow our Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin pages.

God liberates ‘a girl’ from Kalerwe slum to attain Master Degree in Divinity

Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology, , , , ,


Lovincer Katana, Uganda Christian University Partners scholarship recipient at 2018 graduation (UgandaPartners Photo)

UPDATE: Since this story was written in October, the subject of the interview has been ordained and currently volunteering with the Uganda Christian University’s Chaplaincy (December 2, 2018).

By Brendah Ndagire

Her family said “no.” But God said “yes.” It wasn’t quite that simple as Lovincer Katana, the oldest of seven children, straddled her dream of being a pastor with the acknowledgement that she wouldn’t make much money to support herself and her family.

Lovincer, a Uganda Christian University (UCU) M.Div’18 graduate, found a role model in her home priest, the now retired Rev. Kisitu Frederick. As a teenager and young woman in her 20s, she remembered how he talked at great lengths about his positive experiences as a student at Bishop Tucker College, which was renamed Uganda Christian University 21 years ago. Now age 28, Lovincer recalled being particularly inspired by the way Rev. Kisitu used to teach and engage the scripture for his congregation at St. Nicholas Church Kalerwe. She wanted those skills and that gift.

With a passion for theology, she knew the obstacles. Being a priest in Uganda does not usually come with financial gains. Most priests have to have another source of income as a teacher or a professor to economically sustain their families. As such and with the cultural expectation for children to support parents and younger siblings, most Ugandan mothers and fathers don’t encourage their children to study theology and take on priestly roles.

Such was especially true for Lovincer. Not only was she the first-born daughter of seven children, but she grew up in one of the harshest environments of Kampala, in the Kalerwe slums. Her parents wanted her to study something that would deliver not just herself but the rest of the family from the economic poverty of their neighborhood. To adhere to the pressure and accept her responsibility, she obtained her first degree in education from one of Uganda’s public universities, Kyambogo University in 2012, with the hope of gaining full-time employment as a secondary school teacher.

Lovincer graduated and got that job, but it was short lived. She worked for a few months as a teacher on the pay-roll at Gayaza High School, a Uganda girls school before being laid off. At the same time, she served at her home church in Kalerwe and was not discouraged as she continued to see God leading her to deeper service.

Lovincer with her fellow M.Div graduates at the graduation ceremony in July 2018 (UgandaPartners Photo)

In May 2015, after a rigorous application process for a three-year Master Program in Divinity, she was thrilled to find out that she was one of the 20 theology students in her class who would be receiving Uganda Christian University Partners financial support towards tuition. In 2018, Lovincer got that degree. Uganda Christian University Partners recently caught up with her to learn about her experiences at the university and where God is leading her. (This interview is edited for clarity.)

Briefly, share with us what has stood out for you as a theology student at UCU?

UCU is a unique university all around. What has stood out for me in the past three years were two days of the week – Tuesday and Thursday. At 12 Noon, students and faculty members would take time to pause whatever they were doing, and come to gather at Nkoyoyo Hall for community worship. I felt a unique sense of belonging in Christ and identity with God that transcended classes, ages, expertise, and our distinct backgrounds. It is our way of paying attention to what God is doing in our lives. And beyond theological classes I took, I really appreciated the foundational class on Worldviews. It exposed me to different perspectives and understanding about how other people perceive the world. It was important for me because often times as people we want to make sure our own worldview is dominant. We make sure we push it onto others without creating room for us to understand why other people think the way they do or why and how they were raised differently. And from there, we are able to understand to share what we believe or how we view the world around us. It is important to primarily understand where the other (person) is coming from so that we can share our perspective of God and the world from an understanding position. Finally I appreciated the practical aspect of our divinity classes, where we were equipped to exercise church ceremonies such as baptism, officiating weddings and so forth.

Lovincer’s Ordination Ceremony at All Saints Cathedral, Nakasero. (UgandaPartners Photo)

Reflecting on your life before and during UCU to your graduation, where do you see God’s role in making this graduation happen?

God has been there for me really from the start. Every time I tell people that it is God who can liberate a girl like me from the slums of Kalerwe…come here at UCU and sit in a class with students with significantly different life experiences. Through Uganda Partners God has paid for my tuition, food, and accommodation at UCU. It was God who made it possible for me to afford to live a comfortable life and have access to all the resources I needed to study at UCU. It is not a day-to-day opportunity that God touches someone’s heart over the oceans to care for the education of an economically poor woman from Kalerwe. Today I celebrate this graduation joy because God in His mercy gave me the opportunity to live out my dream. And that I do not take for granted.

The Uganda Partners scholarship was very meaningful to me in ways I cannot exhaust saying. There were very many people struggling with tuition for an entire semester. We could raise some money for a few of them, and as we thought about our own blessing, we set aside a time on our Monday morning devotion to pray for people in the United States who make it possible for us to have access to tuition and other scholarly needs.

How have you gotten closer to God throughout your studies?

The UCU setting itself makes anyone get closer to God if only they pay attention to their surroundings. Apart from the time set aside for community worship on Tuesdays and Thursdays, UCU has a talking compound. If you are walking around, you notice these scriptures embroidered on almost every building speaking to you. I remember there was a time I felt really discouraged after our Hebrew exam. I was trying so hard to understand Hebrew and when we finished I felt like I did not do enough to get my desired grade. Then, I was walking by the Nursing Building and I don’t remember the scripture entirely but I do remember how meaningful and encouraging it was on that day. It (the scripture) remained my source of encouragement throughout my life at UCU, and it was one of the ways I stayed and/or have gotten closer to God.

Where do you see God taking you now as a Priest?

I know for certain that God is calling me to serve His people in the Church. Right now I do not know where He is leading me as far as a physical location is concerned, but the ministry skills I have acquired from UCU makes me believe that God wants me to share my story and His work in me with others. Every time I share my story with people, they take time to truly understand that someone who grew up in the slum, a place of lack, where I constantly struggled to find food and other basic needs would study at a great university such as UCU and excel in her studies and graduate on time. For many people it is hard to connect the two (i.e., abject poverty with academic excellence). But God in His own way is able to raise all of us in our own slums, and for that I intend to use my story, experiences and skills I have gotten from UCU to encourage lives, be part of someone’s life, and give fully back to the community in any way I can.

***

If you are interested in supporting Divinity Students who are struggling with tuition at Uganda Christian University, contact Uganda Partners’ Executive Director Mark Bartels @mtbartels@gmail.com.

Also follow our Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin pages.

From Grass to Grace: ‘Good Samaritan’ acts help UCU Partners’ recipient give back

Scholarship, , , , ,


Sarah Tumuramye, left, with Ivan Atuyambe, a UCU alum who paid for Sarah’s university education (UCU Partners photo)

By Patty Huston-Holm

Ivan Atuyambe has been spat upon, abandoned, beaten and starved. Conversely, the 31-year-old Uganda Christian University (UCU) graduate who works out of Tanzania is saved, loved, educated, and determined to give back.

His dream job is Secretary General of the United Nations, or something akin to a high-ranking international civil servant. His goal is to drive transformational leadership and good governance in Africa. Ivan is on his way now as he leads a regional leadership development initiative called the East Africa Youth Leadership Summit (www.youleadsummit.org), which aims to raise a new breed of leaders in East Africa. He also founded the Africa Centre for Integrity and Anti-Corruption. (www.acacia-africa.org)

During a 12-hour drive from Uganda’s central Kampala to western Bwindi, Ivan, who obtained his first of three academic degrees at UCU through a UCU Partners scholarship, told his story of desperation, redemption and inspiration.

Desperation
“I felt worthless, hated, miserable, with tears as the only thing coming from me,” he recalled of his early childhood.

To the best of his recollection, he was age 5 when he watched his mother walk out the door, abandoning marriage and motherhood in frustration from her drunk and abusive husband. Subsequently, the four children – Ivan, a brother and two sisters – became more frequent victims of their father’s anger. Nobody, including their father or his other two wives, wanted Ivan or his siblings.

One of Ivan’s designated caregivers was a woman he called “auntie.” She beat him with a broom and threatened to kill him. Another was a stepmother who resented raising another woman’s child, threatening divorce if the boy was in the house.

“I hatched a plan to kill myself by drowning in a huge river,” Ivan recalled. “I went to the river and went down three times, but came back up in fear.”

The early morning suicide attempt came when Ivan was about age 7. Confused and directionless, he walked away from the riverbanks, thinking that others might see some use in him as a cattle caretaker. He knew if he did that successfully for a year, he could get a heifer or bull of his own. Without food and water and wearing an oversized sweater and no trousers, he walked over the hills of Kabale into Rukungiri. As the day darkened, he was spotted by an Anglican pastor, who took him to his home.

“Nobody wanted to touch me or get near me,” Ivan recalled of that first experience walking into the pastor’s house. “I was dirty, miserable looking, half dressed. They gave me a long coat and mat for sleeping. I laid on it at night and picked it up each morning before everybody woke.”

To stay in the house, he was required to dig potatoes and do other family chores, including cooking and delivering food to children at their schools. Things improved when his abandoned child status got him a primary school scholarship through the African Evangelistic Enterprise. But they got worse as the pastor’s wife grew to believe he was the biological son of the pastor and another woman. The wife and her daughters exhibited anger by withholding food and spitting in his footsteps.

The pastor told Ivan not to despair and to “be patient.”

He was. He continued to carry water, clean and cook for the family while thriving at school. He completed Primary 7 at age 14 before the funding stopped.

Redemption
At age 12, while still in Primary 4, Ivan was saved.

“I didn’t know much about God,” Ivan said. “There was a woman evangelist speaking at a mission from John 15: 4-7 and about doing work in His name, and God being the only reliable father.”

With a less-than-stellar biological father, Ivan found peace in the message that he had a heavenly Father who loved him. He turned his life over to Christ, and joined an older person’s evening fellowship, which fulfilled his new hunger for the Word and for feeling valued amidst ill treatment at home. He also began to lead Bible fellowship at school.

At age 13, Ivan learned his father had died. In 2001, he searched and found his mother. Inflicted with HIV/AIDs from a lifestyle of prostitution, she apologized for abandoning her son and asked for forgiveness. Weeks later, she died.

Shortly thereafter, a United Kingdom couple that met Ivan at a Christian conference, agreed to pay his school fees through much of his secondary education. It was during his first days as a secondary school student that Ivan recalls “the most amazing aspect of his life.” The Rev. Dr. Edward Muhima, then National Team Leader of the African Evangelistic Enterprise, came to the school as a guest preacher. A short time later, Ivan was welcomed into the loving, welcoming family of Muhima, who was then bishop of the North Kigesi Diocese in the Western Uganda District of Rukungiri.

“I shared a room with the son,” Ivan said. “Almost immediately, I was treated equally as one of the children and by the children. Even today, these are my only and closest relatives – parents and brothers and sisters. I love them; they love me. This is my God-given family.”

Through life as a Bishop’s son, he met a couple from Washington, D.C., and a woman from Dallas, Texas. Together, they paid his higher education through Uganda Christian University Partners.

Inspiration
Being angry about mistreatment was never an option for Ivan.

Looking back on his life, he focuses on the caring pastor who picked him up from the street on that day of his suicide attempt; the scholarship sponsors, including UCU Partners that supported Ivan’s bachelor’s degree in Public Administration and Management at UCU; and the retired Bishop and his family that Ivan calls his own. He also has been blessed to receive scholarships for two post-graduate degrees from universities in Germany and Austria.

Today, the people and organizations that gave to him have inspired Ivan to give to others. One of his first giving back to UCU and UCU Partners was to sponsor the sister of a friend to get her degree from UCU.

“I thought he was joking at first,” said Sarah Tumuramye, the recipient of Ivan’s scholarship for her UCU Business Administration degree she attained in 2018. In a break from her job as cashier at the Batwa Development Program (Bwindi, Uganda), she said she is “so grateful.”

Ivan has sponsored four girls total – two university graduates (including Sarah), one currently in an undergraduate program and one in primary school. He also supports people living on some land he purchased.

Ivan’s full-time job is as the Regional Training and Development Advisor at the Danish government’s MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation, in Arusha, Tanzania. His work of engaging governments, development NGOs and youth leaders takes him across Africa and to Asia, Europe and Arab regions.

“So many people believed in me and supported me,” Ivan said. “I’m investing in others the way they invested in me. And I know the honor and glory for any blessings go to the Lord.”

Chris Nsanze, left, a dentist, poses with Ivan, who says Chris was one of his role models growing up (UCU Partners Photo)

++++

If you are interested in supporting students who are making a difference in the communities around Uganda such as UCU Partners Scholarship Recipient Ivan Atuyambe is, contact Uganda Partners’ Director @mtbartels@gmail.com.
Also follow our Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin pages.