My first article for Full Woman Monitor News Paper

Sweethearts here is an article I wrote for the monitor this Saturday and I am honored to share it with you. I would love to share your thoughts on the issue too.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Full-Woman/Why-we-should-rejoice-in--not-flee-from-this-Bill/-/689842/1726876/-/5k7g/-/index.html

Dust yourself and move on already! Bridge Magazine article 2

Trust me your neighbor’s plight was worse than yours but she made it anyway. Many a time when life deals us a blow we tend to wallow in self pity thinking that our situation is the worst. My dear woman of valor much as you are going through so much trials at the moment you have to understand that there have been so many women down a worse road than the one you are traveling today and yet they made it safely to the finish line because they got up, dusted themselves and  pushed on. Honey you are not the first woman to be dumped, you are not the first single mother, you are not the first widow and neither are you the first young lady to find yourself in an unemployed situation.

There are two distinct situations in my own life that renewed my mindset on this matter and I want to share them with you today. I use to throw the world’s biggest pity parties every time life dealt me a blow. I enjoyed it when I would tell my pitiful stories but as I grew up I discovered that people will say sorry to you if they are kind enough and the others will just laugh behind your back. The saddest part about it is that sorry is not enough to pull you out of your situation and wallowing in self pity by sharing your pity story is the quickest yard where you can hang your dirty linen to give your neighbors a chance to ridicule you.

This special time in 2008 while trying kyeyo (handy work) in London, I was sent an email from my Tanzanian friend telling me we can work together on a huge deal. I was super excited and trust me I got onto the first plane to Africa and headed straight for Tanzania. The project was a weekend retreat for women to inspire each other in business and it is to date one of the most successful events I ever organized in my life from scratch. The gist of the story is that I was not paid for my work, they didn’t pay for as small as my travel fair back to Uganda and there I was thrown out on the streets in a strange land. My first reaction was to throw pity parties with anyone who had an ear until this special day when out of anger I decided to take legal action. That was the first step in the right direction though with the wrong solution. After I had shared my dreams with my lawyer Mr. Joseph Nuwamanya, he advised me not to waste my time with a court case but to use my skills and create my own money that will take me out of my situation. He helped me register my company and get a Tanzanian working permit. My first two events were a talk of town success (The Vital Voices women Mentoring Walk Tanzania and the Blast from the Past Shear Charity ball) and in 2009 the idea of women of valor foundation was birthed. The irony of it is that had I not pushed on, things would never have fallen into place but every time we take the first step to recovery, nature joins in with all the required logistics.

The second situation was when after enjoying my success in Tanzania I wanted to now expand back into my home country Uganda. Owing to the fact that I had good corporate connections from my past work as Jamboree et Rendezvous my PR and events management firm, I really thought starting the women of valor foundation in Uganda in 2011 will be a walk over. My friend, I had planned to be done in three months but six months down the road I still dint have a sponsor for my project. While beaten and stranded I attended the Vital Voices Women’s mentoring walk Uganda that year and listened to the stories of the journeys of a number of successful women. Two stories to date inspire me on.

 Hajjat Santa shared that she was widowed at a young age, left with six children to take care of, the relatives wanted to take their brother’s assets and all she had to her name was four thousand Uganda shillings. She invested her four thousand in dried fish fat and sold it to fish markets and factories. She then brought other women suppliers on board. Being a smelly business many of her neighbors ridiculed her but she pushed on. Later she was exporting to markets like china and today she owns Arch apartments one of Uganda’s leading hotels in Ntinda.

Reverend Barlow on the other hand was one time trying out a tomato door to door business and she had stocked a room full of tomatoes only to come back and find the tomatoes rotting on day three. Instead of throwing them away as a big loss she used her tomatoes to make ketchup. Now I know we all have rotten tomato situations in our lives but we have to turn our tomatoes into ketchup. I left that Mentoring walk inspired to find a new avenue on how I can turn my women of valor foundation issue into ketchup. I used strategic alliencies and then got women like Simona Schivas of Gatto Matto who offered us her place for free as a training ground and Agness Konde the then marketing manager of pepsi who offered us the drinks for the ladies during the training. Through different strategic alliances we were able to kick off and the rest is history. So my dears, no matter the blow life deals us, we have to renew our minds, dust ourselves and move on already.

Happy Women's day my darlings!

 

Happy Women's day our sweethearts. Special recognition goes out this day to the men who have come on board to help women regain their God given position in society. We are all especially indebted to the women who have invested in other women to realize that women globally are empowered to live a dignified life.