Ms. Mugerwa Laetitia is the executive director of Empowerment Initiative for Women and Youth, Uganda (EIWYU), an NGO established to empower, support, and connect women and youth with opportunities in Uganda. Here, she speaks to ADAM ALQALI about her NGO’s work empowering women and youth in Uganda including the major challenges being faced by them.
How did the Empowerment Initiative for Women and Youth Uganda (EIWYU) come about, what inspired you to start the nonprofit?
I realized a need for social and economic empowerment in my community amongst women and youth and wanted to provide for that need gradually, I was yearning for change in the perspectives of women and youth.in terms of self-empowerment.
I did not have any material things to offer and I thought hard and realized that the women, youth and I had something that we had attained along our works of life that we needed to come together and share in order to impact our lives positively and that was both formal and informal knowledge from different levels on how we could self-sustain ourselves economically and socially and live a happy life.
I remember our first meetings, we would gather every Sunday at a selected home and just talk about anything and everything, and based on that we bonded, we were like a family, we cared for one another and looked out on who had not attended, we would sing, talk about our personal accomplishments and challenges in the past week, events from weddings to burials, village gossip. That was the kick off!
From there, I formulated a structured arrangement where I coordinated social and economic trainings, shared knowledge ranging from rural entrepreneurship, savings how to avoid being manipulated by the middle man since a big percentage are farmers and traders, basic knowledge on educating children to mention but a few.
At the end of every training, the woman and youth would choose what they preferred more insight on the following training and then we moved to hands on, moving from one home to another.
You know, at first I assumed that since we are from a collective culture then it’s close to natural to create a team but then after the first meeting I realized bonding through stories meant everything and created insight on my passion for starting a non-profit hence Employment Initiative for Women and Youth Uganda.
EIWYU was established with the vision to inspire and empower women and youth of Uganda. How has the journey been thus far?
Every journey has its ups and downs but the journey so far is amazing. We began the journey with bonding hence all of us are part of it as a loving team; I ensure that the women and youth are aware that am not any different from them and hence am on the journey of empowerment with them. As a family, we share our challenges together and overcome them together. It is about empowerment you know!
We have a clear view of our destination and I have witnessed positive economic and social change in the lives of these women and youth and top of that along the way they might not realize, but have created a change in my life too. Starting the journey, the expectations were not put high. The challenges are there but they were expected, I only always must find the best solution as they come in different packages. But so far so good, my goal was to improve the lives of these women and youth through social and economic empowerment and it has slowly unfolded along the way, I cannot complain.
You have produced a short film titled “Touched” to raise awareness about the neglect for teenage mothers. At what point did you realize the power of film as a tool for advocacy?
In 2012, I realized that far more than any sensitization and voicing mechanism, film had the power to capture and enhance public attention to action and changes of heart and mind. That is when I chose to undertake training on script writing and film directing with Mariam Ndagire Film School hence writing and directing the short film “Touched” which is a short story about a teenage mother working in the slums of Katwe. I would like to acknowledge Princess Mariam Ndagire who made a selfless decision to produce Touched, she invested time and money to see that this nonprofit project was a success and not forgetting the time she took to put my script writing and directing skills together.
What can you say are the major challenges being faced by women and youth in Uganda, based on your experience working with them?
This is a broad question when it comes to Uganda, however based on my experience working with them, women and youth face different challenges however there is one major challenge that pulls in one package that is the challenge of unemployment. Of course, most people will attribute this challenge to the government but in my own experience there is no better reason for this than the mind set and gender equity issues when it comes to women and girls.
Women and girls are faced with gender issues based on the gender dichotomies that are sometimes to the extreme in our society which bring about little opportunity to voicing their opinions in homes and society, less chance to education, finances, entrepreneurship, self-sustainability. However, I acknowledge the positive changes that are taking place in our societies in tackling this matter which have also provided ground for me to create an organization that will serve a platform for women and girls voicing out their needs and become empowered.
