Tag Archives: UCU Alumni

The award that was given to UCU Arua Campus

UCU Arua Campus wins regional quality award

News, ,


The award that was given to UCU Arua Campus
The award that was given to UCU Arua Campus

By Kefa Senoga
Uganda Christian University’s (UCU) Arua Campus has won a prestigious regional award as the best higher institution of learning in West Nile for 2022. The West Nile Quality Brands Awards are given to entities that operate in the northwestern part of Uganda.

The criteria for selecting the awardees involved assessing their economic sustainability, operational effectiveness, level of technology adoption, progressive leadership and culture, as well as social and community contribution, commitment and perseverance. 

While receiving the award at a hotel in the northwestern district of Arua on December 9, 2022, the UCU Arua Campus Director, the Rev. Julius Tabbi Izza, said it represents the voice of the community about what they know regarding UCU and that it tasks the administration of the university with continuing to offer quality services to the community. 

“Four institutions were nominated alongside UCU and it was upon the public to vote, so this is a testimony regarding what the public knows about UCU and, it gives us confidence that the community loves what we do and that they trust us,” Tabbi said.

The nomination and voting processes constituted 70% of the brand score, while the results from the judging panel constituted 30%. The university campus garnered 63.32% out of 70% of the votes from the public.

The West Nile Quality Brands Awards was set up to recognize excellence among companies, businesses, start-ups and individuals who have made a positive contribution to the region. The awardees must demonstrate excellence in the service they offer, show evidence of innovation and customer service, as well as professionalism and inclusiveness in the work they engage in. 

The awards organizers said the UCU Arua Campus was awarded for demonstrating its ability to equip students with quality, innovative skills, as well as providing hands-on skills courses that meet the market demands of professionals.

Taking advantage of its state-of-the-art online technology, the awards committee said UCU was the first university to embrace online learning for students prior to and during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that this helped many complete studies within the stipulated time. It added that all the achievements were possible because “UCU’s transformational leadership has enabled organizational learning.”

Albe Akasa, the president of the West Nile Quality Brands, said: “Winning portrays the trust that people have in UCU since these are largely people-centered competitions; it, therefore, shows that UCU is performing well, from the perspective of the people it serves.” 

As part of the benefits that UCU is entitled to as a winner, the university’s profile and advertisement will be published in the awards Winners Directory Book. Also to be profiled will be a documentary showcasing UCU’s activities.

The UCU Arua Campus was established in August 2003. Formerly, it was St. Paul’s Regional Theological College, offering diploma and certificate courses in Theology, as well as training of Lay Readers. 

The campus, which started with 80 students and 27 academic and non-academic staff now boasts a student enrolment of over 600 and about 100 staff. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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

Also, follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Matende Wilson with his mother on his graduation day in October 2018. (UCU Partners Photo)

UCU Partners Scholarship support for single mothers

Scholarship, UCU Alumni, , , , , ,


Matende Wilson with his mother on his graduation day in October 2018. (UCU Partners Photo)
Matende Wilson with his mother on his graduation day in October 2018. (UCU Partners Photo)

By Brendah Ndagire

One of the challenges of being a single mother – worldwide and in Uganda – is meeting the responsibility of educating children. The 2016 World Bank report shows that 26.90% of households are ‘Female Headed’ in Uganda. The reality is that Ugandans estimate the percentage of both female-headed homes and/or single-parent homes to be higher.

And the challenge is that Uganda as a nation struggles with the problem of research deficiency, largely due to the fact that majority of the population lives in rural areas, where such data, if collected, can be easily skewed.

Organizations such as the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA- Uganda) and Single Parents Association of Uganda (SPU) that work primarily on women issues, report that Ugandan women are single mothers for different reasons. Causes include death of the father to a disease or accident and/or father accusation of a crime and/or incarceration; unemployment of both parents; and willful abandonment of pregnant women.

Nabiryo Annet, mother of Uganda Christian University (UCU) graduate Matende Wilson Paul and four other children in Mukono, is one such single mother.  And like most other single mothers, she has struggled since she first learned the news of her pregnancy. When she had her son at age 16, his father abandoned her. She had to raise Wilson with her father.

“My father played the role of the father and grandfather at the same time,” said Annet.

When Annet got pregnant, her friends advised her to get an abortion because she could not possibly support her son on her own. But she refused. Looking now at her grown son who has a UCU Diploma in Business Administration, and all his academic accomplishments, Annet often thinks about the damage she could have done if she had aborted him.

But God has accompanied Annet through the USA-based UCU Partners nonprofit organization. Wilson Paul is a recipient of a UCU Partners’ scholarship. She remembers a time when Wilson graduated from high school. She did not know where to get the money for him to proceed to the university. When her son told her that he was receiving tuition support from a UCU Partners benefactor, she was filled with joy and gratitude. She did not know how he had managed to apply, or how he got accepted by UCU’s Financial Aid Office, but she felt that God had answered her prayers.

“I am grateful to UCU Partners’ scholarship and his sponsor specifically,” Annet said. “What stands out to me is that UCU Partners does not only give financial support, but sometimes some sponsors also give  career guidance to their students. My son would go on to be a chemistry teacher and mentor to high-school students upon the guidance of his sponsor at UCU.”

Today, Wilson’s mother is very hopeful about his future. When UCU Partners interviewed him, he had plans of going back to UCU for further studies. In January this year, he enrolled in UCU’s bachelor program in Business Administration, while serving as a Finance Assistant to the school where he is teaching chemistry.

There are more than 50 higher education institutions in Uganda, but these single mothers choose UCU because they want their sons to be rooted in Christ, and identify with UCU’s values of stewardship, community, integrity, and servant leadership.

When UCU’s financial aid office, in collaboration with UCU Partners, looks at which student to grant tuition support, they usually listen and learn the story of the student who is applying for support. Very rarely does the financial aid office get to hear the story and experiences of their parents.

Annet is not the only single mother UCU Partners has supported.

Odongokola Joshua with his mother on his graduation day in October 2018. (UCU Partners Photo)
Odongokola Joshua with his mother on his graduation day in October 2018. (UCU Partners Photo)

Stella Amonyi, is another mother the organization has supported. Her son, Odongokola Joshua El Shadai, also graduated with a Diploma in Business Administration in October 2018. He and his mother live in Kampala, but they are originally from the Northern district of Uganda, Lira.

Stella has worked as a mother to 47 orphaned and street children at Agape Christian Children Home/Center, in Nsambya, Kampala, for the last 11 years. With the sudden death of her husband, she held a job and raised their four children. Her husband died when Joshua, the youngest of the four children, was just three months old.

“My son never got a chance to meet his father. I thank God for caring for my son through UCU Partners,” said Stella.

When she learned that Joshua was receiving a scholarship from UCU Partners, she was very thankful to God.

“I have always prayed that God uses my sons and daughters for expanding His Kingdom. If it wasn’t for God, they would be nothing,” said Stella. Today, with a UCU diploma in hand, Joshua is enrolled in UCU’s bachelor program in Business and Administration. He wants to be an accountant.

Most parents in Uganda are responsible for their children’s education from kindergarten to the university. When UCU Partners supports students at UCU, they indirectly support their parents. This is why parents, such as Annet and Stella, are very grateful to UCU Partners who have empowered their sons through access to university education.

***

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

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

(BarefootLaw Photo)

UCU graduates in BarefootLaw seek justice in un-just world (Part II of II)

UCU Alumni, UCU School of Law, , , , , ,


By Brendah Ndagire

Timothy Kakuru, BFL Program Director (BarefootLaw Photo)
Timothy Kakuru, BFL Program Director (BarefootLaw Photo)

This second of two segments follows last week’s story of how UCU Law graduates are making a difference in the lives of Ugandans with the non-profit BarefootLaw (BFL) organization. This week features an interview with BarefootLaw’s Program Director, Timothy Kakuru,  to understand why BFL is doing the type of legal work across Ugandan communities. This interview is edited for clarification purposes.

What attracted you to Uganda Christian University Law School?
When I applied for the law program at UCU, it had a very good reputation among legal practitioners in Uganda. Before I came to UCU, all I knew about (studying) law is that you were in the program to graduate and make money. That I would become a lawyer, go to court, (argue a specific case) and get money – to somehow become rich. After I got to UCU, I learned that they were other ways to use my law degree. Primarily, UCU School of Law put a Christian aspect to legal practice, which changed the dynamics (of practice) for many of us (law students and graduates). I know many UCU graduates who are working within the non-profit field, because for the most part, the law program at UCU was about service, doing work for the greater good of the community, than serving to gain some sort of financial gain. Most other law schools in Uganda teach law in (the lens) of justice, but in UCU, it was not only through (the perspective of) justice but also in terms of Christian ethics.

How is the Christian ethic approach different?
Justice is what is right, according to the law. The difference lies in how a crime is prosecuted. For example, if someone burns your house, justice for you would be in terms of (monetary) compensation. To put a Christian aspect to that example, then one seeks to understand why the other person burnt your house, and seek to reconcile the two parties. The big gap is that often time in the legal system, there is no element of reconciliation, where as at UCU we were taught to try to reconcile the two parties by looking at the whys and the hows of a specific wrong action, and then solve the issue amicably.

How did BarefootLaw evolve?
The BarefootLaw was incorporated in 2013 as non-profit legal agency.  The idea of BarefootLaw came from Gerald Abila in 2012 who begun a Facebook Page to share legal information. I met him at Law Development Centre in 2013 and he shared the idea with me, I liked it and agreed to join him and slowly the team grew from there. The grand idea was to make justice available to people through giving them legal information. The crux of it was that if people knew their rights, then they would be able to enforce them. They would not really need legal representation because they would be able to avoid (potential) conflicts. For example, if that businessman knew that defilement was a crime, he would avoid having relationships with young girls. Many people are not aware that certain actions are legal offenses. The idea was to provide as much legal information that people would know that they would avoid engaging in crimes.

Left to right, Isaac, Timothy and Gerald, Co-founders of Barefoot Law. (BarefootLaw Photo)
Left to right, Isaac, Timothy and Gerald, Co-founders of Barefoot Law. (BarefootLaw Photo)

What did the implementation process of the idea look like?
We thought using technology would be our best strategy. Gerald (CEO) had already opened up a FaceBook page and I came on board to partner in writing content and publishing. Later, we came up with the an idea of doing sms, small call centers, website platforms and other mechanisms including community outreach and legal training with people in rural communities. We thought this would be our way of empowering people with legal information so that they may be able to avoid crime, or know what to do in case of a criminal offense.

But why BarefootLaw as a non profit legal agency and not as a profit-making law firm?
I had worked with the Uganda Law Council during my time at LDC, and had witnessed how many people had been taken advantage of. The Uganda Law Council disciplines lawyers. There were cases where lawyers were accused of taking someone’s property such as land, and in other cases a son of an elderly man working with corrupt lawyers to take away his father’s land. I thought I was already in a toxic law field. There were backlog of cases dating to 1994, and just so many unethical issues that was disillusioning, and I was not ready to jump into such a legal (justice) system.

I had always wanted to do something more meaningful and impactful to the ordinary person with my law degree. BarefootLaw to me was an opportunity for us to have every individual be ‘their own lawyer’ – we thought if people knew just enough information about law or human rights, they would be able to know if, for instance, you are entitled to bail once you have been arrested and detained for more than 48 hours. BarefootLaw is about making sure that ordinary people are empowered by understanding their human rights.

How do you reach out to people?
We have a very big social media presence. We have over 200,000 Facebook followers on our platforms, and in that sense most people do come to us for legal help. We do have community outreaches in some Districts, such as Soroti, Arua, Apach, Lira, and we try to get as many people as possible. We have an SMS and call center platform where most people can reach us. In a day, we can get about 50 cases. Some days are more others days less. Some cases are serious, others are not.

What has stood out for you working with BFL?
Most of the lawyers who work with us at BFL are from UCU. They are UCU graduates. And this shows that we are attracting young lawyers to do things differently within the Uganda legal system. As you may know, money drives most people, including in Uganda. And at BFL we try to challenge that by providing our services at a free cost in most cases. The admirable thing about BFL is that people who work with us are aware that they are not doing it primarily for the money.

***

Stories such as Timothy’s and the experiences of the people they have walked with to seek free legal support, are the reason why Uganda Partners supports law students so that they may have access to empowering and Christ centered education – a type of education that is making a huge difference in their communities. If you are interested in supporting students who are making a difference in the communities around Uganda such as Timothy Kakuru and the UCU graduates team at BarefootLaw, contact Mark Bartels, UCU Partners’ Executive Director, at  mtbartels@gmail.com. Also follow our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.

Timothy and BFL colleagues in Belgium receiving the 2017 King Baudouin African Development Prize.

UCU graduates in BarefootLaw seek justice in un-just world

UCU Alumni, UCU School of Law, , , , , ,


By Brendah Ndagire

Timothy and BFL colleagues in Belgium receiving the 2017 King Baudouin African Development Prize.
Timothy and BFL colleagues in Belgium receiving the 2017 King Baudouin African Development Prize. (BarefootLaw Photo)

 “What,” an anxious young man began, “does punishment for defilement mean?”

It was 2014. James (not his actual name) hopelessly asked the question to lawyers at BarefootLaw (BFL), a nonprofit legal organization founded in the Ntinda, greater Kampala area, Uganda.

The lawyers responded: “The maximum punishment for defilement is life in prison, and if it is aggravated defilement, someone may be subjected to capital punishment.”

The BFL legal team then received a message from James detailing what happened to his 12-year-old sister in Eastern Uganda’s Lganga District. A powerful businessman was accused of sexual abuse/defilement of the young girl. The man was caught in the act and taken to the police, but the offender negotiated with the police and was let go. He had paid the child’s mother some compensation to get the mother to drop the charges.

But the older brother couldn’t forget. He knew that his younger sister had been raped and deserved more than a monetary payoff by the perpetrator and a brush off by police. Despite the mother’s refusal to press on past her compensation and no help from Ugandan legal prosecutors, James reached out to BFL to reopen and proceed with the case.

According to BFL lawyers, no one should be able to compensate his way out of a rape/defilement charge. BFL took on the case of James and his sister. Two years later, there was a conviction of three year’s imprisonment for the perpetrator. Not enough, but some vindication.

“The news of the conviction made our year,” said UCU Law graduate Timothy Kakuru. “It made us realize that no matter how hopeless the case may be we have to keep encouraging the person we are helping to get justice.”

Timothy Kakuru leads a workshop with BFL beneficiaries. (BarefootLaw Photo)
Timothy Kakuru leads a workshop with BFL beneficiaries. (BarefootLaw Photo)

Stories like James’ are part of many successful stories Timothy’s BFL  creates every year. Timothy shared another story of a young woman who was working in a security company. She was sexually harassed by one of her male bosses. Many times she had reported the abuse but nothing happened to the culprits. In Uganda, oftentimes when the victims of sexual violence report such abuses they are met with such accusations as: “You invited it… it was your fault…the way you were dressed.” The victims of sexual violence are often blamed for what has happened to them.

Another young woman, working in the IT department of an organisation got a video recording of her being harassed by security officials. She hoped she could use the video to sue the company, but the company decided to fire her and tried to get her arrested for stealing their company video.  By the time she came to BFL for justice, she was very terrified because officials were threatening her.

Barefoot Law guided her to notify her employers of her intention to sue, detailing all the laws broken by her bosses at the security company, and listing out how much (money) she could ask for in terms of compensation. The lawsuit according to Timothy,  would have included sexual abuse, wrongful termination, and  mental suffering/health. The letter got into the hands of the Human Resource Manager and later in the hands of the director of the company. To protect its image, after receiving a letter from her,  a week later, the company m informed her that it would compensate her.

“In the end, she decided not to go ahead with the lawsuit because it was going to be a very long and tiring process, and she was happy with the decent financial compensation received. This helped to restore her dignity,” said Timothy.

++++

COMING UP: Next week, UCU Partners will share more of an interview with BarefootLaw co-founder Timothy Kakuru.  Included will be more details how Barefoot Law got started and how more lives have been transformed by this non-profit organization.

+++

If you are interested in supporting students who are making a difference in the communities around Uganda such as Timothy Kakuru and the UCU graduates’ team at Barefoot Law, contact Mark Bartels, UCU Partners’ Executive Director, at mtbartels@gmail.com. Also follow our Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin pages.