Ignorance is a big Roadblock when it comes to health issues in mama Africa

Ignorance is the biggest mountain we are facing when it comes to health issues here in mama Africa. If we take a look at how many innocent children are born infected with HIV/Aids today; yet today global health organizations have provided services to stop mother to child transmission. It is with great vigilance that am focusing my energy towards senstising the communities especially the rural communities about these health opportunities and am sending out acry to all of you to join this campaign to see that we have no more babies born with HIV/Aids in Africa by 2016. "Let us call it, "HIV/Aids free babies by 2016 campaign" it's really easy, all about advocacy and health information sharing especially with the youth, poor teenagers in the basket of un-planned teenage pregnancies. No mother should go through the pain of watching their innocent child come into this world already infected and no child deserves to come into this world infected in this day and Era where mother to child transmission can be stopped. Let us all as concerned community leaders take it upon ourselves to see that we send the word out there, especially to the rural communities. When we take a good look at our population, we will find that most of our people are in the rural areas and are relegated to the back yards of these modern media health campaigns. Let's do some grassroot sensetisations, door to door activities, community notice boards, local dramas with messages, mobile cinemas to mention but afew, let us just get out there and get the health knowledge to our people until its public knowledge to the very last man.

Why women of valor like us have been unemployed and how we can break this pattern!

Our patriarchal societies where men are the decision-makers and hold positions of power and prestige, and have the power to define reality and common situations have played a big role in rendering us as women unemployed. Of course the business world and the labor market have been labeled a man’s world for centuries. You as a woman you have to fight double hard to join the pack. For as long as we still have these patriarchal mindsets, stereo types, negative cultural norms and beliefs governing our minds in this day and age, no matter how much education you have you will still fall prey to the vagaries of being a woman. We need to stop playing coy as women and get real when we go out there to join the business world. As a woman you have to be exceptional to automatically get that job otherwise honey the man even much younger and less experienced will snatch that job from you. It is your mandate as a woman to work hard to break through this wall. Chisel your skills and make sure that every day your brand as a person is re-invented and enrich your mind through reading. Be a source of innovations and I assure you no matter your gender you will be one to die for.  There are a few matriarchal societies where women are in central decision-making positions such as community leaders, where they play a central role in the community and in the society. In the few matriarchal societies that exist today it has been observed that the word rape does not exist, as women's rights are central in these societies; sexuality is practiced freely and women are given space to express their creativity and participate in society. We can cause our society to have a balance. If as women we sit back and just make noise about our rights, write great philosophies about how we need empowerment, debate, and advocate and sensitize others without taking physical action in the right direction, the level of unemployment among women will keep rising. We need to understand that for years men have invested in fellow men to see that they keep the power positions in our societies. These negative beliefs, stereo types and patriarchal mindsets have been a large sale to the extent that even mothers were brain washed enough to believe that their girl child was less of a person compared to their boy child. It is time now for us as women to act by deliberately investing in fellow women. We can invest in each other through mentorship, executive coaching, business training, motivational talks, network sharing and offering interne ship opportunities to other women in our thriving organizations. True as women we have natural factors acting against us but these can be accommodated if we made up for it by preparing ourselves as unbeatable professionals when we are given an opportunity. It is time to sell to the world the advantages of matriarchal societies co existing with patriarchal societies. The balance is really good for our social economic well being and the harmony we all need to thrive well and beat unemployment.

I can literaly taste the excitement of having a brilliant TEDx Event in Uganda!

The long Awaited day is here my sweet people!

This for us women of Uganda is the must attend event of the year 2013!

Internationally you have a chance to watch it on live stream too!

It feels like a dream but I assure you that it is Reality!

The TEDxNakaseroWomen team have finally pulled it off today!

Yes it's that awesome, I keep pitching myself to know it’s not just a dream.

They have diligently and successfully put together the logistics required to execute a successful TEDxNakaseroWomen event today!

I hope you have your ticket with you my sweetheart!

All I can promise you is that come expectant and rest assured your mind will be blown by the great talks that will be shared!

Those of you who can't make it to the event at the Sheraton please watch through the stream below!

http://www.livestream.com/tedxnakaserowomen

Our children are dying simply because of ignorance!

Can you imagine that the biggest part of our population here in Africa is unaware of the fact that a mother can give birth to an HIV free baby even if she is HIV infected? For instance am supposed to be one of the most informed people by the standards of my society and I thought that the solution to saving children from being infected by their mothers during pregnancy only came in two years ago! Look at the shock on my face when I was given the true facts that this solution was there since five years ago. How many children have we lost as a result of ignorance? How many children are we still losing? As a community leader it starts with you. I just heard about this inspiring group of women called National Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS in Uganda (NACWOLA). I really loved their slogan; “We are not the problem but part the solution”. Sitting down with the Executive Director of NACWOLA, Ms Florence Buluba, it hit me to learn what a wealth of knowledge and hope she was to our society. They have designed different solutions to help solve issues like stigma for the infected women and help sensitize our society about how to prevent mother to child HIV transmission (EMTCT). Funny though, she faces the same issue which all great programs with great solutions face today, lack of funding! It really grates my nerves to know that there are so many funds following in from donors and well wishers and all this money ends up lining pockets of greedy politicians or selfish scammers. Anyway, let us get off my personal issues about misplaced funds and I enlighten you on some of my discoveries that I made while having this interesting discussion with Madam Florence Buluba. What blew my mind was that when women are tested before their husbands they are accused of being the ones who brought the infection in the first place. What has that really got to do with the price of coffee! It's like shooting the bearer of bad news. Who said that am the guilty party simply because I was smart enough to consent to knowing our status before my partner. Meanwhile sometimes the husbands are already polygamous! My God ignorance of this magnitude is also the source of uncalled for domestic violence. These women are beaten to a pulp and chased out of the marriage, leaving children to their spouses some of them are subjected to rape and abuse of different types. As if that is not shock enough they are stigmatized by their community grabbed of their property, and left to wonder with self Stigma. Now most of our efforts have been put to sensitizing the urban population which is only 15% and little effort is put on the rural woman. I was really proud of the work NACWOLA is doing by infiltrating the villages where they have centers and through the network they have managed to reach a good number of HIV+ women. Today the number of NACWOLA membership, is in thousands. Now when it comes to the issue of innocent babies dying out of ignorance we all need to stand up and do something. A Simple shortcut to help is fundraising for programs like NACWOLA that are already doing something. The thing that has gripped us for generations where we wait upon donors to help also really has to stop. If we all donated at least 5,000 a month to these organizations we can make a difference. If money is the problem then we can be volunteers to lend our skills to the success of these programs. There is a lot we can do to save our children if we put our mind to it. And in the case of the people with the funds to help sensitize the masses about prevention of mother to child HIV/Aids transmission please for once, do the right thing and give the funds to earnest programs nacwola@nacwola.or.ug . My true intention as I write this piece is to inspire a soul or two to go out there and do something so that we can have HIV free babies by 2016. NACWOLA believes we can have HIV free babies come 2016 so join their campaign or start something of your own but let us all get up and do something to save our children of tomorrow!

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.