Outgoing Uganda Christian University (UCU) Vice Chancellor, John Senyonyi (right front) poses recently with some of his leadership team, including the Mayor of Mukono, George Fred Kagimu (third from right); and the incoming Vice Chancellor, Aaron Mushengyezi (third from left).
By the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi Vice Chancellor, Uganda Christian University
The global COVID-19 pandemic is both unprecedented and baffling. It has locked up countries with the best healthcare systems, and plagued palaces and Presidential houses, just as it has pervaded slums. Churches and schools have been barred from physical gatherings, as well as places of amusement.
As Christians we have not been spared. We bend our knees in prayer pleading for God’s intervention during this crisis. For what can a believer do than cry for God’s deliverance?
In the early 1980’s, the political and security situation in Uganda similarly defied all hope. In desperation people half-jestingly would say, “God lost Uganda’s file,” to mean God had forgotten about Uganda. Had He?
A comparable pestilence struck Eilenburg, Germany, in the 1630s. It is said thousands died. People, including clergy, either fled Eilenburg or died. One pastor, Martin Rinkart, stayed and alone performed more than 4,000 funerals. His wife, too, perished. A famine followed the plague. Yet Rinkart shared his food with all he could. In the midst of this tragedy, Rinkart wrote a hymn of gratitude we know well, Now Thank We All Our God. He thanked God.
In modern Christian parlance, health and wealth have become a human right before God. Acquisition has become a “spiritual virtue,” alongside discontent. We tell God how He should run His world! We give thanks only when we get what we want. We even attribute our welfare entirely to our self-care.
But the Bible is relentless in urging us to thank God. Paul urges, “Give thanks in all circumstances …” All circumstances is not in some circumstances. During COVID-19, and even with bereavement thereby, or with other misfortunes.
Gratitude is important because it is as contagious as ingratitude. Children who grow up in thankful homes develop a brighter spirit toward life. The converse is equally true. The pilgrim children of Israel coming from Egypt demonstrate the infectiousness of grumbling.
The Bible does not command us to thank God for the crisis or misfortune, but in the midst of the situation. It commands and commends giving thanks because of who God is in His nature, and especially to us.
We may not know the circumstances that inspired King David to pen more than 70 psalms, including Psalm 103 (Bless the Lord, O my soul), though we are all too familiar with David’s personal troubles. They were not unlike our own. David endured many personal trials.
He encourages us not to forget all God’s benefits. For when hardships come, present circumstances press so hard that as a reflex, our emotions dominate our response. In adversity, we do not remember the past goodness of God easily.
Now, without a memory it is impossible to give thanks to God. For that reason, David says, “forget not all His benefits.” This is a fundamental statement. There is wit and truth in the statement, “the principal function of the brain is to forget.” If you will not remember, you will not thank God. Gratitude first reflects on what the LORD has done, and that is in the past.
David is teaching us a central truth that our circumstances should not dictate our relationship with God or how we walk with Him. Gratitude comes when we reflect on God’s goodness in our life – not the future, but the past. So, we can be thankful amidst the COVID-19, if we know where we have come from.
Moreover, David gives valid reasons for gratitude that are applicable to all. God forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies, and each verb is present continuous imputing God’s unending care and blessings. God’s unmerited Grace forgives our sins and heals our diseases and redeems our life from the pit.
That the Coronavirus has no medicine should be telling that God alone has spared His people. In Uganda, with our grossly imperfect health systems, people have not died in hordes as predicted. According to data, only five have died so far. Some friends were down with the Coronavirus and appeared near to death. Yet God’s mercy spared them. Bless the LORD, O my soul.
As David calls upon all people to thank God, he explains the means whereby we should thank Him. Thanksgiving is vain unless it flows from within – that is, from one’s soul. Thanksgiving is not the words we speak or the gifts we bring before God. Unless the heart is thankful, all external expressions are empty public rhetoric and display.
Equally, a thankful heart cannot be suppressed; it must burst out into expressed gratitude. The Psalmists repeatedly talk of thanking God among the people. Their thanksgiving flows from within to without, into Praise and Offerings to God and care for others.
A story is told that a man once stole the famous Bible commentator, Matthew Henry’s wallet. That can be traumatizing. When he reflected on the incident, Henry (1662-1714) had four reasons to thank God.
He was first of all thankful that the man had never robbed him before. Then he was thankful that although the man had taken his wallet and he certainly could have caused more harm, he did not take his life also. Furthermore, although the man had taken all Henry had, there wasn’t much in that wallet. And finally, Henry thanked God that he had been robbed, rather than he, Henry, doing the robbing.
Crises often have a silver lining. In the education sector, COVID-19 has been an eye opener. As human physical interaction receded, the virtual world that appeared distant and optional became urgent and necessary. It also has become more real in connecting the world, as the less fortunate yearn to be included in the new world.
We certainly do not know all the dangers God rescues us from, but we know that the Man who was bruised at Calvary is in control. He will not let you go – not even during the COVID-29 pandemic!
Therefore, we can confidently say with David, “Bless the LORD, O, my soul.” Amen.
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The need to support Uganda Christian University programs, students, and services is ever greater during COVID-19 and the lockdown of education. To contribute, 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.
Retiring UCU Vice Chancellor John Senyonyi, second from right, and his predecessor, Dr. Stephen Noll, right, with Archbishop Emeritus Henry Luke Orombi, his predecessor, Livingstone Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo (second left) and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Michael Kyomya bishop emeritus of Busoga Diocese.
The Archbishop emeritus of the of the Province of the Church of Uganda and former Chancellor of Uganda Christian University (UCU), the Rt. Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, has joined the list of prominent clergy bidding farewell to Cannon Dr. John Senyonyi, who is retiring from the office of the Vice-Chancellor on August 31. Archbishop Orombi, who retired in 2012, was the University’s chancellor 10 years ago when Dr. Senyonyi was assuming the office. In this July 20, 2020, interview with John Semakula, the retired archbishop speaks out on why he chose Dr. Senyonyi for the position and why the Church is proud of UCU.
How is retirement? Some people have thought that I am not retired. I have only shifted camp. I left Namirembe, the Provincial home of the Archbishop and went to Nebbi as my main base in retirement. And I have continued to serve God and minister in many different ways. I have continued to help dioceses in the province and beyond our country. I have gone to Kenya several times, and Tanzania once. I went to Korea in November, and to the US before COVID-19 became serious. So I have been a busy man, extremely busy. The Lord has given me the strength and ability in me.
Why did you retire a year before the official end of your term as Archbishop? Everybody has a calling and a reason for that calling. When I came in 2004 as the Archbishop, I had a few things that I believed God wanted me to do. First was to bring peace to the Province. We had five dioceses which were not functioning well, and it was succession, seriously. There was no leadership; there were gaps there, so there were wrangles. Second, we needed to bring back our young people who were scattered. I believe that the young people were scattered because they were looking for a pulpit that can feed them. The third was the Church House, which was a 40-year dream that had to take off. And then, I also wanted to preach the gospel nationally. Once those things were done, results were already good, the Province was settled and then we had the Church House already started up to a level from where my successor started and finished it up, and the young people came back to the Church, finances were stable, I felt that my assignments were over. I was remaining with only one year to finish my tenure as we normally do 10 years as Archbishops, and I did nine. So I did not even see why I needed to spend another 12 months doing nothing. I said I have finished; let me go back and preach the gospel, which I am doing right now.
Any challenges in retirement? Yes, a lot of challenges. You just can’t do as much as you desire to do. Your physical body is not going to tell you that you can rush all over the place all the time. I have too many invitations that I cannot meet and that is why I do my diary two years at a time. So the 2021 items in my dairy are now filling up and by the time I get into December, I am already putting to finish the 2021 diary for my partners who are praying with me. So much as my spirit is always willing; my body can’t do it all, and now in retirement I can say to some people that I can’t do that and I can’t come to you. Remember that travelling up and down this country is a lot of work.
The interviewer, John Semakula, and Archbishop emeritus Henry Luke Orombi pause for a photo after the interview in Muyenga, Kampala. (Photo by Sam Tatambuka).
How have you been affected individually by COVID-19? Do you know that the day the lockdown was imposed, we were passing through Entebbe Airport from the US together with my wife? We arrived on March 18, the same day the President was on air issuing the restrictions that the airport will close, schools, and everything else. The airport authority said they were supposed to quarantine us in Entebbe, but asked us to do self quarantine. We went to Mukono to get a two-day’s breath then travelled to our upcountry home in Nebbi. After a month, the Ministry of Health sent a team to come and test us. They took our samples and the results came back negative. I have since been at home for four months, and the first trip I made was this one.
You were the chancellor when Dr. John Senyonyi became the Vice-Chancellor of UCU 10 years ago. Why did you endorse him? Dr. Senyonyi had been mentored already by Prof. Stephen Noll, his predecessor. He had worked alongside him and knew UCU very well. And what I thought about him then was the trust Prof. Noll had about him. That trust is always good because somebody who is local and locally bred and if people can trust him, let alone a Muzungu (white man), it means he has seen quality in the person and so we were very considerate about the honest assessment from Prof. Noll. I have also known John for a very long period of time ever since he was with the African Evangelist Enterprise.
What is your honest assessment of Dr. Senyonyi’s tenure as he retires in August? He has come to the end of his work without any single crisis. He has not been fired by the board or by anybody else. For me what will always tell you that somebody is a good leader is how they finish. When the people finish well and peacefully, then you know that they have worked their way within the best of their abilities and have finished. Perfect? No. Nobody is perfect. There are other things that could have happened that can happen to anybody. But Dr. Senyonyi’s main achievement is that he finished well and that in 10 years, UCU has grown in numbers, quality, and infrastructure. UCU is now one of those institutions in the country with a name and that depends on how the leadership has been. He has been at the apex of that leadership. I am also thankful that he has not collapsed because of diabetes, high blood pressure or stroke.
Any advice to Dr. Senyonyi for his retirement? John, you are coming out, but you have a lot of energy. May God give you opportunity to use your energy because men like you need outlet for energy. Use your gifts to bless this country.
And any word to the incoming Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Aaron Mushengyezi? Be a leader who is transparent. Listen because you learn a lot from your faculty and students. Be a man who is humble enough to ask for assistance. Even Jesus recruited disciples who would help him to advance his mission. And may I ask God to give you discernment to choose the right kind of people to advise you. Anything can rise or fail because of the kind of people who are advising you. I also pray that you will understand that this is about serving people and God. It’s not about prestige or promotion.
How does UCU fit into the mission of the Province of the Church of Uganda? UCU was a child conceived by Archbishop Livingstone Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo. And it’s an investment in the building of the next generation. That is one of the core values of the Church, to think ahead. For the Church our pride is we have ministered and we have served not only Uganda, but other countries around us and elsewhere because we partner very heavily with Nigeria. Nigerians have come to study here. We are also linked internationally. Trinity Divinity School has sent us people here and we have sent our people over there. So our international connection as a Church brings these things about. The Church is not only a local entity, but global and we see that happen as the Church’s pride in UCU. And also I think that comments people make, makes the Church encouraged and proud that we are producing results that are a blessing not only for our nation, but all the place where our people go to.
The Provincial assembly set aside the first Sunday in September for the dioceses to promote and fundraise for UCU. Why are some not cooperating? I don’t even want to think about the UCU Sunday. I want to think about Ugandans who have money to sometimes provide in their will that would like to put for UCU sh5m, sh10m or whatever. And this should be regular. You know when people are willing to give and give genuinely? Yesterday I had a man I met in the Archbishop’s place, a man who is a member of our Church with such a giving ability. He has done work with the Archbishop when he was still a bishop in Mityana. The Archbishop was telling us that he came to fundraise for their cathedral roofing and one man alone said he wanted to give sh100m ($27,284.70) for the project. When the money wasn’t enough, they came to say that they still needed some more money. The same man said he would give another $27,284.70 – Sh200m ($54,569.4) from one person? Now that to me tells me that we have people who are willing to give towards the cause of the Church including UCU. Let’s just put it for an argument’s sake, we have 20 Ugandans who are willing to commit $27.284.70 per year. That money is more than what comes from the dioceses. That’s how the Americans do it. They have philanthropists who are willing to commit money regularly for 5 to 10 years. That’s much more easier for planning purposes than when you are waiting for money to come in when you even don’t know how much it is.
How is that kind of fundraising possible in Uganda? I was in Mbarara District and for four years coming every November, we would go there, I was encouraging Christians to put their Church in the town. The Archdeaconry of greater Mbarara has now built a church, the biggest in Uganda, a 7,000 seater. Very beautiful indeed, but when they wanted to raise money for the roof, they invited the President of Uganda to come and the bishop stood up to say how much the Christians have actually committed to build the church without a bank loan. He said there is one Christian here, who built the offshoot of this Church in Kakooba near Bishop Stuart University and he and his family alone raised sh250m ($68,211.75).
Any message for UCU students going through challenges due to COVID-19? My encouragement to the students is that while you are out there, think as a student, but as a useful student. Meaning that if you are home with your guardian or parents, employ yourself. Make yourself useful. If there is a way you can eliminate the burden of finances, do it. I have university students in my home and I never give them the money. They will come to me and say, dad, give us work to do because they have their personal needs. So where I would be asking other people to do the work for me and pay them, I pay my own family members because they are willing to serve. That’s the way to go.
And any message for Christians going through the same kind of suffering? I only want to tell you Christians that what we are going through is not foreign to God. He understands it more than we do. He knows we need to wear, eat, and to be accommodated. He also knows that we need to be healthy even more deeply, so allow God to understand that we actually know that He knows. Yesterday I was emphasizing a lot on prayer. I said that there are two things that Jesus taught us. First, he taught us who God is. The God who is the father in heaven, the holy God, King of Kings, our protector, the forgiver of our sins, the shepherded of our souls and the defender of our lives. That is God in his quality. And then he is related to us. He is a friend, God our friend and our father. We still have our hotline with God our father and I know there are testimonies I have already heard during this period. On Saturday, I was in Makerere with a chaplain and his wife was giving a testimony about how God was intervening in their domestic needs this way: A batch of matooke will come, when it’s about to get finished, another one will come from different people and all are strangers. Why? The God who knows our different needs knows how we will survive.
Why should a student study from UCU? I don’t think that we are going to sell UCU more than it has already been sold. UCU is so well known. UCU is a university with Christian ethos, which in itself makes it a very special place. Secondly, our products from UCU are very marketable. When you finish from UCU, the workplace out there is looking for UCU graduates, and it’s because of the kind of way we have disciplined people and how we have brought them up. Thirdly, UCU carries with it the pride of the Church of Uganda and I am amazed the other people, Roman Catholics and Muslims, are attracted to this University and we do the foundation course, Christian Ethics, which gives the basis for UCU. So when other people who are not members of the Church of Uganda are attracted, then you know that something good is there. We keep that as a point of attraction because we deliver and anybody intending to apply for University education should come to UCU.
Where do you want to see UCU in the next 20 years? From an honest perspective, I don’t want UCU to grow beyond what it can manage. By the time a place becomes so popular, the temptation is to grow it and grow it. But if you grow it so big and you can’t manage it, your products are going to lose quality. So I would want UCU to keep growing, but very calculatedly, steadily and gently. What I would also want UCU to do is to strengthen the (regional) colleges. We have one in Mbale, we have another one in Kabale; we also have a study centre in Arua. I would love to see these become fully fledged colleges so that both Arua and Mbale should not come to the main campus for their graduations. Like Bishop Barham in Kabale, their graduation takes place there. I would like to see that built up so that we can decentralize our services. For somebody to come from Arua to graduate in Mukono is very expensive unnecessarily.
But some people say UCU has a very expensive tuition policy? The point is that UCU is a private institution. It doesn’t get any help from government. It works itself out with all the things we have in terms of infrastructure, lecturers’ salaries and everything else from the students’ tuition. In the end, it becomes expensive, but you actually get the worth of your tuition.
What do you say about Ugandan politicians who are secretly holding political meetings in churches that were closed in March to mitigate the spread of COVID-19? There is no leadership in those areas where this is happening. If there was leadership, the leaders would know that church buildings are sacred and dedicated to God. They would not allow politicians to use them. The politicians would rather look for other places for their activities. Churches are dwelling places for the Lord.
The interviewer, John Semakula, is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies of Uganda Christian University (UCU). He is the supervisor of The Standard newspaper and lecturer of journalism and Communication at UCU. John has worked with the New Vision newspaper for over 15 years.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Uganda Christian University Dean of Business and Administration, Dr. Martin Lwanga, right, discusses education with Columbus (Ohio USA) State Community College President, Dr. David Harrison, in 2019. Both leaders believe strongly in teaching higher education in the context of the real world.
By Dr. Martin M. Lwanga
One day for an occasion I don’t recall in all detail, Dad’s deep voice boomed through the corridors of our Kampala, Uganda, neighborhood house. He wanted something. He commanded my brothers and me to chase a rooster for a meal. I think it was meant for a visitor but it could have been some big event coming up like Easter or Christmas. Not sure now but then and without waste, we set off for the kill.
Roosters are programmed to sense danger. As little chicks they grow up in the wings of their mothers. I was maybe seven years old, but still recall this hen that had a dozen chicks. Proud of her brood, the hen was constantly on the look out as she furrowed the ground.
We had quite a number of domesticated fowls at our place. Early in the morning the bolts would be released from their evening shelter, and off they would jump from the poles where they rested. After stretching they would start slowly picking up crumbs around the house and gradually move on.
Rarely would they be seen in the day. In the late evenings the troop would return, one by one, sometimes in pairs, but they all made it back, tummies filled, for the nights rest.
Once an old friend of Dad came from the village with a gift of a rooster. After the friend left, the rooster was added to the rest of the chickens who were already a tight knit group. Things didn’t go well that night. In the camp, there was already a big red rooster. Looks like he had fathered all the chicks in the stead. Big Papa didn’t like being upstaged. And here was a new kid on the block.
A terrible fight broke out. Although seemingly timid, when roosters start fighting, they will fight their souls out. In the end, we just slaughtered off the visitor and left Big Papa rooster to his territory.
So here was Dad telling us to chase and slaughter him, too! Chasing a rooster for a meal would tax even Usain Bolt, the famed Jamaican runner. Agile, the rooster led us around, here and there, flew up, danced, elbowed, ditched us, teased, dusted us off, until he ran out of steam and, my brother, who was hiding behind a pole, nabbed him.
The rebel was brought to the slaughterhouse and dumped on some banana leaves. All hands started plucking feathers off his neck. Once his neck was clean-shaven my elder brother handed me a knife to slice it off. What??! I shook my head. I was timid, and killing things did not bode well with me.
Quickly, my brother sliced off the neck without missing a beat. I looked on with tortured awe. I hated being a coward and knew next time I had to prove myself. The meal later was sumptuous.
You can learn a lot from such things. When the Europeans came to Uganda, they brought to us an institutionalized education with its pecking classroom order. There, as we discovered, you read about roosters in books, and soon after we were made to memorize answers for grades. No life experience.
However, long before in our societies, kids picked up lessons of life from the lives around them and chores tasked within those lives.
Going to the well was one such chore I saw back in the village. There was this spring well in my mother’s village; it was kept tidy by all. All kids walked down to the well. We came back gingerly holding to a bucket with a pot on the head, swinging a jerry can.
Sometimes you would play too hard at the well; by the time you got home, the parents were angry, and then got you a few fine lashes. Time keeping did not start yesterday.
In such an economy, you got to know the value of water as a scarce commodity. You also got to know about teamwork for you could not get everything all done by yourself. Cooperation with others was an essential way of life.
Back in the days, there was no clock for roosters who would wake up the entire household. Much as they seem to have tiny little heads, roosters never got lost in the neighborhood and always found their way safely back home. Interesting though was that not one hungry neighbor would nab what was not his for a secret meal. There was a communal fraternity that respected and defended individual property rights.
UCU students demonstrating product they created as part of their entrepreneurship studies.
Our society has progressed, so to say, to a point where an average urban middle class kid might wonder how a chicken gets to his plate, since it comes already dressed from the downtown supermarket. He will not have seen the economy of these birds and how knowledge is not limited to only humans. He will be so full of himself, as expected.
He won’t learn the art of grasping a knife and slicing off the head of a chicken for a meal, which in his new world borders on animal cruelty. The things that run life have all been carved out for him, like running water in a house, being ferried to school, all chores removed from him.
But in this protected life he is also missing out on the real life out there, messy and sometimes ugly as real life is. Sooner or later, he will come face to face with that life. Perhaps our old way of upkeep – of learning by doing as young children – was not that bad.
(Dr. Martin M. Lwanga is Dean for the Uganda Christian University Faculty of Business and Administration, which stepped up its use of real-world learning in the curriculum in recent years – an education strategy promoted even more in discussions during the Uganda COVID-19 lockdown.)
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Central Uganda Namanve Train Station Market Day during COVID lockdown
By Douglas Olum
On a bright sunny Thursday afternoon in Mukono and on an aging, handcrafted papyrus couch under shade within our compound, I hear the cries and fight of playing children, including mine. They are just outside a wire fence, near a tomato garden and some buildings just a few meters from ours.
I wasn’t with them. It wasn’t because I didn’t care or because of concern regarding Ugandan social distance COVID-19 safety guidelines. I listened to the voices of children without engaging because I was nursing joints, leg muscle and toe pains that would not allow me stretch out and walk easily. I was recovering from a six-hour on-foot journey to and from Mukono to Lugogo in Kampala to buy a tube of Colgate Pro Gum Health toothpaste.
Olum Douglas writing his story on phone at his home in Mukono
I walked the approximately 23km (14 miles) each way because the country’s pandemic orders have shut down public transportation. No bodas. No taxis. No private cars, which I don’t have anyway. Our first order was issued March 24. It was extended twice – on April 22 and May 18.
Truth is, this was not the first I time walked that distance. Many times before the lockdown and with lack of funds – the 8,000 UGX for a boda ride and 3,000 UGX for a taxi – I have walked to Kampala for shopping and for study at the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Kampala Campus. I also remember one occasion when I walked a longer distance from Munyonyo in the Southern part of Kampala and back home after I had gone to interview an American source for a story.
This latest trip, the journey was more tiresome because my body had been in hibernation for close to two months during the lockdown, which had been ordered for a total of 63 days with the latest ending date of Monday, May 25. Private cars were to be permitted and some shops opened on Tuesday, May 26, with public transport allowed on June 4, when the announcement about when schools will re-open is expected.
Foot travel during the lockdown is more stressful because of a 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. curfew. Our President, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni directed a ban on all forms of travel between those hours, except for trucks transporting food to the market. The week before, I narrowly escaped arrest because I was walking home at 7:17 p.m.
While my primary purpose of this trek was toothpaste, I also needed to meet with a journalist friend whom I had not seen for eight weeks. My friend and I had agreed to meet at the Lugogo branch of Café Javas to share experiences and brainstorm on post-lockdown story ideas. Besides, I was curious about how Ugandans outside my locality were treating the lockdown.
I had donned a sky-blue surgical mask. I was given two of them by a medical worker during the UCU Health Awareness week in February. But since then, I had only used one. And with its elastic strap coined around my ears and walking alone, I believed my health was protected.
During my long trek, here is some of what I saw:
Walking along a dusty road before I joined the tarmacked Jinja Road highway, I was puzzled at how boda-boda riders carried passengers when the Government banned them.
When I left the dusty road and took to the railway, I came across a Market Day at the Namanve Train Station. Traders in all tribes of items: clothes, shoes, jewelry, fresh cassava, maize, sweet potatoes, fish and so many others were crowded and not “social distancing” both along the walk-paths by the railway lines and the market area itself.
Youthful men were gathered under tree shades, conversing in loud voices without face masks on; women and girls without facial coverings were walking in groups, picking and trying on the items from one dealer to another. Occasionally, they would pull out a few notes or coins from their handbags and pay for the items they liked before moving on.
While locally made facemasks were visibly on sale everywhere, both the traders and their customers paid little attention to owning or wearing them. Those who had them either held the masks in their hands or wore them at their chins. That was, however, contrary to the practice at the supermarket where the workers remind those who put off their masks to put them on and properly.
Unlike the dusty road, the highway had several police and military checkpoints. Privately owned cars without the Ministry of Health stickers permitting them to drive during the lockdown, except for trucks, were stopped and impounded at those checkpoints. The Uganda Police Force has said that all impounded vehicles shall only be retrieved after the lockdown. Since the beginning of the lockdown, an unstated number of vehicles and motorcycles have been impounded, including those transporting sick persons and mothers in labor pain to the hospital.
I wondered how much Ugandans would be affected if COVID-19 ravaged our country like it has done in other parts of the world.
After shopping and my meeting, I set out to return to Mukono. Aware that security agencies start implementing curfew at 19:00 hours (7 p.m.), the return journey felt longer because the sun was going down fast. Thanks to my speed and resilience, and with the overpriced toothpaste in hand, I got home 3 minutes before the curfew time. Amidst the painful toes, muscles and joints, I know that my family’s oral health was sorted for a month or so before I may need a trip to Lugogo again. Maybe then I won’t need to walk to purchase it.
(Douglas Olum is a regular contributor for UCU Partners, which is sponsoring him for his master’s degree in strategic communications at the university.)
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org
UCU Nursing students Babirye Tamara Peace and Kakooza Abdul Wahabu practice a birth simulation with “Baby Nicole.”
Uganda Christian University (UCU) is launching a new program – a master’s course in midwifery and women’s health – under its School of Medicine. At the request of UCU Partners, Ugandan writer Constantine Odongo had a chat with Elizabeth Namukombe Ekong, a lecturer in the medical school’s nursing department. What follows is some of this conversation related to the new program.
What programs are under the department of nursing? We have undergraduate and master’s programs in the department. In the Bachelor of Nursing Science, which began in 2006, we have two entry points – nurses with diploma, but want to get bachelors; and the direct entry right from S6 (high school graduation). The completion program takes three years for nurses already experienced, while the other entry takes four years. The master’s in nursing started in 2008. We are now introducing the master’s in midwifery and women’s health.
Students Kiribata Dorothy, Bagenda Isaac, and Mbulaka Remmy Allan with a practice plastic baby as part of their training in the UCU nursing program.
When does the new course start? In 2017, the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) approved our curriculum, but we have not had the personnel the NCHE insisted on. They insisted on staff with master’s degrees in midwifery, yet most of us have masters in nursing. We have been looking around for personnel. The challenge we have had is that in Uganda, only one university has been offering this course, so not many people have the skill set that NCHE required. The other challenge is many people who opt to pursue master’s degree studies are already established somewhere else. So, it is not for us to uproot them from their already set systems. There are some people who have expressed interest, so the university actually put up advertisements in January, calling for people to apply for the position of lecturer in midwifery. As this year (2020) is the Year of the Nurse and Midwife (designated by the World Health Assembly under the World Health Organization in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale), it is appropriate that UCU starts the master’s in midwifery.
Which people are you working with to ensure that the program kicks off? We are trying to put up a team as NCHE recommended. The other thing is we have partners who are professors with PhDs in midwifery and are willing to come and teach and also offer online interactions, since the program design is a modular one. We have two professors from the United States – one from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and another from Bethel University in Minnesota. They are ready to start the teaching in May, if we have set our intake to start and we have finally got the required number of students, the personnel and the clearance from NCHE. We are making arrangements for the professors to come and make the physical preparations. We expect the face-to-face teaching to happen three times a year.
Elizabeth Namukombe Ekong, nursing lecturer
Who helped you design the curriculum for the midwifery master’s course? We developed it from a prototype curriculum that was designed from a program by the East, Central and South African College of Nursing (ECSACON). The ECSACON prototype is the same that many universities in the region use to develop their curriculum. We undertook a study to review the status of midwifery in the region and established that there was a need to provide a platform for the existing midwifery cadres to upgrade their skills at master’s level. When developing the curriculum, some of the areas the study looked at is the number of midwives in the country, the mortality rates, etc. From the ECSACON prototype curriculum, we developed ours for the master’s course, with assistance from colleagues in the UK. When we were satisfied that it was ready, we passed it through the approval process up to the university Senate and the NCHE. With the approval in 2017, it meant that the moment we get the relevant personnel with a master’s degree in midwifery, we would be ready to start.
What achievements has the nursing department registered? We have developed skilled competent and dependable nurses with the passion and faith to render services across the continent, but also offer leadership. Our graduates have been absorbed in different institutions, both state and non-state and the feedback we get about their conduct is encouraging. We have had collaborations with facilities where we send our students for placement, like Uganda-China Friendship Hospital Naguru, the hospitals of Nsambya, Mulago, Butabika, Jinja referral and many others.
Some of our students are Assistant District Health Officers, and some are in charge of medical facilities and in other leadership positions in hospitals. Others are working at the Ministry of Health.
What is in the curriculum for the midwifery master’s program that you are soon launching? The curriculum is designed with two tracks: Education and Practice as the program prepares educators and practitioners We have areas of midwifery education, which involves teaching and learning, curriculum development, measurement and evaluation; we also have an area on research and statistics. We have another area of midwifery leadership courses and management, so our students are able to graduate with better management and leadership skills.
There are foundation science courses like pathophysiology, pharmacology, and advanced health assessment in maternal and infant care. Other profession-based foundation courses offer an opportunity for the students to learn theories in nursing/midwifery, together with advanced courses in normal and abnormal midwifery. With other partner universities both here in Uganda and beyond, we share courses to do with cultural diversity, trends and issues in midwifery, neonatal and women’s health. Students also go for an international module (internship) to strengthen their teaching approaches and clinical experiences.
The students also take selected courses in advanced clinical practice from areas of their desired specialty in maternal and child health. Health care systems is another course taught to enable students understand the major elements, dynamics, determinants and organizational themes in public health, policy issues and health financing.
How have you taken care of the developments in information and communications technology as far as your course is concerned? We intend not to leave our graduates behind as far as information and communications technology is concerned. We have lined up a course in informatics, which involves the application of technology in what they learn. We expect to take the students through online healthcare packages, how they can remotely follow up on patients and network with the online medical ecosystem in order to know a patient’s medical history and other things.
Many women, especially those in rural areas, still opt for traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to deliver them, citing harassment from midwives. What is your department doing to reverse this phenomenon? We always emphasize professional ethics and Christian values in our students and that is why we have faith-based and foundation courses to see how virtues of the respect for one’s work is instilled and how the students ought to relate with their clients. In the midwifery curriculum, for instance, we have integrated Christian worldview to help students relate and handle our clients from a Christian perspective.
Why should we separate nursing from midwifery? Would it be better to equip the students with both skills, so the medical field gets multi-skilled professionals? At UCU, the Bachelor of Nursing Science teaches concepts of both nursing and midwifery, just like the undergraduate course, which teaches medicine and surgery. The specialization occurs only at post-graduate level. That said, there are universities that offer bachelor’s degrees in midwifery. It’s also important to note the difference between the work of a midwife and a nurse. A midwife’s work involves care for women and families whereas a nurse is involved with the general health of everyone. Midwives focus on women, children, pregnant women, reproductive health issues and educating the community about the same.
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To support this Uganda Christian University program and others as well as students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.
UCU students Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala pose with chess and “overcomer” coach Robert Katende. All are from Katwe. (UCU Partners Photo)
By Patty Huston-Holm
In the game of chess, if you lose the queen, most players forfeit.
Not so for Robert Katende, best known as the chess coach for Phiona Mutesi, the Ugandan slum girl featured for overcoming the odds of poverty in the “Queen of Katwe” movie. Not so for Ugandan Madina Nalwanga who had never seen a movie before being plucked from a line up to portray Phiona in the 2016 movie. And not so for chess players and Katwe slum residents Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala, studying at Uganda Christian University (UCU) in 2020.
The list of Katende-influenced, overcomer names is long and growing.
Children learning about life and chess at SOM Chess Academy in Katwe (UCU Partners Photo)
The game of chess and the Sports Outreach Ministry (SOM) Chess Academy compound in Katwe are the visible ties between Katende and his protégé students. Yet, the most valued of 16 chess pieces – the queen who can move in all directions on 64 squares of the game – symbolizes much more. Katende and his young chess players have suffered losses that would cause most people to quit. But they didn’t.
On a hot, sunny day in early January 2020, more than 50 children surround Katende at the academy. He calls them “kings” and “queens” because, he says, they can rise to the top despite their poverty and other vulnerabilities. They call Katende “coach” as they learn not only how to play the game of chess but how to maneuver through life.
On break from regular school, the poorest of Kampala’s boys and girls ages three to teens, play or silently watch two-player teams at a dozen handmade, wooden chessboards. They sit or lean against each other under an avocado tree, within a three-sided tent or in the building that also houses Katende’s small office at the academy. Katende tells some of his story behind the better-known one about Phiona. It also is detailed in his newly released book, “A Knight without a Castle.”
Coach Robert Katende at the academy in Katwe (UCU Partners Photo)
Katende lost his “queen” – his mother – who abandoned him before he was a year old. As he grew, he felt so abused and unwanted that his only deterrent from killing himself was that he couldn’t scrape up enough money to buy rat poison to do it. He persevered with a life that often found him sleeping on cardboard with his grandmother and a younger child, suffering injuries that included a dislocated wrist wracked with pain as he successfully completed written exams, and digging his fingers into gardens and laying bricks to work his way through school while oftentimes being cheated out of wages.
Today, the former mathematics teacher with a university degree is the backbone of the Academy located in Katwe, which is the poorest slum in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala. The Academy is a haven in a village best known for high illiteracy, poor housing, prostitution and low employment except for metal workers who get accolades for their skill in crafting beds and sheds. The chess coach also leads the newer Robert Katende Initiative, a child-uplifting, fund-raising arm based in the United States.
“I see myself as a moving miracle,” he said. “It is not of my own making. God has chosen me to glorify His name. I have no reason to be alive but for His Purpose.”
Katende’s story is one he would rather tell through the next generation that he might have inspired. That generation includes:
famous Phiona, now studying business at Northwest University (Kirkland, Washington), where another Katwe chess player (depicted in the movie as the boy clicking his fingers a lot) named Benjamin also is enrolled with a dream to become a neurosurgeon;
teenagers named David, Lydia, Gloria and Stella who auditioned as young, poor Katwe children and received supporting roles in the movie;
two student chess players enrolled in engineering at the Mukono campus of UCU. There, with the hand of the university’s Vice Chancellor, the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) exists to serve the underserved with the Academy – if there is financial support.
Through the UCU Partners organization, based in the USA state of Pennsylvania, San Antonio, Texas, resident, Sandra Lamprecht, offered that first support. She sponsors the two UCU students, Ivan Mutesasira and Mildred Nampala. Already an admirer of UCU quality curriculum and character-building education and with family in Uganda, the United States woman saw the “Queen of Katwe” movie in 2016, met Katende in 2017, and felt led to help.
With Katende’s recommendation and facilitated by the MOU at UCU, Lamprecht first agreed to be the American “mom” for Ivan Mutesasira, who is a lesser-known character in the “Queen of Katwe” movie.
“I’m the guy with the hat,” Ivan commented amidst the young chess players, including one hanging onto his leg on this January 8 day. He smiled as he referred to his movie portrayal as a member of the chess team that traveled more than a decade ago with Phiona to Juba, South Sudan, and the tournament where she won and garnered international attention through the media, a book and then a movie.
Like Katende, Ivan, who is now 28 years old, believes his life outside the movie better defines him and God’s purpose.
“The movie touches me because I lived it – paying for water and fetching it in a jerry can, sharing pit latrines, no electricity,” Ivan recalled. “My parents divorced when I was age five. There were five of us as children with a mom supporting us by selling vegetables at the market.”
While he was raised Christian and went to church, Ivan saw his life take an upward turn when, at age 12, he met Katende. Through moves on a chess board, the young Ivan learned discipline, responsibility, strategic planning, action consequences and that someone – the coach and God – believed in him and loved him.
“My friends were dropping out of school and having unplanned children,” Ivan said. “I was learning to accept and appreciate what I had, trusting in God, praying and playing chess.”
What Ivan learned through the chess academy is continuing at UCU, where character building is incorporated into his program in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Upon his graduation with a bachelor’s degree in July 2021, he hopes to make a difference in the place where he grew up.
“That building is wrong structurally,” he said, pointing to a crumbling residence towering three stories above the Katwe academy. “Effluent from the upstairs bathroom is flowing down into people’s rooms. That’s part of what I want to fix to improve lives.”
Mildred Nampala, 21, and the second Katwe youth sponsored at UCU by Sandra Lamprecht, likewise wants to be part of the solution to her country’s poverty issues. She is a year behind Ivan at UCU and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering.
One of three children, Mildred never knew her father who died when she was a toddler; her mother died when she was 12 years old. She served as a house cleaner and cook in exchange for school fees and a place to live with an uncle, his wife and five children until one of the biological children got pregnant out of wedlock. Out of fear that the same would happen with Mildred, the uncle kicked her out of the house. She found refuge in various homes, including that of her sister who works as Katende’s accountant.
Mildred found refuge in chess. The game also reinforced the value of teamwork with all the pieces working together under the guidance of the players. And the “Queen of Katwe” movie that Mildred has “watched more times than I can count” reinforces that she and others in poverty can be more.
While he has had offers to relocate with other organizations and in developed countries, Katende says he is called to remain in his Katwe birthplace. As he looks around and admires the mechanical skills of the less-educated population of the slum, he aspires to grow the chess academy focus into a vocational school within the next few years.
“The school will go there,” he said, pointing to an area near the academy’s single avocado tree and below crumbling houses and rows of laundry blowing in the dusty wind.
This Katende and others know: Millions of people around the world play chess. Losing a queen early on doesn’t mean you lost the game.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
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.
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.
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.
Julius Mucunguzi, left, with the Honorable David Bahati, Uganda’s minister of state for finance and planning; and Jack and Linda Klenk in October 2019. Jack serves on the board for UCU Partners.
By Julius Mucunguzi, Communications Advisor to the Prime Minister
Those who have read my book, “Once Upon a Time – The Story of Keeping Hope Alive” (2014) may remember where I write about my first travel to the United States as a fresh young man in May 2000 – arriving at Dulles Airport, Washington, DC, with no luggage.
After waiting alongside the conveyor belt for the entire luggage to come through without seeing my bag, I walked out through the huge lounge unsure of what to do next. I only had on me $70 dollars, which I had planned to use to get a taxi to the Ellipse Apartment in Fairfax, Virginia, and wait for the stipend that would come from the Weatherspoon Fellowship at the Family Research Council, which admitted me for an internship.
My eyes were welling with tears of fear and anxiety. Here I was – in a foreign land for the first time in my entire life – with no luggage apart from the clothes I was wearing.
Unknown to me, a friend, Rev. Canon Geoffrey Byarugaba, aka Uncle Geoff, who recommended me to the fellowship, had informed this couple on the right hand side – Jack and Linda Klenk – about the details of my travels and they decided to come to pick me up from the airport.
As I stood staring at the different signposts, I saw my name written on some manila paper held high by two people with very warm and wide smiles. The sight of the name “Julius Mucunguzi” took me by surprise. I walked over and announced that I was the one.
“We are here to pick you and take you to your apartment,” Jack said.
“Where is your luggage?” Linda asked.
” I have no luggage. It did not come,” I replied, almost sobbing.
“Do not worry,” Jack told me. “It will come when it does. For now, let us first take you to buy some clothes.”
I had packed about 10kgs (22 pounds) of millet and sorghum floor so I would make ekisyanga, a special type of a traditional Ugandan beverage called bushera. It was common for those of us who went to boarding schools in those days.
I jumped into their vehicle, and off they drove me to a huge shopping mall.
Here, inside a large Wal-Mart store, they asked me to choose clothes of my choice, but I was timid, not knowing what to pick or leave and fearing to appear like someone abusing their generosity. Jack noticed it and simply picked several shirts, trousers, vests, boxers, a jacket, and shoes. He put all of them in a cart. Meanwhile Linda picked spaghetti, bread, milk, sugar and lots of tinned foods and added them to the metal cart. We walked over to the counter, and they paid the whole bill.
They took me to the Ellipse Apartments near the Government Centre in Fairfax, and I entered the house. After they had left, I quickly started fitting myself in the new clothes.
They fit me so well. They were the best clothes I had ever owned. Alone in the room, I jumped up and down, thanking God for the loss of my luggage. If my luggage had come, which contained some very old trousers and shirts I had been wearing at campus and a pair of old shoes that looked like dried fish, perhaps they would never have taken me to the shopping mall.
Jack and Linda would from that day become my family in DC. I later learned that they loved Ugandans with a passion. They had been picking up many Ugandans from the airport. They even had turned their huge house in Lorton, Virginia, into some sort of Uganda House where they would host students and elders alike.
In the years that followed, several other friends would benefit from their generosity, including Mike and Monica Chibita (Uganda’s chief prosecutor and Uganda Christian University dean of journalism and media studies, respectively), Ethan Musollinii (motivational speaker and human resource consultant based in Kampala), Enock Mayanja Kiyaga (journalist based in the United Kingdom), Aloysius Bisigirwa (residing and working in Washington, DC), David Bahati (Uganda’s minister of finance) and many more.
I would later learn that Jack’s love for Uganda started in the 1960s when he travelled to my country as a student teacher and taught at Sebei College in Kapchorwa.
The couple often visits Uganda. On their trip in October 2019, I was attempting “to revenge” – a Ugandan slang popularized by one of Uganda’s former Presidents. It means to return the favor. While seemingly inadequate, I humbly offer these words as part of the favor.
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.
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
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.
Dr. Mangalwadi (left) and Dr. Magara (right) pose with their gifts at the closure of the event.
By Douglas Olum
It was noon on a brightly sunny Wednesday, just a few minutes before 1 O’clock when I and more than 60 other people made our way into the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala, Uganda. Most of the people I travelled with in the 67-seater, Uganda Christian University (UCU) owned bus were university staff. One group had already entered the hotel premises and another group comprised of students were following us in a rented bus.People were trickling in as we made our way into the Flower Room.
We were there for the annual Public Lecture organised by UCU and the African Policy Centre (APC). The Flower Room, located on the 5th floor of the multi-storied building,was already more than half full with people from other universities, institutions and organizations. The 2019 topic was “Parenting at risk: Raising children in the 21st century.”
Dr. Mangalwadi emphasises a point during his presentation
Soon,Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi, the guest lecturer, walks in, dressed in a long,Indian-styled, orange, collarless, long-sleeved shirt. Welcomed by the UCU Vice Chancellor, Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi and Deputy Vice Chancellor, Mr. David Mugawe, he settled upfront where the seats for the Guest Speaker, Discussant, Guest of Honour, the university chancellor and Church of Uganda Archbishop, and the Vice Chancellor were set. The rest of the members soon joined them before the lecture, slated for a 2 p.m. start.
Dr. Mangalwadi, a native of India known as a social reformer and Christian philosopher, addressed a crowd of over 1,000. He first took the crowd through the understanding of the word “father.” To him, a father is not just a man who makes a woman pregnant. But one who actively participates in guiding and raising his child – like God who guided Abraham to make a great nation.
Noting that a nation cannot be great without the knowledge of the father, Dr. Mangalwadi said it was unfortunate that in today’s world, the best universities around the globe do not know the father, and they teach their students with skills that are not backed by God’s knowledge and wisdom.
“Universities are the greatest risk to parenting in this century because they are the source of darkness,” he said. “The universities are not teaching their students important values like love. They make it easier for one to love their neighbor’s wife than their own because the neighbor’s wife will not ask them to mop the house or take care of the child. Loving one’s wife, not a neighbor’s wife, is what universities should teach but that is what most of them are not teaching and that is a great risk to parenting.”
Dr. Mangalwadi said the institution of marriage and the family is being destroyed. He, therefore, encouraged Uganda Christian University to stand up against the “forces of darkness” and cultivate Christian values in its students in order to reverse the trend.
He also said the university has a great role to play to changing the practice in Uganda where women are treated like machines.
“America is the only country in the world that has understood the concept of the family best,” Dr. Mangalwadi said. “In other countries, like Uganda, a woman is a slave in her own house because she cannot cause her husband to do anything. She is the one who cooks the food, tenders the children and does everything in the house while the husband is seated. The woman should not be doing the work that the wheelbarrow should be doing. It is dehumanizing to make a woman do what machines can do.”
He encouraged parents not to lean on their own knowledge while raising their children but involve the Church because their “own intellect is not good enough for proper parenting.”
Dr. Ronah Magara, the Makerere University chairperson of the university council, who was the Guest of Honour at the event, said children pick more of their lifestyles from observing what their parents do.She said while all parents may have good intentions to raise their children into valuable people, parenting is a deliberate, planned process that needs to be rethought because “good intentions are not good enough.”
Dr. Magara said when parents fail to guide their children, the television and other improper sources take over the parenting role, thereby spoiling the children.
Rev. Prof. Edison Kalengyo, who was the discussant, said while universities in Uganda think that children join them while they are already spoiled, many of them get spoiled from the instructions due to lack of guidance.
He, however, blamed promotion of children’s rights without responsibility and absenteeism among additional risks to parenting in this century.
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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, atm.t.bartels@ugandapartners.orgor at UCU Partners, P.O. Box 114, Sewickley, Pa. 15143.
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.
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.
Ghanaian diplomat and Nobel Peace Recipient Kofi Annan once said; “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress in every society, in every family.”
The Church of Uganda, through its child, Uganda Christian University (UCU), has embarked on a mission to provide a complete education for a complete person – an all-round education that will compliment someone’s life in society.Since its inception in 1997, UCU has sent out cultured and trained reverends, engineers, academics and journalists, among others.
Being a church-founded and private university, the institution does not receive support funds from the government; instead, the government demands taxes from the institution. With branches in Kampala, Arua, Mbale, Kabale and other constituent colleges, much support is needed to foster the university’s mission of equipping students for productive, holistic lives of Christian faith and service.
It was in this light that three years ago the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda introduced UCU Sunday which is marked by all Anglican churches every last Sunday of September. The funds collected on this day across go to the university to support its operations.
Church Official auctions off donated watermelon for support on UCU Sunday
In western Uganda, St. John’s Cathedral located at the peak of Fort Portal town, opens its doors to worshippers at 6:30 a.m. The church seats about 300 people every service. On September 29, 2019, it was the annual UCU Sunday. Many were happy that they had the opportunity to support an institution birthed by their Church. They gave of their money and even fruits like watermelon.
Florence Nyakato was among those who said she is pleased to give to God. For the UCU Sunday, Nyakato, a mother, said she was more than privileged to be part of those supporting UCU. She said the university is great capital to the advancement of the nation.
Reverend Isaac Kaguma, a theology graduate of Balya Constituent College, UCU, said UCU Sunday was a good idea because the church owns the institution and should therefore uphold it proudly. He beseeched the rest of the churches to join in supporting the excellent education that UCU gives.
UCU’s representative to the church, Rev. Dr. Medard Rugyendo, the principal of Bishop Barham University College, Kabale (UCU), thanked the church for the continued effort invested in sustaining the university.
“We are a private university and we need your backing. As a contribution, you have marketed, given and prayed for us. Thank you for this effort and continue doing so because this university is for our church and province,” Rugyendo said.
As he took the church through the journey of his salvation in 1976, to the attainment of his doctorate, Rugyendo encouraged the congregation to always consider education so that they are better able to serve God.
The Bishop of the diocese of Ruwenzori, Rt. Rev. Reuben Kisembo, said the UCU Sunday has been owned in the diocese. He said in support of the day, circulars were sent out to all the Anglican churches for their contribution to the work that UCU is doing in the country.
“The church is happy to support UCU’s mission. I know the people gave and we await the collection. We shall always support this cause for the advancement of the nation,” he said.
The Sunday service also was dedicated to children. Little Kitinisa, who cautioned the church to live their lives with Jesus as the center, delivered much of the sermon message. “Let us love and seek Jesus. It is only then that we shall live peacefully,” Kitinisa said, amidst ululations from the congregation.
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For Americans and others outside of Uganda wishing to contribute on behalf of UCU Sunday, go to https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/ and indicate “UCU Sunday” in the special instructions/comment box that is part of the on-line form, or send a check in the mail (Uganda Partners, P.O. Box 114, Sewickley, Pa. 15143) payable to UCU Partners with instructions for the UCU Sunday designation.
UCU Master of Divinity student, Caroline Aber, accepts a tray of eggs as a donation during UCU Sunday at Christ Church
By Douglas Olum
In the heart of Gulu town, about 360 kilometers (224 miles) north of Uganda’s Capital, Kampala, stands Christ Church, an Anglican Church under Christ Church Parish in Gulu Municipality. Every Sunday, the quadrangular-shaped, brick-and-mortar-walled, flappy-winged and over 2,000-seater, blue and cream painted Church runs three services. With the first starting as early as 6:30 a.m., the services are conducted in Acholi (the dominant language in the area), English and Acholi again, respectively.
Some food items given to the Church in Gulu with Rev. Canon William Matuwa Ezekiah, at right
Key among the activities during the services, is a collection to support the clergy. Christians donate foods, household materials as well as cash to support the priests and their families.
But on Sunday, September 29, this northern Uganda Church joined other churches across the country for the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Sunday, Christ Church sacrificed its session for collecting funds and materials for supporting their clergy to be used for collection of funds to support the university. In addition to money, among the gifts were ripe bananas, bar soap, powder soap, sugar, maize flour, rubber floor dryer, hard brush and trays of eggs.
The UCU Sunday is an annual day declared by the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Uganda in 2017 to raise awareness about the university among Christians in all Anglican Churches in Uganda and collect funds to support its operations and training of clergy.
Unlike in other churches where the collections are not immediately disclosed to the congregation, Christ Church announced its collections for the UCU Sunday before the end of each service with a total after the third service.
About 1.1 million Ugandan shillings ($300) were collected through the three services, with the first service raising 510,000 UGX, the second raising 405,100 UGX, and the third 178,700 UGX.
Rev. Godfrey Loum, the Deacon of Christ Church, said it is important that Christians support UCU because some of the funds are used to train clergymen and women like him and his colleagues.
While preaching during the services, Rev. Canon William Matuwa Ezekiah, told the Christians that while there are many universities in the country, UCU desires to train and equip students with integrity and other values that enable them positively impact both on their communities and the country.
One example of UCU graduate honesty provided to the Gulu church congregation involved a West Nile region organization that was corrupted through money-skimming by 15 graduates of other universities. When these 15 were replaced by UCU alumni, the organization regained strength and thrived.The main message delivered was: In an economically poor country suffocating from greed and corruption like Uganda, integrity and servanthood that form part of the UCU core values are key to development.
This year’s UCU Sunday services were conducted under the theme: Higher education for a Godly legacy.
David Mukiibi, the head of Ushery at Christ Church, said as a Christian, he feels proud to support the university because he knows that his money will be going towards the continuity of the Church. Mukiibi however, encouraged the university to put the collection to good use and also give accountability for that use to the contributors.
“UCU Sunday is a very good idea that will receive even more support from Christians if the university accounts for how our collections are used,” he said. “They also need to write a letter of appreciation to the Christians, not the church administration, when they receive the money. That will motivate people to give more.”
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For Americans and others outside of Uganda wishing to contribute for UCU Sunday, go to
https://www.ugandapartners.org/donate/ and indicate “UCU Sunday” in the special instructions/comment box that is part of the on-line form, or send a check in the mail (Uganda Partners, P.O. Box 114, Sewickley, Pa. 15143) payable to UCU Partners with instructions for the UCU Sunday designation.
Rev. Rebecca Nyegenye (second from left) is surrounded by UCU faculty women at a sendoff to her new position with All Saints Cathedral.
NOTE: Earlier this year, the All Saints’ Cathedral, Kampala, installed the Very Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Nyegenye as its provost, making her the first woman to occupy the office in Uganda. Before assuming the office, she served as a chaplain at Uganda Christian University (UCU) for nearly 20 years. The UCU student newspaper, The Standard, recently published an interview by one of its reporters, Benezeri Wanjala Chibita. This interview, shared with UCU Partners, is edited and condensed.
What role do you think God has put you in this position to play? Some of the reasons are yet to be unveiled. There is a job description. (These include) serving as chief administrator of the cathedral, chief financial controller, being in charge of the ministries and the priests. But there is this uniqueness of a role that God himself knows. So I’m still praying and asking God for clear direction of what He wants. But as for now, my desire is that, as a Church in the city, how can we position ourselves to do mission? That’s the cry of my heart. To make sure that the cathedral thrives in being a missionary church so that we can reach out to the ends of the city, and eventually the country with the gospel.
How did your father (a priest) influence your desire to dedicate your life to Christ? My father was consistent, the same today and tomorrow, in his lifestyle. He also was a peacemaker. He loved God with all his heart. God was his consultant. He was a loving father, loving us equally. I wanted to be like him. He died two years ago but when I look around (at other people), I don’t see any comparison with daddy.
The Very Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Nyegenye
What are some of your fondest childhood memories? We grew up around the church because of daddy and we would run around, cleaning the church and beating the drums on Christmas. We also did business, carrying sugarcane from down in the river, selling pancakes and groundnuts at school. I didn’t even calculate profits. The needs weren’t so great. If you have a blanket, you don’t even think of a bedsheet.
What point did you decide you’d be a priest? I initially wanted to be a priest. It wasn’t an afterthought. Others discouraged me saying I can’t be a lady that’s a priest. I decided at nine, I told my dad, and he prayed for me. He had his fears but, it was God’s calling on my life. I’ve never regretted it.
At what point did you go to school to train to become a priest? I went after Secondary 4. My father didn’t have money so he educated all seven of us up to S4. He promised each of us a basic education, and he delivered. My two followers and I weren’t able to go to high school immediately, but eventually we went. I went to Bishop Usher Wilson, Buwalasi, in Mbale. Most Bishops went there. It’s now been merged with UCU Mbale Campus.
You now have a PhD. Who inspired you to venture into higher academics? Dr. Olivia Banja. She’s the director of teaching and learning at UCU. We met at a clergy meeting for women, at Makerere. The second time, we were at UCU, and I was serving at Busia Parish. She said that I should go for further studies. I left the parish, and she guided me through the steps I needed to get into theological education. I joined UCU. I got a diploma. After that, I realized I could do better. So, I started a Bachelor of Divinity program. From then on I was encouraged to go further by Bishop Eliphaz Maari, Canon Lusaniya Kasamba, and Dr. Edward Kalengyo. At UCU, I worked under Dr. John Senyonyi (now the Vice Chancellor),and he persuaded me to do a full masters degree. Ofcourse, I can’t forget Prof. Stephen Noll, the former vice-chancellor of UCU. He wrote and gave me recommendations for scholarships, and I was able to get them.
How did you get the masters scholarship? God has been faithful. There was a scholarship named after Bishop Stanway at Trinity School for Ministry. Prof. Noll worked through all the paperwork. I went to the USA and studied for one year, and then I returned to UCU where I wrote my dissertation and graduated. UCU gave me a partial scholarship for my PhD. I received another partial scholarship from World Council of Churches. So for both my Masters and PhD,I didn’t struggle financially. I graduated with my masters in 2006 and started on my doctoral degree in 2009.
What do you miss about UCU? I miss my life with students. It was so interesting. I had really gotten used to my motherly role. Seeing students walk in, walking the talk with the students. Then seeing them graduate with a changed character and moral stability. But also, being there for 18 years, UCU had become my family. I also miss the women fellowships.
What is the biggest setback that you encountered in your life? I would mention two. One is someone I worked with when I had just entered ministry. My life was really tested. I didn’t know you could work with someone that would make life so difficult. You know there are times when someone…will frustrate you, even make allegations in public. I didn’t know that could happen in the church. What helped me get through it was to remember that I wasn’t called by man but by God. I eventually decided to release and forgive him. But that was after some time of prayer and telling God that I want to let this out of my heart. And indeed I did, I have no grudge. When we meet today, we greet.
How did you escape from this situation? Actually when it was so tense, God gave me a breakthrough by opening a door for me to go and study. I learnt that when you are faithful to God, He will always provide a way of escape. He will not leave the situation to burn you for long. Then, I was sick from July 2014 to January 2015; I was at UCU. I was very sick. I knew one thing: If I am going to live, the Lord will heal me. If I die, I’ll be with God in eternity. So that kept me going. Every day I was alive was God’s grace. I was so weak and in so much pain. The UCU community prayed, but it seemed like God wasn’t answering fast enough. At the right moment, God healed me.
You said that you were ready to join God in eternity, if it was His will? Certainly, I couldn’t talk about the sort of death. But my husband being a medical person, trusted that one day my pain would pass. He (took) time off from his work and moved with me to every doctor he thought would help me. He paid for me to go to Nairobi hospital where I was for two weeks, and he was by my side. The Hospital did everything they could. They put me on medication for diabetes and hypertension, because they thought that’s what I had. When God healed me, I was healed completely. There were times when the whole family was in tears because they didn’t know what to do or what the future held.
How did your faith sustain you? My faith never wavered because I was in it. There was no way I could run from it. I was on medication. I looked to God. I spent time and prayed. I didn’t want to miss both. I didn’t want to miss life here, and also in heaven, which is eternal. I kept my hopes high. Sometimes I was overwhelmed by pain. I’d ask God why He isn’t healing me. But in all, He was gracious.
Did those seven months change your outlook on life? I learnt to trust God more. I stopped taking things for granted. My zeal to serve the Lord increased. I lost all the fear I had. I cannot be easily threatened right now. I used to trust and put hope in people. But after getting through that it was a retreat for me to think about God in a fresh way. Right now when I preach, I preach like tomorrow I’m going. My level of ministry went higher. I’m now more focused, more committed to God and more prayerful.
How did people disappointment you during this trying time? There are people that I got to know better for who they are. There are those I had to be careful about after. It was a learning experience for me and there is something that God wanted to teach me. And there is a level God wanted me to rise to. Actually, shortly after that, I became a Canon. There are things that God takes you through for a reason.
What are your most important values? First: Faithfulness to God. Secondly, I love people. Thirdly: Passion for the gospel.
What advice would you give young women who want to go into ministry? Getting into ministry is a calling. If someone is genuinely sure that God is speaking to them, they should join. Someone coming to this ministry should not think about the high position. They should focus on serving the Lord. That, to me, is very pertinent. When I joined ministry, I started out in the rural areas. I never thought I’d work in town. I never prayed for an office. But I have waited on the Lord and I have served Him faithfully, that one I testify. And whenever I feel I’m going astray, I run back to the Lord. He is my only refuge. And even if you told me to compromise this position today, I’d be glad to walk out. Be willing to serve the Lord anywhere.
What will you remember about outgoing Archbishop Stanley Ntagali? (I learned) from the Archbishop that when you work together in church, you are teammates. And I always tell people, that much as he is leaving, we must remain a team. As the head of the team and as a team player, he has been able to understand people’s gifting and seasons. He acts when he is supposed to, of course with God’s guidance. He’s been close to us as individuals. He has been a father and a parent.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.
A Mukono maize factory worker, covered in white dust, sorts through ears of corn.(UCU Partners photo)
By Patty Huston-Holm
Beyond clothing and electronic shops, banks and markets and across from a Kaptura Road taxi park – just a 15-minute walk or 3-minute boda ride from the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Mukono main gate – men and women are manufacturing maize products. White dust from harvesting, drying, handling, processing and storing grain fills the air, covering worker hands and faces and entering their lungs. Often, the simple act of breathing is a struggle.
These Mukono milling employees are among one billion people worldwide with respiratory conditions. According to the World Health Organization (February 2019), diseases such as asthma, bronchitis and pulmonary hypertension are more common in low-income countries like Uganda. When people need money for basic necessities and to keep a factory afloat, they focus less on health awareness and workplace precautions – to the detriment of their personal well-being. The dust they inhale contains bacteria, fungal spores, insects and insect debris and pesticide residue.
Annet Musinguzi, assistant commissioner of human resources in the Uganda Office of the Prime Minister, demonstrates a health and safety procedure with a Uganda Christian University student during a Mukono community outreach project.
UCU’s Business and Administration programs, namely staff and students in human resources studies, embraced the issue in the first of annual planned community outreaches in June of 2019. In addition to outreach to choose and research the issue, a day of local maize-flour, heath and safety activities were conducted to take UCU student learning and faculty teaching deeper into the surrounding community.
“We saw people working in the community mills and not protecting themselves,” said David Kibuuka, a Business and Administration lecturer who coordinated the effort. “They weren’t covering their noses and didn’t know why they should.”
The UCU Business and Administration faculty members, in collaboration with local, municipal and district council and national officials, determined they wanted to do a better job with sharing university knowledge for improvement of the community around them and to reinforce Christian principles of servanthood. The milling engagement is one example of how the department should better “penetrate our potential,” Kibuuka said.
What took place in June of 2019 was this:
Relevance – That nearly every Ugandan household uses maize flour made this focus particularly relevant. A USAID report in April 2018 estimated that 92 percent of Ugandan families consume maize four with a per person consumption of 22 kg (48.5 pounds) of maize per year. A doughy posho, which comes from a maize flour product, is an inexpensive and frequent food, especially in schools.
Collaboration – Municipal and district council and national officials were part of the planning and reinforced the country’s regulations as well as concern for worker health and safety. These included Mukono Mayor George Fred Kagimu; Andrew Senyonga, chair of Mukono District Council; Annet Musinguzi, assistant commissioner of human resources in the Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda; and Douglas Nkonge, Principal Inspector General for Safety and Health Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development.
Engagement – Nearly 300 UCU students and staff, officials and factory employees participated in skits and conversation about life-altering impacts of pulmonary conditions and solutions for improved heath in the mills.
“We covered laws, risks and remedies,” said Kibuuka, who assembled a 20-page report with happenings, recommendations and photos. “It was the first of what we are calling our larger outreach.”
He noted that the Business and Administration faculty has been engaged in “entrepreneurship fairs” for the past few years. These involve student development of products and services in such areas as cleaning products, jam, beauty products and paper bags.
“This outreach went deeper to embrace a community problem and being part of the solution,” he said. “In addition to reaching out to our local residents, our students benefit from seeing how theory is put into practice in a humanitarian way.”
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students and other services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.
Douglas Olum, far right, at age 12 and shortly after his release from the Lord’s Resistance Army and another returnee, far left. Others pictured are Douglas’ family. All consumed World Food Program supplements in the 1990s.
By Douglas Olum
At the peak of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels’ insurgency in Northern Uganda in the 1990s, the World Food Programme (WFP) distributed a food supplement called BP-100 biscuits in what were known as the Internally Displaced People’s camps.
As a child then in that area, I ate some of the biscuits and exchanged some for books or pens with my school colleagues. It was a high-energy, ready-to-use, therapeutic food that did, as I recall, ease our hunger. Because we had no lunch at school and our parents would spend their days looking for what to cook, we had biscuits for lunch while being well aware that when we returned home at the end of the day, we would hardly find anything to bite.
Uganda map showing Karamoja area
Roughly two decades later, similar supplements are being provided in the Karamoja districts of Kaabong, Kotido, Abim, Moroto, Napak, Nakapiripirit and Amudat in the Eastern and Northeastern parts of Uganda. The nutritional need there today is a war of a different type.
The bore holes in these seven districts cannot yield water and the valley dams built for their livestock dry down for eight of 12 months a year. From September through April, the scorching sun cracks the clay soil, the trees are stripped bare of their leaves and the stunted grasses are wilted. Whirlwinds form dust storms sweep through the villages, carrying away nearly anything that stand in their way.
The districts that form the region cover approximately 27,000 square kilometers (10,400 square miles) of an arid and bush expanse, and is home to at least 1.2 million people (Uganda Investment Authority, 2016) who are often forgotten.
A 2011 survey by the Uganda Department of Geological Survey and Mines at the Ministry of Energy revealed that Karamoja is rich in minerals such as gold, limestone, uranium, marble, graphite, gypsum, iron, wolfram, nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium and tin. Despite the hard work and long hours by local men, however, they can hardly afford to provide for their families.
Additionally, such adverse climatic conditions affect food production. People and their animals migrate to find food. But hunger strikes, costing many lives of both livestock and humans, especially among children and elderly who cannot trek long distances.
In an attempt to combat such mortality, the United Nations, through the WFP, has since the 1960s, just like God did for the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16:13-17), provided food relief to the community. However, in 2011, the relief agency brought a new policy that only provided for food distributions to children. Alas, when men, women and children are hungry, food is consumed by all.
Unfortunately in early March, the agency found itself in an unforeseen crises when the very relief it intended caused sickness. At least four people died and more than 220 others were admitted to various hospitals in the districts of Napak and Amudat following the consumption of a food supplement, ‘Super Serial’ that was distributed. People who consumed the food supplement, purportedly meant for expectant mothers and malnourished children, vomited and developed general body pains and weaknesses, mental illness, high fever and headache.
In April, a joint investigation by the Government of Uganda and WFP into the causes of the deaths and illnesses was taking place. The food samples, as well as blood and other extracts from the sick and the dead were taken to laboratories in Mombasa (Kenya) and South Africa for specialized analyses. At the same time, the UN agency that has supplied food to needy Ugandans for decades, is researching its supplement expiration dates and overall policies for management of food reserves.
As the supply has been halted and the beneficiaries have been asked to return whatever was not yet consumed, the incident reminds both the organization and its workers of the need for education and Christian values in exercising duties and caring for the less fortunate. That’s part of the responsibility of education and being good stewards of Christianity.
As a student at Uganda Christian University, I recall how faith was integrated into all our learning. Thinking back on those days, I can’t help but wonder not only about the lack of attentiveness to the details of expiration dates for food provided to Karamoja, but also about the attentiveness to a population of people that is every bit as equal in God’s eyes.
For these 1.2 million of Uganda’s 42.8 million people, what happened in March of this year is an efficiency, effectiveness and Christian values wake-up call.
Linda Uhligo, a UCUstudent from Germany, with a UCU Sunday School child. (UCU Partners photo)
By Twesiime Jordan McGurran
Universities
and colleges around the world are seeking to form partnerships, collaborations,
and connections with other educational institutions, governments, civil society
organizations, churches, and various types of organizations. These partnerships
are designed to enhance the work within the universities – in their molding of
students, research potential, service to the larger society, financial or
technological growth, and the building of goodwill among communities from
different regions of the world.
Uganda
Christian University (UCU) has been working on building such connections since
the University’s formal inception in 1997.
The longest in existence and widest impacting in terms of student numbers outside the continent of Africa is the Uganda Studies Program (USP), a study abroad program of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). This USA-based Christian higher education consortium is composed of more than 180 institutions around the world, including UCU. Twice a year – in the Advent (September) and Easter (January) semesters – the UCU community welcomes about 25-30 students from North America. Mark Bartels, Uganda Christian University Partners executive director, and his wife, Abby, started USP about 15 years ago. In that time, USP has skillfully hosted over 800 students at UCU.
While there are several clusters of international students who come from other parts of Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan and Kenya, USP is the largest contingent of students who come to UCU from outside the African continent.
Beyond
USP, UCU also has several current and ongoing international collaborations
between UCU and other schools, governments, or civil society organizations. These include but are not limited to:
The Faculty of Journalism, Media, and Mass Communications,between 2014 and 2018, in partnership with the Norwegian Teacher Academy (NLA) and the University of Kwazulu-Natal of South Africa under the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research (NORHED),has provided faculty opportunities for postgraduate studies, including MA and PhD studies, in communication-related courses in Norway. Additionally, in the past, occasionally NLA undergraduates have come to study at UCU.
The child-focused international NGO, Compassion International, regularly has a contingent of students at UCU who are have been supported through their university studies by their Compassion sponsors. They have their own association and fellowship on campus.
The Law Faculty maintains several relationships with law schools outside of the country. Among these are: 1) partnership with the University of Cincinnati (Ohio) College of Law, where a few UCU graduates have gone for postgraduate studies and from which some Cincinnati visits have occurred at UCU: and 2) Regent University (Virginia)’s Law School collaboration with UCU for over five years in various capacities that include hosting some short-term study trips and internships for Regent students in Uganda.
UCU’s Social Work and Social Administration Department has collaborated for several years with the Social Work department at Radford University in Virginia related to social work educational experiences and research in Uganda.
Trinity International University, Illinois, has sent students (usually during May) for “Global Experience” trips to see Uganda and engage with UCU students.
Internationale Hochschule Liebenzell, a German theological college, is a new partnership with students coming from Germany to study at UCU for at least a semester.(Later this week, UCU Partners will post a separate story on one of these students.)
Bethel University (Minnesota) has a 14-year (since 2005), bilateral partnership with the Nursing Department that has borne much fruit for UCU – including a degree completion and masters program in nursing. There have been eight groups of UCU students who have spent 6-10 weeks at Bethel, while some students from Bethel also have come to learn at UCU.
Recently, UCU has been in talks with Tsinghua University, a well-ranked post-secondary institution in Beijing, China, to formalize a partnership related to research, educational exchange, and technological development.
Beyond these international connections, UCU students can be found pursuing further studies, completing internships, or employed in places such as the UK, Belgium, India, China, and the United States.
+++ COMING THURSDAY (February 28, 2019)…The UCU Partners blog will publish an interview with one of its international students.
———- For more information about how you can support Uganda Christian University to continue to form these international partnerships and/or to become a partner, please contact Mark Bartels, UCU Partners executive director, at mtbartels@gmail.com. Also, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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