Rev. Amos Kirmera and his wife, Florence, receive prayers from UCU’s vice chancellor and priests during an Aug. 25 church service on the Mukono, Uganda. The family has been chosen to serve a minimum of two years in Massachusetts. (UCU Partners photo)
By Patty Huston-Holm
Rev. Amos Kimera is aware of how alcohol, technology, materialism and peer pressure get in the way of a life fully committed to Christ. He’s seen that in his 36 years of growing up and working in Uganda. He also knows such temptations are greater in developed countries.
In early September, when moving with his family to the United States, Rev. Amos hopes to play a small role in turning that around. The Uganda Christian University (UCU) assistant chaplain has accepted an offer to study at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and to be a pastor at a Ugandan church in the Boston, MA area.
On a Monday afternoon and after fighting traffic in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala and helping eight students from Germany settle in for a semester on the UCU Mukono campus, he reflected on the decision that was three years in the making. In addition to offers on the American side, he had the blessings of Archbishop of Uganda the Most Rt. Rev. Stanley Ntagali and UCU Vice Chancellor Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi.
Mostly, however, the New Testament Matthew Chapter 9 stories of Jesus’ healing drive Rev. Amos. He recalled a visit to Boston and one youth healing opportunity that was missed.
“An 18-year-old from Uganda had everything going for him with offers for college and more,” Rev. Amos recalled. “Yet, he felt pressure and felt not good enough. He committed suicide.”
UCU Vice Chancellor Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, right, sends off a member of the UCU chaplaincy. The family was scheduled to leave Uganda on Sept. 3. (UCU Partners photo)
In partnership with his wife, Florence, Rev. Amos has not just counseled youth about their self worth and positive lifestyle changes, but has walked alongside of them. Sometimes, it is listening, laughing, watching a movie –not judging while demonstrating a lifestyle devoid of alcohol and other destructive behavior. Often, God is not mentioned at all.
“My wife is the biggest supporter of my ministry,” he said. “We have had young people at our house, telling us they are a ‘waste.’ My wife tells them that others may define them that way, but that is not who they are.”
While working on a master’s degree in urban ministry leadership and serving at St. Peter’s Anglican Church of Uganda in Massachusetts, Rev. Amos anticipates his work will be with youth ages 2 to 20. Florence will volunteer at the church while focusing on the care of their two children, Makaila Mwebaza Nakalema (5 years) and Moriah Mirembe Kisakye Nassuna (11 months). With husband and wife from the central Ugandan region – she from Mukono and he from Mityana and Luweero – they plan to reinforce the Luganda language and tribal customs at home while introducing their children to a new culture in the United States.
In previous visits to Germany (where he forged a relationship between UCU and an international university), the United Kingdom, South Africa, Indonesia, Norway, Poland, Italy, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and the USA, Rev. Amos has become keenly aware how wealth pulls people away from the Christian faith.
“When you have everything, you don’t need God,” he said. “My fridge is full, I have a car. Life is fast. Where is God, and why do I need Him?”
The unintended consequence of modern technology, particularly for youth, is the distraction from a faith-based walk. Rev. Amos’ strategy is not to fight modern media, but to join them. With his first degree from UCU in mass communications and a post-graduate degree in divinity, he is seeking solutions on how “robots” can make the church stronger.
“Church leaders need to learn how to use these tools so we’re not left behind,” he said. “Children are struggling between modern ways and the Truth. We need to be smart to overcome world views and remind youth that God is in control.”
Leaving UCU is bittersweet for the assistant chaplain. He will miss the students. Likewise, Amos and Florence will miss their family members who live in Uganda. Florence’s mom has been a constant babysitter. And a Boston winter with bitter-cold snow and driving a car on a different side of the road will be among cultural adjustments.
But Rev. Amos thinks about Matthew 9:38 and Jesus’ message to his disciples about the plentiful harvest with few workers; he knows he is being sent into that harvest field.
“God is sending me into this mission as He always has,” he said.
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To support UCU students, staff, 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.
A conference keynote speaker, Dr. Wendy Saul, left, poses with Uganda Christian University staff members (left to right) Mary Owor, Deborah Mugawe and Patty Huston-Holm (a conference breakout session presenter).
By Patty Huston-Holm
More than 500 teachers, librarians, NGO leaders and policy makers from throughout the continent of Africa but also from North America convened for the 11th Pan-African Literacy for All conference August 20-22 in Kampala, Uganda. Several staff, students and alumni from Uganda Christian University (UCU) were among participants.
The overriding theme for 80 conference keynote and breakout sessions was how literacy is a bridge to equity for all countries. Most presentations focused on the country of Uganda with sub-themes that included research, strategies and advocacy for mother tongue languages, gender balance, responsible use of technology, work originality, financial support, teaching in the context of the real world and service for handicapped students.
UCU writing and study skills tutor Mary Owor, left, participates in a conference session.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Uganda has an adult literacy rate of 70 percent, compared to the 95 percent United States literacy rate. The Uganda male literacy rate is 79 percent compared to 62 percent for females.
The single biggest discussion centered around how early emphasis on original language positively impacts literacy levels. The late Professor William Senteza Kajubi in 1987 authored a report that in 1992 became an adopted “White Paper” for reforming Uganda education, including the teaching of mother tongue languages for some of the seven primary grades before the six secondary/high school grades. While Uganda has 65 indigenous communities with 44 languages, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has endorsed grouping those into 12 “combined” local languages.
UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) in 2016 recommended that mother tongue language be reinforced over English for at least primary grades 1 through 3. This was based, in part, on Uganda National Examinations Board results showing high primary school performance in mathematics that is taught in the mother tongue compared to low performance for reading and writing where English is used.
Despite research and government documentation that reinforces the value of early focus on local language and expert opinion that a person only learns to read and write once in a lifetime, conference participants argued that implementation is not taking place, particularly in private schools. Some conference delegates pointed out that teachers who contend they are focusing on mother tongue only teach it “15 minutes a day.” Others pointed to a lack of local language books to support Ugandan government guidelines. And still others commented that parents and some other stakeholders want English emphasis for the status of it.
NGOs in particular were reminded to provide assistance for the context of the community to be served vs. implementation of a program that works in developed countries.
English books that exist in Uganda often contain language and pictures depicting girls in subservient roles to boys. Other education gender equity balance issues are related to support of girl menstrual challenges, early marriage and unequal sharing of home chores that lessen girl time for studies and, therefore, improved literacy. The Kajubi report went so far as to suggest that because of such issues, girls who make it to the university level should get an extra 1.5 points to assure enrollment there. The Ugandan government adopted this proposal as well as the report’s reinforcement of technical/workplace skills in education.
“Literacy doesn’t just mean reading and writing,” said Deborah Mugawe, UCU daycare administrator. “It’s so much more. It’s empowering.”
In addition to leaving the conference with information to apply to her work, she realized that “the problems I face, I’m not alone.” She is thinking about how to get more people to sit and read with a child than to simply donate books. And she is even more convinced of the need to reinforce literacy at an early age.
Mary Owor, a UCU PhD candidate and Foundation Studies tutor, was most interested in the mother tongue information because it informs her teaching of undergraduate student writing and study skills.
“I realize most of our students struggle with writing because they started with English too soon,” she said. “I know now that I need to give the students more practical work…and I know I should write my own local language books for children.”
The conference, held every two years, will be in Zambia in 2021 with an exact date and location to be determined.
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To support UCU students, staff, 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.
Nelson Mandela attends to a farmer’s pig in Olupet village, Kumi District
By Douglas Olum
Kumi is a district in Eastern Uganda. On average, it takes six hours by road to get there from the capital, Kampala. Like most parts of the country, Kumi is agro-based, but farming is largely done for survival only. Often farmers suffer from famine as pests and diseases destroy their crops. Sometimes, long droughts burn down the crops. The ultimate tragedy is starvation and death, including among children.
Odeke is a farmer in Olupet Village in Kumi Sub-County. While he was considered a commercial farmer in the village, Odeke said for a long time he was losing his crops to pests and diseases because he lacked the knowledge to control them.
Students from Uganda Christian University’s (UCU) department of Agricultural and Biological Sciences have been in Kumi District since May 2019 on an internship program targeted at contributing to innovations for sustainable rural development in Uganda. A team of six students was dispatched to three sub-counties, with a pair taking each sub-county under the program.
(L-R) Newton Kucel, Nelson Mandela and a farmer assess the crop quality as they harvest vegetables from a garden
Olupet Village received Newton Kucel and Nelson Mandela, both of whom are third-year Bachelor of Agricultural Science and Entrepreneurship students. The pair that has spent at least three months in the community carried out needs assessment, held farm clinics where they helped and trained farmers to identify different pests and diseases, taught preventive and control measures, and also established demonstration farms from which they taught the farmers commercial vegetables production, piggery, poultry farming and record keeping.
Mandela said that at the time they went to the village, they discovered that the farmers were suffering despite investing so much effort in their farms. He said crops were dying in the gardens out of treatable causes and even the little that the farmers could harvest would not help much because the farmers lacked ideas on how to market their products. And because of that, they designed measures to address those specific challenges.
Odeke said the students’ measures have helped them to manage and control various pests and diseases, improve their crop yields by making and using organic manure, cut their costs of production and also see new opportunities in poultry and piggery. He said they also learned to study the eating patterns of various pests, when to spray their crops and what quantity of pesticides to use. These were areas in which the farmers had no prior knowledge.
“To be sincere, these students have helped not only our group but the entire community,” Odeke said. “People have been calling me and flocking to my home from as far as five kilometers (3 miles away) to attend the farm clinics.”
The local farmers credit UCU for helping them.
“I am really so thankful to the students, their lecturers and the university for thinking about us,” Odeke said. “I feel indebted that you people are offering us a very important service for free yet we should have paid you. I am going to use the knowledge you have given us to teach my children and other farmers.”
At the time of this visit, the farmers were already harvesting sorghum and cow peas. The students were helping them to manage the post-harvest processes to control possible waste. They also were connecting with markets outside the region to establish competent prices for various products in order to save the farmers from exploitation by middle men.
Odeke said they were able to get a good yield of the two crops due to the encouragement of the students. They are integrating sorghum with cow peas to control pod-suckers, a kind of pest that had bothered them and caused them so much loss in terms of yield for a very long time.
Ms. Ruth Buteme, a lecturer at the department who also doubled as the coordinator and students’ supervisor under the program, said the testimonies were quite encouraging and showed the need to carry more of such extension services to more villages and also other parts of the country.
“I am happy that the students were able to solve some problems here,” she said. “The world needs problem solvers. We are hoping that we can continue bringing more students here and also take them elsewhere in order to help our country develop. Uganda has to develop. And there is no way we are going to realize the desired development without involving the common man in the villages.”
In line with UCU’s vision to become a Centre of Excellence in the heart of Africa, Buteme said the department targets to become a Centre of Excellence in vegetable research to help combat silent hunger in Uganda.
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To support UCU students, programs and facilities, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.
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.
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To support UCU students, programs and facilities, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.
Sarah Lagot Odwong (third from left) celebrating Uganda independence day with friends in the United Kingdom.
By Sarah Lagot Odwong
Graduate school was always a childhood dream. A Master’s degree. Perhaps several Master’s degrees. And a PhD, that is Dr. Sarah Lagot Odwong, has quite a punchy ring to it. The academic designation adds power to tell the story of hope.
From a simple, dusty Barjere village in the throes of recovery after over two decades of civil war in Northern Uganda, beauty could rise from ashes. More importantly, young women who shared my background could see that they could achieve anything. They could paint pages of colorful life portraits. They could tell their life stories in whatever manner or fashion they felt represented their authenticity.
Uganda Christian University graduate, Sarah Lagot Odwong (center) with members of her church youth group in England.
When I got an email confirming my admission into a global top 10 humanitarian graduate school at the University of Manchester (England), I envisioned pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of my life painfully strewn by circumstances and carefully gathered back finally fitting into one coherent whole. Now, I could visualize myself seated at “The Table of Men.” Now, I could see myself applying for global positions of leadership in the places where people who looked like me, who thought like me, who spoke like me hardly ventured or never got the opportunity to enter. I was elated.
This breakthrough was the culmination of prayer and hard work. And so my journey to England started. I did not know what to expect. I was anxiously hoping that I did not make a mistake in coming to the graduate school instead of accepting a seemingly life-changing job offer.
I knew that in spite of my fears, I had to make this experience count. I was welcomed to the United Kingdom by a harsh gust of icy wind at the airport. I remarked to a colleague who came to pick me up that I hoped the rainy, chilly weather was not ominous of what lay ahead.
Once at school, I settled in with much gusto to the rigors of course registration, opening bank accounts, finding a place to live, attending socials with classmates, joining societies, visiting museums, searching for a new church, meeting new people from around the world, learning to ride double-decker buses and trains, trying out new cuisines (I live three minutes away from a two-mile stretch of Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, Lebanese, Afghan, Iraqi, Caribbean, Chinese, Thai restaurants dubbed The Curry Mile.). The experiences of a new place, new culture, and new people were initially exciting. Until they weren’t.
One shock that jolted me out of my reverie was an academic roadblock. For most of my life, school came fairly easy to me. Granted, I work hard. Extremely hard, I might add. However graduate school outside of Uganda challenged me in ways that I could never fathom. My classmates were 29 of some of the smartest, most competitive and accomplished people from around the world. Some had led United Nations humanitarian operations in Iraq. Others had overseen disaster relief efforts in Haiti, Japan and other corners of the globe. Suddenly, my experience leading a small communications department in the Uganda Country Office of an international non-profit seemed incomparable.
This was when the “impostor” syndrome set in. I wondered if I was good enough. I wondered if by some strange twist of fate I had fluked my way into the program. I pondered on how I would measure up to academic giants and people of noteworthy professional report over the course of program. My self-confidence dipped. It must have showed. Some boisterous types made it a point to laud their career exploits and academic achievements around me.
Overnight, my work was not good enough. The professors’ comments on my assignments were razor sharp and captious. I lacked critical thinking abilities, they said. My academic writing was lackluster. My thoughts were incoherent. I needed to reference better. Stop using colloquial language, they opined.
One in particular failed me flat in an assignment, calling my referencing for the paper “atrocious. “ I failed and picked myself up numerous times, but this time was different. The surly remarks ate into my psyche. I started to feel constantly inadequate. Self-doubt crept in. I walked into the graduate study office and cried at my desk.
Dark cold days, no friends, no family and mind ready to explode with stress and fatigue. I was struggling. And I did not know how to get a grip on the fast spinning chaotic wheel that my life had become.
Being thousands of miles away from my biological family in Uganda and my bonus family in Ohio, I kept up a facade of a big strong girl facing a big unwelcoming world. But even big strong girls falter. Phone calls, emails and texts from my loved ones contained the usual banter of familial relations. “How are you?’,” they prodded. I answered in the affirmative. I was doing okay, I was learning new things, and I was meeting new people. How far from the truth! I feared to rock their boats. Confessions of struggle would elicit worry and panic.
I made a difficult mental decision to turn things around for myself. It took utmost courage but here’s what I did:
I asked to resubmit certain assignments where I attained less than desirable grades. They were re-marked and I got much better grades.
I extracted myself from the class social setting to avoid the constant negativity and comparisons.
I sieved comments put on my assignments. I took to heart the ones that prompted me to learn and improve. I dissociated from the ones that were penned in jest and bad taste.
I joined a new church and started attending youth fellowships on Thursday evenings.
I became more deliberate about keeping in touch with family and friends in Uganda and in Ohio. I called regularly. I sent texts. Maintaining a line of connection with the people who mattered most in my life reminded me of the circle that valued my worth. It reaffirmed my existence and evoked appreciation of my capabilities. Family and friends will do for your self-confidence what a thousand self-praise singers cannot.
Above all, I found God in a brand new way. In the midst of the chaos, He anchored me. In the midst of insecurity and instability, He was a refuge. I developed a relationship of reckless faith, of absolute trust in his ability to steer the course of my life. I knew that despite what the reality presented, I was coming out stronger on the other side. That for me, made all the difference.
When people ask me about my experience of graduate school, my mind does not immediately wander to the mundane academic rigors associated with it. This was the easy part.
Instead, it veers to something more profound: Character.
Nobody prepared me for the loneliness, doubt, tears, frustration, agony and disappointments. I had to learn to gain resolve, to build a stronger relationship with God, to strengthen my resilience muscles, to find the inner strength daily to get up and put in the work. I came to understand that the mind creates in the spiritual what eventually manifests in the physical. You have to believe in you first before anybody else does. I realized our lives are dictated by variables and constants. Variables are opinions of men and always subject to change. Constants are laws. Our lives should be run by constants (truth). There is no truth without the WORD.
This certainly put things into perspective. People who maligned and doubted me uttered variables. My life should not be swayed like a yo-yo ball in the direction of their dictates. I needed to remember whose I am.
I chose to align to what the WORD said about me. I am an overcomer and a world changer. Whosoever is born of God overcomes the world. God’s purpose for our lives is that we fight the good fight of faith. Perpetual sleepless nights spent studying, constant fatigue, no social life, walking alone in a snow-filled park, praying in the cold; I needed to keep sight of the vision. The resultant good grades, the PhD admission, the extended professional networks, speaking engagements with global organizations did not come out of nowhere. They were borne out of painful sacrifices, never giving up, and the unmerited favor of God.
In a nutshell, my key takeaway from graduate school was the importance of character in navigating this journey called life. People see your outward glory. They do not see the toil and sacrifices planted prior.
Do not expect many to understand or even support your dream. Even the people set in your path to steer you to your destination will be inhibitors. Hold on to the people who love and support you. They will buttress you from the waves of adversity.
Above all, remember that the situation you find yourself in is only “impossible” because you have not taken action. “Impossible” is only an opinion in the minds of men. You define the limits of what is possible and what is not. As long as you have a mind to think, you have everything you need to achieve your dreams.
Becoming Dr. Sarah Lagot Odwong does not seem so far-fetched anymore. Running the United Nations Directorate of Gender is not a childhood mirage anymore. It is actually a dream within potential grasp. One day, a young girl in Barjere village will say: “I pursued because I saw her pursue. I soldiered on because she never gave up.”
All things are possible to him or her who believes. Pick up your cross and try again.
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More information about Uganda Christian University can be obtained at http://ucu.ac.ug/.
Uganda Christian University Law alumnus and International Justice Mission advocate, Conrad Oroya Obol (third right), shakes hand with Uganda’s Chief Justice, Bart Katurebe (left), during the launch of a plea-bargaining week in Gulu, Uganda, in June.
By Olum Douglas
In August 2016, a court sitting in Kampala, presided over by high-court judge, Wilson Masalu Musene, sent Stephen Kato, a 26-year-old married man, to a 10-year jail term for raping a 60-year-old woman.
Many Ugandans thought the sentence was too lenient. They went wild over the social media, condemning the judge for what they termed “bias,” given the fact that the country’s Penal Code Act (Section 124) prescribes a death sentence for a convicted rapist.
But the sentence was a product of an initiative by the judiciary, the plea bargain, through which the convict pleaded guilty instead of going through a trial, thus saving the court time and resources.
Plea bargain is an initiative in the criminal justice system where the defendant enters an agreement with the prosecution to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecutor to drop one or more charges, reduce a charge to a less serious offense, or recommend to the judge a specific sentence without going through normal court procedures. Once a deal is struck, the prosecutor, together with the advocate, presents the signed agreement with proposed punishment before the magistrate who either approves or rejects it.
In Uganda, the judiciary adopted the plea bargain initiative in 2015 to try and reduce the challenge of case backlogs that have proven a great menace to the justice system in the country. The problem is mostly attributed to inadequate human and financial resources in the judiciary.
A Justice Law and Order Sector January 2018 report revealed that many people continued to languish in the prisons with case files unattended. In one of the worst case scenarios, three suspects facing capital offences were forgotten in prison, after a judge adjourned their cases to the next convenient session, which only came after a decade of waiting.
Eliminating backlogs like these is where Uganda Christian University (UCU) Law students come in.
Students of UCU, through a partnership with the Christian-based Pepperdine University in California, help bridge the gap. Since the adoption of the initiative four years ago, students pursuing the Bachelor of Laws at UCU have been participating in the processes that include: studying files of accused persons, especially those facing charges of capital offences; examining accused persons; counselling prisoners; and bargaining for them.
Mirriam Achieng, a lecturer at the UCU Faculty of Law, said the students’ participation is part of a requirement for a course, Clinical Legal Education, where students must carry out projects and have hands-on experience of justice delivery.
In 2018, the initiative saw at least 600 cases disposed within five working days. This year, a report published by PML Daily Correspondent, a Uganda-based, online publication, revealed that at least 300 cases were disposed of in Northern Uganda’s Gulu area alone during a week-long, Plea-Bargaining Prison Camp held in the district in June.
The Uganda Judiciary Services body organizes the camp. Accused persons in prisons are sensitized, registered for the process, and their files are shared with the students for assessment and prior preparations. The students then meet the accused persons, listen to their issues and counsel them about the rights they will forego should they opt for a plea bargain. They also prepare the accused persons for the process, and participate in the negotiations until a final agreement is reached.
The down side is that sometimes prisoners plead guilty and serve their sentences in order to end anxiety and the uncertainly of whether they will be tried or not, even when they are sure that they did not commit the crime for which they are being accused.
Achieng says the students’ participation in the program has not only helped future lawyers in research and dissertation writing, but also gained for them connections with their colleagues from Pepperdine as well as attorneys and other legal minds from the United States of America.
Through this participation, UCU students have contributed towards reducing case backlogs, decongesting prisons, reducing anxiety among prisoners and enabling the accused persons to participate in determining their own punishments.
“I was sick and you visited me… truly I tell you whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” – Matthew 25:36-40
By the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, Vice Chancellor, Uganda Christian University
My grandson, coming up on two years in 2018, is a stark reminder of what Uganda doesn’t have in medical care. Despite all my education and connections, as well as those of my wife, Ruth, we were powerless to find anyone in our country who could fix his tiny heart that was broken from birth. My daughter and her husband flew with their five-month-old son to India, while we remained behind and prayed.
Today, as I cuddle him in my arms, melt under his smile and watch him run around our kitchen, I am reminded that men, women and children die more often in poor countries like mine.
The World Health Organization ranks Uganda’s healthcare as one of the worst in the world. Data verifying our provider deficiencies are:
One of every 300 births ends a mother’s life.
Malaria causes 14% of our deaths.
One million people have HIV.
The Uganda Ministry of Health noted these among many other facts and factors in a development plan issued in 2015. Among data in this report are 45 infant deaths per 1,000 births and a Ugandan average life expectancy of less than 60 years. To put our need in perspective, the USA infant mortality rate is 7 per 1,000, and in the UK, the average person can expect to live to age 80. The Uganda “Vision 2040” plan addresses our deficiencies with goals over two decades.
Accomplishment by 2040 is too far away. We can’t wait.
That Uganda needs more doctors to resolve our health issue is without question. The World Health Organization reports 1 doctor per 13,000 Ugandans compared to 1 per 400 citizens in the United States. To churn out these doctors, Uganda needs more medical schools.
What gives Uganda Christian University an edge in producing medical practitioners is not only institutional oversight for knowledge and skill, but also the moral and ethical ties to Christianity. In short, doctors who are strong in Christian faith care more about people they serve.
It took quite a bit of convincing – two years in fact – for me to agree that our university should start a medical school. My biggest concern was the cost. We didn’t have it. We still do not have all the money we need to effectively run the medical school without compromising other units of the university. And we prided ourselves in running a fiscally responsible institution.
We prayed quite a bit as we still do about that ongoing need of funding for books, equipment, student tuition and facility space. The answer was that what we didn’t have God and His people would provide. We took a leap of faith.
The first Uganda Christian University School of Medicine’s 60 students – 50 in medicine and 10 in dentistry and more than half female – started classes in early September of 2018 with hopes to graduate this first class in 2022.
Adding dentistry and medicine programs was a natural outgrowth of our university’s health-related programs that evolved in the institution’s 21-year history. In the months before the School of Medicine official launch on September 14, 2018, the university’s Faculty of Health Sciences became the UCU School of Medicine (SoM), folding in the already existing programs of nursing, public health, and Save the Mothers health administration with the new medicine and dentistry tracks.
The Mengo Hospital and Uganda Christian University collaboration was a given with our quality standing among East African universities, our university’s nearby Kampala campus and Mengo’s reputation as Uganda’s oldest hospital and its modernization in the 121 years since its inception. In addition to acknowledging the need, both partners already had shared values of ethics, holistic practices, compassion and “witness of Jesus Christ.” Additionally, the medical school supports our university’s strategic plan to increase science programs and its design to enhance evidenced-based practice and research. The programing also aligns with Uganda’s goal to expand science-related careers.
Data was a main driver to start the medical school. In addition to what I already shared, more than half of Uganda’s citizens have no access to public health facilities, and 62% of health care posts are unfilled. Respiratory and blood pressure issues are increasing alongside HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria and diabetes. At that, there are simply some health problems – like a baby’s failing heart – we are not equipped to handle.
I realize that most Ugandans can’t afford to fly a loved one 5,500 kilometers (3,418 miles) away for a life-saving procedure. I know, too, that UCU’s medical school can’t heal all the sick or eliminate Uganda’s health care needs. But what we’re doing will make a dent.
With the hand of God and His people, the first class of the Uganda Christian University School of Medicine is up to the task. They are doing it for my grandson, for all of Uganda’s 35 million people and for those yet to come.
Contributions to the Uganda Christian University School of Medicine can be made on line at https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/ or through Mark Bartels, UCU Partners USA executive director, at Uganda Christian University Partners, P.O. Box 114, Sewickley, PA 15143 USA; 214-343-6422; mtbartels@gmail.com. Contributions in Uganda can be channeled to the development@ucu.ac.ug or through mobile money on 0772 770 852.
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