Tag Archives: Uganda

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

Third World people investment – USA visitor to UCU offers insights

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

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

By Linda Knicely

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

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

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

They’re also teaching.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Patty Huston-Holm

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

Until Monday, August 13, 2018…

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

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

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

He was my student.  But I also was his.

I am an education missionary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A roller compacts soil on Agape Rise Road, below the Bishop Tucker Building.

UCU works to say goodbye to dust, mud on main campus

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A roller compacts soil on Agape Rise Road, below the Bishop Tucker Building.
A roller compacts soil on Agape Rise Road, below the Bishop Tucker Building.

By Douglas Olum

It is a rainy Monday morning in central Uganda’s Mukono district. Resident and non-resident students are making their way to sit for end-of-semester exams at Uganda Christian University. At one of the gates, an off-campus student carries her shoes in her hand as she tiptoes through the mud. Others walk in mud-soaked shoes, sliding and leaping off the road to a safer haven on the grass leading to a gate.

Ivan Tsebeni, a second-year Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication student and member of the Guild Parliament representing the Faculty of Journalism, Media and Communication, says some of his peers missed classes in the previous weeks because of the mud.

“The problem is that you dress smartly from your room, but when you get to campus, one may think you are from the garden because of the mud,” Tsebeni said. “Some students cannot stand that.”

Mukono has a tropical climate with significant rainfall even during the driest month. In December 2019, Mukono was experiencing an unusually high amount of rainfall. According to climate-data.org, this area experiences roughly 50 inches a year.

UCU’s Kids Care Centre Road in the campus “tech park” area is freshly tarmacked.
UCU’s Kids Care Centre Road in the campus “tech park” area is freshly tarmacked.

To better serve students and faculty in both dry and dusty and wet and muddy weather, UCU is doing what it can inside its gates. The university is in the second phase of tarmacking of roads within the Mukono campus. The roads under construction are: Agape Road, Bethany Rise, Words of Hope Road, Kids Care Centre Road, and the Bishop Tucker Parking Yard.

The other areas being upgraded include the new Commercial Area, near the Janani Luwum Dining Hall, which is being excavated and the Words of Hope Parking Yard, which is set for tarmacking.

This phase two, 1.5-kilometer (just under 1 mile) road construction, which is estimated to cost shillings 1.7 billion shillings (about $460,000), is being done by Stirling Civil Engineering Ltd, a Uganda-based company, the same company which constructed the first phase.

In a recent interview, the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration who is also the Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Development and External Relations, David Mugawe, said the project was being subsidized by the development fund collections from students every semester. Students pay a sum of shillings 50,000 (about $13.5) per student, per semester as a development fee, alongside other functional fees.

Remmy Allan Mbulaka, the Guild Minister of Health who is also a member of Parliament representing the UCU School of Medicine, commended the university for acting against the dust and mud.

“I am happy that the university is doing this,” he said. “It should cover the entire campus so that dusts are reduced.”

In April 2017, the first phase of the roads construction covered 1.5 kilometers out of an estimated 3 kilometers (1.8 miles). The Vice Chancellor, Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, said that the project had been delayed due to the prohibitive cost of road construction.

“There is dust when it is sunny and dry as well as mud when it is raining,” the Vice Chancellor said. “But once we start [the construction], it will give us the commitment to continue working on the roads and ensure that UCU stands up to its quality as a university.”

The roads upgrade is part of the 2012-2018 UCU Strategic Plan, which also formed part of the University Master Plan. The second phase is planned for completion over four months – by February 2020.

Even with the muddy and dusty roads, Uganda Christian University has over the years, been ranked among the most beautiful universities in Africa because of its compound dotted with trees, modern architectural classroom blocks, library, halls of residence, lush green areas and the historical Bishop Tucker building.

A 2017 ranking by Christianuniversitiesonline.org placed UCU as the most beautiful Christian University in Africa. Another ranking by www.timeshighereducation.com in 2018 also placed UCU in the 9th position among top 10 most beautiful universities in Africa.

It is hoped among many staff and students that the completion of the roads construction will not only save them from the dust and mud, but also enhance the image of the university internationally.

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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.

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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

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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.”

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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.

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Conrad Oroya displays some accolades at his office in Gulu

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

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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.

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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.

Alumnus finds greener pasture in UCU as he gives back to the community

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Monday Edson (right) prepares to carry out a test on the UCU Vice Chancellor, Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, inside the new university ambulance while the Guild President, Bruce MugishaAmanya (in suit), looks on, shortly after the new university ambulance was brought.

By Olum Douglas

When Monday Edson joined Uganda Christian University (UCU) for his undergraduate studies in 2010, he did not see himself on the Mukono campus beyond getting his degree. Edson then had a diploma in nursing and worked at a specialized children’s neurosurgery center called Cure Children’s Hospital of Uganda. At Cure, he was the In-Charge for the Intensive Care Unit and Wards.

But when he graduated in 2013 and returned to his work place, he felt something was missing.

“I enjoyed the Christian components of life in UCU, especially the mission weeks, prayers and worship,” Edson said. “I could not wait for a chance to return to UCU because as you may know, our work requires a lot of spiritual enrichment. And UCU provides that working environment.”

Monday Edson carries out a check on a student at the Allan Galpin Health Centre. His education is supported by UCU Partners.

His love for the university was not only based on the spirituality but also the dream to pursue further studies and share his knowledge and skills with aspiring nurses, a thing he believed the university would grant him.

Indeed, his dream is coming true, thanks in part, to Uganda Christian University Partners financial assistance. Edson, now a final-year student of the Master of Nursing Science at UCU,says after exhausting his savings to sponsor himself for the first and second modules of the program, he was at the brink of dropping out until Partners stepped in. The sponsorship has saved him from worries and given him room to focus on his work and studies.

“Many times people think when they gain skills they should run away in order to find greener pastures, forgetting that there are even greener pastures where they are,” he said. “I have found mine in UCU and I want to work, study, teach and mentor future nurses from here.”

Since his return to the university in 2013 as a staff, Edson was appointed Head of Nurses at the university’s Allan Galpin Health Centre. His key roles include supervision of nurses. But it is common to find him in practice, attending to students and staff in need of health care. He also enjoys mentoring student nurses at the university as time permits. After his Master in Nursing Science, Edson desires to pursue a PhD in the same field to enable him venture into teaching.

“I feel that I have the calling to teach, but that does not mean I will quit practicing,” he said.“My aspiration is to see the theories we learn transmitted into practice. And that is what motivates me to mentor the students.”

Outside his prescribed tasks, Edson also chairs the university’s Inspection Committee, a subcommittee of the Health and Safety Committee. His committee inspects and ensures good hygiene and healthy practices at the university’s kitchen, dinning hall, canteens and halls of residence.

To his work mates, Edson is a humble, down-to-earth, team player who is very active in every activity that involves the university’s health center.

Kenneth Kiggundu, a Medical Records Clerk at the health center, says, “Edson is a very knowledgeable person in nursing procedures, yet very humble.” Rachael Nakamya Lule, the health center administrator also says, “Edson is very committed and easy to work with.”

Since his appointment as the head of nurses in 2013, Edson has pushed for several changes in health services at the facility. Such alterations include expanding service hours from 12 to 24 hours a day. The work shifts increased from two to three eight-hour shifts that include a night shift.

While he says human resource remains a great challenge at the facility as nurses must carry out nursing as well as dispensing duties that many times cause delays, Edson is happy that a lot has changed within the health center, and many more students are appreciating the services.

To Edson, his job is a fulfillment of Christ’s mission, and there is no greater satisfaction in it than a “thank you” note from a client.

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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 m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.

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Dr. Senyonyi calls for “avoiding mediocrity” to transform Uganda’s education system

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Dr. John Senyonyi  is pinned with the Makerere University badge by Mrs. Lorna Magara, while Dr. David Onen, Prof. Umar Kakumba and Prof. Fred Masaazi look on.

By Douglas Olum

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) notes that more than a billion children globally go to school everyday to receive education. But the quality of that education is in question.

According to UNICEF, “access to education of poor quality is tantamount to no access at all” and “the quality of education children receive is critical to genuine learning and human development.”

Uganda is among countries that live with the reality of questionable education quality. A 2013 report published by the Zimbabwe Journal of Education Research described the challenges to the quality of education in Uganda as with“sociological, economic and philosophical dimensions.” The researchers recommend an overhaul of the entire education system in both pedagogical and non-pedagogical areas.

Among leaders weighing in on education inferiority is Uganda Christian University Vice Chancellor, Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi.  He addressed the issue as part of his November 14, 2019, speech at the Second Annual Prof. William Senteza Kajubi memorial lecture, held at Makerere University. Using the theme, “Fostering the quality of education in Uganda,” the event was in memory of a former two-time Vice Chancellor at the host university.

In his address as the keynote speaker, Dr. Senyonyi said that Uganda has been bedeviled and crippled politically and economically by the educated class “whose education is cerebral and constricted.”

He said it is unfortunate that quality education in Uganda has been reduced to obtaining high grades in the promotional exams.

“For years, there has been an outcry about the examination-centered approach to education in Uganda,” he said. “Examinations are necessary for assessment of the learner. Unfortunately, current trends have made examinations, promotion to the next education level and appearing in newspapers the purpose for education, rather than a means for evaluating a learner’s understanding.”

He continued: ”I confess right from the beginning that I view quality holistically. It is more than impartation of skills to do a job or research abilities. Genuine quality education should change the whole person, as a person, and his or her entire outlook and output.”

However, he said he has heard outcries from employers, government, secondary schools, universities and other institutions of higher learning that graduates are unusable.  They need to be retrained to fit the work they train for, and there is a scarcity of skilled personnel that can serve the strategic direction envisaged for national development. Among problems are that students may get high grades in Primary Leaving Examinations but are unable to keep their good grades, and that students can neither “express themselves nor spell correctly.”

Dr. Senyonyi said that quality education “must not be viewed as a dead end, but as a dynamic target achieved through responsiveness to the changing needs, facilities at both the national and international environment.” He further elaborated on he need for quality to be clearly defined and made responsive to the broad spectrum, spanning nursery (pre-school), primary, secondary, high school and higher education.

“In Uganda today we are so satisfied with mediocrity in our education, music and even the dressing, and that is very unfortunate,” Dr. Senyonyi said.

He also said that while standards are admittedly lacking across the various education levels and institutions, there are needs for adjustment in the following areas: 1) keener look on the quality of pre-primary education; 2) regulation of training institutions for instructors; 3) development of instructional materials for use at pre-primary level; 4) matching theoretical training with practicals; and 5)intentionally establishing of entrepreneurial incubation centres.

Changes he proposed include these:

  • according practicums and fieldwork their right places;
  • genuine accreditation and licensing procedures;
  • effective monitoring and evaluation of institutions of higher learning by regulatory bodies like the National Council for Higher Education; and
  • provision for research outputs and proper funding for institutions of higher learning.

Dr. David Onen, a senior lecturer at Makerere University who was the main discussant, said some of the challenges facing Uganda’s education system were a result of failure by the Government to implement some earlier recommendations contained in a report written in 1989 under the leadership of the late Prof. Kajubi and widely known as “The Kajubi Report.”

For instance, he said the Government introduced teaching children in the lower classes using their mother tongues, yet the national examinations are conducted in English. That was something not included in the Kajubi report. He wondered out loud where the spirit of corruption that has eaten through Uganda’s systems come from when students are not taught at the same levels in schools.

Makerere University First Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Academic Affairs, Dr. Umar Kakumba, who represented the university’s Vice Chancellor, said the theme of the lecture came at the right time when institutions world over are grappling with the issue of quality.

He said while Uganda has seen an increased accessibility and expansion of institutions of higher learning, there has emerged “an increasing challenge of ensuring the quality of education.”

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For more of these stories and experiences by and about Uganda Christian University (UCU) students and graduates, visit https://www.ugandapartners.org.

If you would like to support UCU, contact Mark Bartels, Executive Director, UCU Partners, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org or go to https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/

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UCU School of Medicine (SoM) students Joana Bideri, Ronnie Mwesigwa and Peter Kabuye talk with Dr. Arabat Kasangaki, dental surgeon and lecturer at UCU’s SoM at the Mengo Hospital, Kampala, Uganda.

Uganda Dentistry looking glass: ‘Mouth is mirror to body’

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UCU School of Medicine (SoM) students Joana Bideri, Ronnie Mwesigwa and Peter Kabuye talk with Dr. Arabat Kasangaki, dental surgeon and lecturer at UCU’s SoM at the Mengo Hospital, Kampala, Uganda.
UCU School of Medicine (SoM) students Joana Bideri, Ronnie Mwesigwa and Peter Kabuye talk with Dr. Arabat Kasangaki, dental surgeon and lecturer at the UCU School of Medicine at the Mengo Hospital, Kampala, Uganda.

By Patty Huston-Holm

Bad breath could indicate a digestive problem. A burning tongue might be sign of anaemia. Bleeding gums point to possible vitamin deficiencies. A yellow gum lining may mean liver or kidney issues.

Dr. Arabat Kasangaki with the Uganda Christian University School of Medicine dentistry program
Dr. Arabat Kasangaki with the Uganda Christian University School of Medicine dentistry program

Sitting in his small office within a building of the Mengo Hospital/Uganda Christian University (UCU) School of Medicine, Dr. Arabat Kasangaki patiently ticked off the “swelling, sores, discoloration” aspects of understanding the bigger picture of a dentist’s job.

“The mouth is a mirror to the body,” he said. “Mostly, you hear the word ‘cavity,’ which is considered one of the biggest problems worldwide, but the best dentists know and provide much more.”

Just moments before and in the sunshine within the Kampala, Uganda, medical complex, the 59-year-old dentist and teacher extolled the virtues of chemistry related to dentistry to one of his students. 

“If you don’t understand much of the basic sciences, you won’t be a good dentist and risk being a mechanic who sees the tooth as a patient instead of the whole human being,” Kasangaki asserted in response to the student’s push back on that course. “You must learn and understand the sciences and their applications.”

At the same time, dentists need to be dentists.  In Uganda, many dentists, particularly in rural areas, step out of their role to do general medical practitioner tasks, but those medical practices are malpractices. The job of a dentist is “confined to the mouth, face and neck” and to alert patients and their doctors to symptoms of problems in other parts of the body based on what is observed in their region of operation, he said.

The status of health care, including dentistry, is bleak in developing countries like Uganda. Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Uganda, has 12% of the world’s population but only 3.5% of the world’s healthcare workforce. According to Kasangaki, there is less than one dentist for every 140,000 of Uganda’s some 40 million people.

“In the United States, there is a high saturation of dentists and the population there has a high awareness of the value of oral health,” he said. “Here in Uganda, people aren’t aware of the importance of good dental practices.  When they do come, they are often at the emergency stage and are afraid.”

The dentistry deficiencies of his country – something he sees firsthand – drive Kasangaki to not only teach well the next generation of dentists but to develop a dentistry building to house clinics and labs as part of a strategic plan for a UCU SoM Dental School. In August, he submitted an approximately $3 million dental school infrastructural plan to UCU’s planning department as well as to the American architect who has designed many of the UCU buildings.

“We need simulators for the pre-clinical training of students and dental lab equipment plus other technology in a student-dedicated dental clinic,” he said. “We need to be able to attract, retain and train the best.”

Makerere University, which has had a dentistry program for nearly three decades and where Kasangaki, who doubles as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon and pedodontist, has taught, is the biggest competitor.  The program there is good, but the Christian aspect of UCU makes it better with emphasis on “the compassionate worker.”

Despite his busy schedule of teaching, practicing and developing a quality dental program at UCU, Dr. Kasangaki is keenly aware that his work and his mission are directed by God and that his accomplishments are to His glory. A name badge on his desk is from a Monday men’s group Bible study that he seldom misses.

At one point in life, he wanted to be a pastor. At another point, he thought he would be an engineer or a medical doctor. Despite his humble upbringing as one of 10 children in his family living the Kyegegwa western Uganda region, he had international education and practical experience opportunities. He has studied, taught and practiced in the Soviet Union, China and South Africa, acquiring English, Swahili, Russian and Chinese languages along the way.  He came to realize that a life for Christ takes many forms.

Among his most memorable service in dentistry was a man who arrived with a deformed face – “sort of like he had two heads” – and who “had been written off.”  Dr. Kasangaki was able to do surgery to fix the jaw and repair the deformity. The dentist attributes God for his abilities and the teachings of Jesus for his compassion to help.

In August of 2019, the UCU School of Medicine accepted its second round of new students. The total admitted is 120 with approximately 15% being dentistry students. The number seems small, but Dr. Kasangaki sees it as a place to start in a quality way.

“A Christian university is the best place for that growth to happen,” he said.

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To support the Uganda Christian University School of Medicine or other programs, 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.

Caleb Ndishakiye Niringiyimana, director of Glow-Lit and a UCU graduate, gives a literacy lesson to children in Uganda.

UCU alumnus launches volunteer effort to improve Uganda’s literacy

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Caleb Ndishakiye Niringiyimana, director of Glow-Lit and a UCU graduate, gives a literacy lesson to children in Uganda.
Caleb Ndishakiye Niringiyimana, director of Glow-Lit and a UCU graduate, gives a literacy lesson to children in Uganda.

By Caleb Ndishakiye Niringiyimana
Your passion could be the only tool you’ve got to positively change the world around you.

That’s the short answer to what’s behind the non-profit I started. As a book lover and a Uganda Christian University (UCU) alumnus from the Department of Literature, Education and Arts faculty, I am the founder and director of Glow-Lit Ltd (Glow-Literature Limited) under the theme of an “Africa that reads.”

Glow-Lit grew from a conviction that a strong reading culture among Africans is the least-trodden avenue to solving the many socio-economic bottlenecks we face.

Glow-Lit is a non-profit organization with a mission to cultivate a culture of reading

Despite the nearly 20% poverty rate (not a nice statistic) in Uganda, our education, hygiene and sanitation, and access to services are appalling. With about 100 registered public libraries and only about 50 of them fully operative, about 71% of people above age 10 able to read, and about 90% of the ones reading doing it for grades in school, it is easy to see the co-relation between the state of social amenities and self-empowerment through reading.

A book has power, in part, because it is written with emotions, convictions and/or facts from the author. Therefore, an innate light can be found within the pages of a book, and when people read the book, they are impacted in two ways: First, sharing the light from the book; and second, being charged (lit or enlightened) to do something with the knowledge–which is the symptom of self-empowerment, and transforms the conditions of life, even at a community level. Hence the name, Glow-Lit (do something for yourself and your community with the light you have).

At Glow-lit, we believe that book lovers are the best agents to make more book lovers and world changers. Therefore, we gather book lovers and take them to schools and communities where people are gathered. The locations are school buildings, community libraries, corporate companies, homes, and coffee/tea shops. We pair people who love to read with individuals wanting to improve their reading. We read and grow together at a schedule convenient for each community/entity that hosts us. The standards of skill and passion enable growth into a mentor, who is assigned new entrants in our reading track and the cycle continues. Therefore, you can glow when lit, and growing your love for books can light you.

We also ensure there is accessibility to books. The majority of African families and schools cannot afford a book, and government funding priority is given to academic pamphlets instead of books. We work with entities that donate books, and we identify the need, which is predominantly private primary schools, some public primary schools, private secondary schools and of course communities where residents almost have nothing to rely on for reading once they are not in school.

Our focus is on developing the reading culture among our children and youth, especially in the formative years. This is because the values learned as a young child have a greater possibility of lasting and being lived with ease compared to ones taught in later years of development. This though does not eliminate adults who have the need and will to jump on the literacy train.

We also acknowledge the wanting state of scholarship on African literary works. We envision an online platform where professors and researchers avail their analysis of African literary works to other scholars in order for us to “Take African literature to the world.” We would love to have students of African literature hear from those who went ahead of them about these works, and we as Glow-Lit are ready to be the medium.

We operate only in Ugandan schools and communities with hope to serve Africa entirely, someday. More than reading, we mentor youth and facilitate character formation using books. That is why we read both fiction and nonfiction alternatingly. Fiction is aimed chiefly to reading for entertainment; yet still the message, characterization and the style help refine our youths. Nonfiction, which is usually youth livelihood, leadership and many relevant subjects, are organized in a workshop setting with facilitators. Testimonies from students keep us moving. We work so closely with school reading clubs focusing them to intentional reading. Once we come in, we make reading so fashionable that these clubs grow tremendously, bringing new book lovers, almost doubling the initial numbers in less than a year’s operation. Registering such impact is a huge milestone and signal to how much more can be achieved.

Our program, “The Home Book Drive,” (our most loved program) which runs during school holidays, focuses on engaging children in reading from their homes. We reduce their TV time by taking books and inviting children from the neighborhood to join in reading, playing and snacking.

Our team of 24 is comprised of professional and student volunteers, 100% driven by the passion to give.

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Glo-Lit needs book donations and reading volunteers. To learn more, go to www.glow-lit.org.

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For more of these stories and experiences by and about Uganda Christian University (UCU) students and graduates, visit https://www.ugandapartners.org. If you would like to support UCU, 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.

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Uganda agriculture leader strives to help low-income farmers

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Ugandan woman pulling cocoa bean pod from tree

By Michael Holm

Robert Galusanja Kibirango built his career from the ground up — as a farmer.

Growing up on his family’s farm, young Robert would get up early each morning before school to help his father with the chores. It was his father’s influence that enabled Robert to develop a sustained interest in farming.

It was an interest that later turned into his passion that he learned to leverage to earn enough money to pay for his education. This went from Bishop Secondary in Mukono to a Bachelors in Procurement and Logistics Management at Uganda Christian University (UCU), through completion his Masters in Business Administration (also from UCU) with a dissertation on corporate governance.

It also was during his time at UCU that he learned about servant leadership — which has become an integral part of his leadership philosophy.

Today, as Board of Directors chairperson of Uganda’s National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), Kibirango is still a farmer, with two sites — one in Mukono District and one in nearby Buyikwe District — where he keeps 3,000 laying hens, raises goats and cows and grows bananas, cassava and maize. It was his interest in farming and his passion for helping members of his agricultural community learn best practices that inspired him to take them to successful farms far and wide so they could visit, listen and ask questions. He also found other ways to provide training, even when it meant loading 12 farmers into his pickup truck for a five-hour drive to Masaka or conducting trainings in his own home.

His work did not go unnoticed. Residents became more open about expressing their needs. Once, Kibirango visited a woman who told him she needed a heifer. Another farmer proudly presented him with five liters of fresh milk in appreciation for his help.

The farmers Kibirango befriended all those years chose him as Mukono Subcounty Farmer Forum Chair, where he used his leadership skills to further promote agricultural best practices and subsequently lead the effort for the entire Mukono District. When NAADS was formed, Mr. Kibirango, as the leader of a large farmer’s group, was one of nine chosen from 347 candidates for a position on the fledgling Board of Directors. Later, when the board chair resigned, Kibirango was appointed chair, a position he has held for over four years.

Robert Galusanja Kibirango, chair, Uganda National Agricultural Advisory Services

Small-scale farming in Uganda often means resource scarcity, poor soil and arduous labor — in a word, hardship. Yields are not optimized and small-scale farmers too often receive low prices for their commodities. For Kibirango, that status quo is unacceptable.

NAADS, founded in 2001 by Uganda’s national government, works to change that by dedicating itself to helping these farmers throughout Uganda. One asset to this  assistance is a partnership  with Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), a collaborative effort started by President Yoweri Museveni and designed to improve standards of living for Ugandans — especially rural ones. OWC, with its many partners, seeks to raise living standards and improve on economic equity for those living below poverty thresholds by improving agricultural policies and practices, increasing productivity, modernizing technologies in local economies, upgrading rural infrastructure and stimulating economic development in local communities.

For example, this past July, the NAADS Monitoring & Evaluation Team conducted a field study to compare NAADS tissue cultures with local materials at a large-scale plantation in Kiryandongo District. The team demonstrated that banana plantlets, which are free of disease at planting, could be maintained through proper crop management.

By providing information and resources that farmers need, NAADS continues to work to improve agricultural performance in Uganda — from one percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009 to 3.6 percent today. The help that NAADS includes seed and other materials for planting maize (corn), beans, tea, mangoes, pineapples and apples. The organization also works to improve communication among stakeholders, facilitate organizational development among farmer and community groups and to provide vital educational resources about agricultural best practices.

In addition to 800,000 hoes, NAADS recently procured 280 tractors from India with plans to begin distribution of the first 100 tractors through local farmer and community groups when they are ready and once operational guidelines are finalized. Currently, the average cost to till one acre is 100,000 Ugandan schillings (UGX), or about $27. Through advances in mechanization, Kibirango hopes to improve efficiencies and reduce labor costs, which in turn will boost the standard of living for many farmers and literally improve their lots.

NAADS also is working with Operation Wealth Creation to build processing and production capacity for Uganda. Kibirango believes that building this capacity will enable the country to improve employment and infrastructure outlooks and work to capture a vital part of the supply chain for its agricultural commodities. Uganda’s cocoa crop, for example, is exported in raw form for processing in other countries. For NAADS, cocoa is a priority commodity. During the 2018/19 fiscal year, NAADS distributed 3,910,986 cocoa seedlings. Kibirango sees no reason why Uganda cannot own this means of production.

There is much work to be done. Sugar cane sometimes threatens wetlands, forests are compromised for hidden grazing ,and shifting rainy seasons are adding hardship for subsistence farmers. Land use, crop rotation, proper fertilization, irrigation, processing, mechanization and solar dryers are all part of NAADS’ plan for adding value to Ugandan agriculture. Although it is not a regulatory agency, NAADS provides policy guidance and encouragement to ensure that best practices are maintained so that Ugandan farmers will be able to sow smart and reap in abundance.

“Poverty is in the minds of people,” insists Kibirango, who long ago asked himself what he could do to help and then leveraged his servant leadership skills to the cause. “Within me,” Kibirango says, “I’ve always liked to see people happy. When you make people happy, you’re happy.”

Kibirango tells his constituents that “being a farmer is not a curse.” He still loves to visit farmers throughout Uganda and personally conducts some of the on-site reviews five or six times every year. He asks them about their hopes and their ambitions. Kibirango knows he can relate to these farmers on their own level and they respond with friendship and trust.

And why wouldn’t they? He is one of them.

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

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Late archbishop nephew accentuates UCU Sunday at St. Stephens Nsambya

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By Anitah Mahoro
The House of Bishops from the Church of Uganda birthed the last Sunday of September as “UCU Sunday” three years ago to recognize Uganda Christian University (UCU) and its contribution to education and morality.

I was honored to journey and celebrate the event at St Stephen’s Nsambya, an Anglican Church in the heart of Nsambya Barracks in Kampala. Prior to my journey, Walter Apunyo, ordinand of the church diligently gave me directions. In the early hours of dawn, I set off from the southeastern Butabika area of Uganda’s capital city. As is common to Sunday mornings and unlike other mornings of the week in Kampala, the road was clear and streets deserted.

I arrived at the church at a quarter past 8 o’clock.  As I left the car, a cool breeze engulfed me almost as simultaneously as the sounds from children around the church. Careful not to trample on them, I made my way to the church entrance and found it filled to its 700-seat capacity. Walter greeted me warmly and informed me that I was just in time for the second of five services in five different mother tongue languages of the day. This service was in English.

As Walter and I spoke, we made our way to a corner office where I was introduced to the church Vicar, Reverend James Luwum. Enthusiastic in nature, Rev. Luwum is the nephew to the late Janani Luwum who was the second African archbishop of the Church of Uganda;  he held office between the years 1974 to 1977. The Late Janani Luwum is an instrumental figure in the modern African church due to his sacrifice, activism and relentless faith. He is celebrated with a landmark in his honour and a respected holiday that falls on the 16th of February every year.

Once seated in the church, I observed the ceiling, high and triangular, was covered in silver iron sheets and supported by wooden planks. Following a Prayer of Purity, the choir sang a hymn.

Through a prayer, Walter referenced the Bible making it known that, “If we say we have no sin, we make him (Christ) a liar.” These words seem neglected in an age where we are quick to make ourselves the victims of the cruelties around us without assuming our lion’s share in kind. After this brief message, he asked us to greet our neighbours and welcome them to the service. I turned to my right and embraced a gentleman who embodied the idiom, “Full of the joys of spring.”

Walter informed the congregation that he is currently enrolled at UCU as a Master’s student pursuing a degree in Divinity. Auma Prisca, another ordinand, came to the pedestal and started the third part of the segment with a song, “Bamuyita yesu,” translated in English to mean “they call him Lord.”

The Vicar, Reverend Luwum, delivered the sermon. He started his message with the proclamation of thanksgiving. He expressed appreciation for the contributions made by the congregation through tithes and offerings and went on to talk about UCU, its partners and its hearty support to the community. The Reverend’s voice rang loud as he recounted testimonies from parents who were pleasantly surprised with the behaviour and grades of the children they had sent to UCU. One father, he recounted, had sold 47 heads of cattle in order to educate his child and was overwhelmed with tears when he saw his son leading community hour praise and worship at UCU.

Reverend Luwum concluded his doctrine by urging the congregation to always remember the Lord, support the University and align themselves with part of UCU’s philosophy of “A complete education for a Godly legacy.”

After sharing breakfast with Walter and Church leaders, I remembered a scripture from the Book of Philippians 4:6-7 that was delivered by Grace Aneno Mary, an ordinand at the Church. The words re-echoed, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” This verse aligned itself with the message in a hymn that was sung by Reverend Ester, Assistant Vicar in the Church. The message of the hymn is “We are Christians.” From this, we learn that in all things – good, bad, worldly or unworldly – we have a refuge as followers of Christ.

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

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Uganda Christian University education opens doors

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Mahoro Anitah Mugisha – UCU graduate with multiple career choices

By Patty Huston-Holm
For Mahoro Anitah Mugisha, Uganda Christian University (UCU) was a launching pad for her career experiences at the Uganda Communications Commission, Uganda National Roads Authority, Rwanda Development Board and Sino Africa Medicines and Health and to try her hand at selling on-line products. It also opened the door for her to study in China.

“It’s a Christian environment, and I’m a born-again Christian,” she said. “But the reputation and networking with other students and people associated with UCU make it so much more.”

While eating a meal of mushroom-covered chicken, mashed potatoes and rice at Kampala’s Mediterraneo restaurant, Mugisha talked about what led her to study towards her bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication and the UCU quality education and reputation and something that she didn’t expect – openness to other cultures and ideas.

After obtaining her undergraduate degree in 2016, she worked and volunteered and then applied to get a post-graduate degree at a university in China. In July of 2019, she received a master’s degree in business administration from the University of International Business and Economics and Economics, Beijing China.

“Having a degree in one specialty shouldn’t lock you in,” she said. “You can use that knowledge and skills in so many areas.”

So it was that the little girl who once dreamed of doing voices for animated films and then to be a veterinarian found herself in mass communications with skills to transfer and use in multiple places. Event planning, public speaking and technology file management are just a few.

“UCU helped me become serious while providing me the opportunity to network and explore,” said Mugisha, who at age 26 in September was working at Visit Uganda Tours and Travel LTD.

Exposure to like-minded and different students at UCU and in China has opened her world views, stimulated her desire to know people of different cultures and given her confidence to step outside the norm. Her best friend in China was from Afghanistan. She watches the news about the China-Hong Kong protests with a more informed understanding. She has a pet rabbit and kitten in a country where people are known for fear and dislike of pets.

“Society doesn’t generally push you to explore various dimensions of your personality,” she said. “A university education does. I’m not sure what I will do next but I know that I’ll keep growing.”

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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.
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UCU legal aid clinic hope: Darkness to light

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

By Constantine Odongo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Without Jesus, I would not be here’

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.”

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

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

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)

Uganda Christian University Assistant Chaplain Goes into American mission field

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


Rev. Amos Kirmera and his wife, Florence, receive prayers from UCU’s vice chancellor and priests during an Aug. 25 church service in the Mukono, Uganda. The family has been chosen to serve a minimum of two years in Massachusetts. (UCU Partners photo)
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)
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.

UCU represented at 11th Pan-African Literacy Conference

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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.

Agriculture students combat ‘silent hunger’ in rural Kumi

Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Students, , , , ,


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

By Douglas Olum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The local farmers credit UCU for helping them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Piggery project gives boost to aging widow in Bugujju, Uganda

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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.

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

UCU Law students help Uganda fight prison case backlogs

Students, UCU School of Law, , , , ,


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

By Olum Douglas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UCU student mixes entrepreneurship with artistry

Students, , , ,


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

By Patty Huston-Holm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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