Speeches Shim
Seventeen and head of her household. That’s Irene Lamwaka, a tall and slender girl from the Northern Ugandan district of Gulu, who dropped out of school last year to make sure her younger sisters were fed and clothed, and could continue their education. Every day, Irene prepares large pots of pilao, a hearty dish of rice and meat, that she sells to customers in her neighborhood to be able to support her family. She gets up early to go to the market to buy the ingredients, lights the charcoal, cooks the meal, and gets it to the hungry customers by the afternoon. She works long days, but she has a dream that keeps her going.
Joseph Loum and his wife Anna Mothing used to quarrel regularly before Joseph took part in gender equity training carried out through the Nuyok project in Nakapiripirit district in Uganda’s Karamoja sub-region.
She could have easily gotten the job; all she needed to do was agree to the terms. The job interviews were scheduled to take place during the week; however, the requests to meet after hours at a hotel in town were scheduled even before the interviews were supposed to take place. In other words, if she agreed to meet after hours, the job would be hers; the interview would just be a formality.
As a young girl in rural Karamoja, 18-year-old Regina Nadim never went to school. “My parents could not afford school fees,’’ Regina says. "They only saw me as a source of labor and a dowry. There was no one to help me, and it was difficult to find odd jobs."
Merab Namiwanda is an instructor at Ssanje Community Polytechnic Institute and a professional plumber. The mother of four attended a mason training conducted by USAID’s Uganda Sanitation for Health Activity in Kyotera, which demonstrated an improved sanitation product called SATO. SATO products are plastic devices distributed in Uganda by Nice House of Plastics on behalf of the Japanese company Lixil; they use a trap door to seal off toilets when not in use and provide a washable floor and hygienic experience for the user. Merab quickly grasped the benefits, including eliminating flies and odors from the toilet. Immediately after the training, she installed two SATO pans at her home.
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