COLUMNBy Muniini K. Mulera
Dear Tingasiga:
This year’s Convention of the International Community of Banyakigyezi (ICOB) will be held in Orlando, Florida, USA, from August 3-7 under the theme: “Empowering Youth and Communities”.
This theme captures the essence of ICOB. We are driven by one central goal, namely, to empower Banyakigyezi through education. When we started ICOB in 2003, our main focus was the formation and growth of the Kigyezi Education Fund (KEF), through which we would support vocational training of young Banyakigezi.
Through KEF, a small number of Banyakigyezi in Canada, UK, USA and Uganda have funded four fully equipped Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centres and an electrical and plumbing college programme.
ICOB (Apex) has funded electrical installation and plumbing programmes at Nyakatare Technical Institute in Kanungu District. ICOB has also funded ICT centres at Rukungiri Technical Institute in Rukungiri District, Seseme, Muhabura Diocese in Kisoro District and Uganda Martyrs Technical Institute at Nyarushanje in Rukungiri District. The Korean Government and the African Development Bank have adopted the ICOB (Apex) projects at Nyakatare and Rukungiri, respectively, for on-going support.
Last week, I received the happy news that the installation of an ICOB (Apex)-funded 35- station ICT Centre at Kizinga Technical School in Kabale District was complete. I have had the privilege to observe our partners in Uganda work with great efficiency, honesty and respectful collaboration to implement this project.
I honour Mr Denis Nkoreki, the headmaster of Kizinga, whose commitment and honest handling of this project has been exemplary; Mr Narcis Rwangoga, an IT expert whose guidance has been extremely helpful; Ms’ Peninah Ngategize, our Uganda-based ICOB board member, who has shown unconditional commitment to the success of this project; Ms Eleanor Bageine and Mr Shem Bageine, community members from Kizinga who have not wavered in their support for the project. This team has demonstrated the selfless spirit of volunteerism that is the central culture of ICOB.
As in the other ICOB-funded projects, we hope that this initial investment at Kizinga will catalyse the growth of a full-fledged, expanding programme that serves the registered students and interested learners from the surrounding community. We also hope that the government will support our efforts through additional funding and invitation of development partners to support Kizinga.
The success we have had so far has been because ICOB has focused on one mission, namely, growing the KEF, with an agenda that is exclusively aimed at supporting technical education. Had we attempted to support other worthy causes, our limited resources would have been spread too thin to have an impact.
It is tempting to congratulate ourselves on a job well done. However, considering the collective financial blessings that very many Banyakigyezi enjoy, I believe that we can do much better than our modest efforts have yielded so far. We have the means to more than quadruple the annual fundraising revenues that we generate from our annual fundraising drives at our conventions.
We should not wait for the next convention to donate to this important effort. I encourage you to visit www.abanyakigezi.net and set up on-going support for the KEF.
We shall definitely encourage delegates to Orlando to come prepared to dig very deep in their pockets and support this important cause. Some individual Banyakigyezi could easily fund whole ICT centres or other technical training programmes without feeling any strain on their bank accounts.
These centres, programmes or colleges could be named in their honour or in honour of their parents or other person they choose. The joy of seeing Kigyezi rise again would be the perfect reward for such investments.
Education was the engine that powered our journeys from the misty hills and valleys of our beautiful homeland to the common room of change agents that Banyakigyezi have been all over the world. Our success was the result of great sacrifices by our forebears and our seniors that enabled us to get excellent education. Our individual intellectual abilities were less important than our collective access to opportunities for advancement through great schools.
We were lucky to have had access to excellent education steered along by some of the most dedicated teachers I have known. Today, in villages all over Kigyezi, live equally bright, even gifted, boys and girls whose journey can be changed from one with a dead-end to one of success and fulfilled contribution to humanity. There is a future governor of Bank of Uganda in Iboroozya village, Rukiga County. What she needs is the kind of opportunity that we received at a highly discounted price.
If we focus our collective minds on Kigyezi, energised by the memory of the great sacrifice made by our parents that made Kigyezi a respected place of academic excellence, we can turn KEF into a transformative engine for our development. We have the means to fulfil our obligation to empower Kigyezi with the most important tool in life: high quality education for her children. We can and we must look beyond ourselves. That will be the central agenda at Orlando. I hope to see you there.