Giving their Community a second chance (Ugandan Community tales)

The Mulindwas teach women, children and especially the girl-child to work with their hands to provide towards their needs.

A piece of Hajati Lukia Namyalo’s livelihood and hope had been buried along with her husband on December 30, 2000. She had nonetheless managed to survive for five more years, especially because her sister who had offered help with her four children. But her sister also died and with her, Namyalo’s last flame of hope. After all, having the HIV virus, unemployed and sickly most of the time, she could hardly fend for her children. In 2006 therefore, Namyalo ferried all of them to the village and came back to her home to die.

For weeks, the sickly middle- aged woman lay in her two-roomed house in Massajja along Entebbe Road waiting and begging for death to claim her. Her neighbours knew she was in there, very sick probably, but didn’t bother to check. That was how George Mulindwa found her in 2006; shackled in her house, skinny and too sick to move, smelling and speaking death.

“She surprises me now; she may look sick now but she is far healthier than I found her,” he recounts. Mulindwa was doing one of his rounds in this village that day as part of the community outreach services he offers with his wife, Justine, under their Community Relief Network Uganda (Coren) project. “I take it upon myself to visit people, especially the less privileged, to find out how they are doing and how I can help. For some like Hajati, who I knew was a widow, all they need to live on sometimes is encouraging words,” he says.

Namyalo gets really busy trying to make us comfortable when she sees us approach, continuously apologising for not offering us anything to eat, although we understand that it is because she doesn’t have it. “When I see that man I see life. I’d be dead if he hadn’t found me and he has continued to assist me,” says Namyalo, rocking the neighbour’s baby, Jordan, who she baby-sits sometimes for some money.

Not far away from where Namyalo is singing Mulindwa’s praises, 28-year-old Hanifer Namaganda sits under a tent at Mulindwa’s home, weaving a sisal bag amidst many other hand crafts ranging from African sandals to table decorations. “I started coming here when Mulindwa, two years ago called me and asked me whether I did anything for a living. My life has not been the same ever since: I now earn a living and don’t burden my husband. You know, a woman that doesn’t make her own money can also be a burden to her husband,” she says shyly, without putting her weaving down.

Unlike Namyalo who, because of her health condition, can’t work even if she wanted to, there are other women like Namaganda who although able and willing to work, lack the opportunity to earn, usually due to lack of an education. These are the kind that benefit from Coren’s pioneer project; where women, children and especially the girl-child are taught to work with their hands to provide towards their needs.

“People would plead to do us some work in exchange for money or a meal. I realised people would work if they knew how or had the opportunity,” says Mulindwa. But everyone knows how hard it is to get a job, so Ms Mulindwa decided to turn them into self employed individuals instead. From her home, the women and all those that wish to learn, gather everyday to learn different hand crafts. “After they have learnt, they are free to leave us and work independently to earn their living, keeping in touch with them to connect them to markets and monitor their progress,” she adds. The only cost for the training is the cost of the materials required in making the crafts during the lessons.

The Mulindwas meanwhile weave more items and sell them along with some of the crafts left behind by their students from under a tent in their humble home’s compound in Masajja. It is from these that they earn their keep with their four children, which they also share with the likes of Namyalo.

Starting out
Coren was born out of Mulindwa’s job as a pastor in a local church, Masajja Miracle Worship Centre and his wife’s history as an orphan. “People would come asking my husband for help and they would expect money. But how many people could we give money?” she asks.

Ms Mulindwa had an idea of what it was like to grow up disadvantaged since her father had passed on when she was just 12 years old, the last born of 16 children in Kagoma. “I watched my mother weave these crafts to put us through school and even though we made it, it wasn’t easy.”

She decided other people could benefit from the same craft that educated her to a diploma level in Marketing from Nkumba University. She taught her husband first. Then around 2004, together they started to teach every church member that came to beg so that they could learn to make their own money. In time though, they realised there were other needy people outside their church who would benefit from this arrangement so they brought it outside the church and later registered it as a community based organisation. Their mission; to improve community’s lives in Wakiso and Kampala Districts through home based career programmes.

Using her marketing skills, Ms Mulindwa networks with schools and institutions to avail the needy children that are interested in education in form of bursaries and sponsorships.

Meanwhile she equips them or their guardians with skills to work for the extra money required. “Of course, getting cooperation from these education institutions is not easy and we would definitely do better with sponsorship since we hope to develop this into a fully fledged NGO in future. For now though we haven’t even been able to effectively cover Wakiso alone.”

To improvise, Coren also takes on interns in all practical fields like social work, crafts, carpentry and catering who are given a chance to practice while teaching their skills to others in the community. This way, people learn things outside what the couple can do including making energy saving stoves, improved domestic hygiene, professional counselling and have rehabilitated very many children they can hardly recall their names from the pictures they keep of them. “There are simply too many children that have passed through this place,” she confesses adding, “of course we would be more helpful if we had an orphanage or rehabilitation centre but we can’t afford these.” Their home is what has been divided to accommodate the working room and office.

It doesn’t help that some people would lie about being orphans or widows so they have to invest in researching their backgrounds too to ensure they need their help especially when it comes to sponsorships and handouts. Through thick and thin, the couple is not fazed; they give their all to offer more than just tears like their slogan “Tears are not enough” implores.