The year was 2005, when 23-year-old Dorcus Inzikuru, the “Arua Gazelle” won a gold medal at the inaugural women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase event at the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland. Uganda had waited for over 33 years to get a gold medal from a competing athlete at the international level and such a huge milestone was worth celebrating. Praises and prizes were showered unto the smiling Inzikuru who inspired other young women athletes that they can also make it in the sports industry.

Inzikuru became an instant sports celebrity in Uganda and even the President gifted her with a house in Arua which she has been living in since 2007. It was all sunshine and rainbows for the long-distance runner until when she started receiving threats that the land on which her house stands is not hers and she needs to secure a land title which she has been chasing from the Ministry of Education and Sports, the Parliament and the Ministry of Lands and Urban Development until now and she’s still not yet successful. Even in her retirement, Inzikuru last got her monthly stipend of Ugx 5 million in 2017 which she had been promised to be getting every month each year.

Inzikuru’s story is a perfect example of how the government urges athletes to work hard but doesn’t fully appreciate and compensate them for all the hard work they invest in training and even after retiring from sports. Uganda has always shown peaks of sporting excellence and as staunch patriots, we have always shown love and support to our national teams that have competed on the international level and as Ugandans, we are very proud. Most of the athletes that represent Uganda are young people who are energetic and have a passion for what they do and they invest countless hours in training trying to make sure that they don’t disappoint their country.

However, the challenge comes in with the tokens of appreciation that these athletes are supposed to receive from the government which can be pending until when they’re forgotten. The next thing you hear is news headlines of sports personalities crying out to the government to build them a house or pay for medical bills and yet as citizens, we think these people are well-off which is not the case.

In the 2022/23 Uganda national budget, Ugx 47.81 billion was allocated to the sports industry meant to fund sports activities such as supporting national teams for international events like the Olympics, commonwealth games, continental championships and the East African community games. Despite all this sum of money invested in sports, you won’t be shocked to find out that sports teams still have inadequate funding, ramshackled training facilities, and poor administrative systems.

You ask yourself where all the money goes, seeing no signs of improvement in the sports sector but the major sports stakeholders will always claim that they’re supporting the sports industry and seeing a bright future of stars. The future is now and yet sports personalities are still earning peanuts as compared to how much time and effort they dedicate to representing their country.

The sports industry just like any other industry in Uganda is a profitable industry which sports personalities can earn an enormous amount of money from and also provide commercial investment opportunities for Uganda. With the right exposure as a result of better administrative systems, major sports personalities can even become brand ambassadors of various brands that support sports not only in Uganda but in other countries as well.

The major sports stakeholders should set policies in place that can lead to the self-sustainability of athletes even when they retire from sports. For instance, the one-off tokens of appreciation may not be sufficient enough but rather setting up high-performance athlete centres can be a great source of employment for retired athletes who can train and educate upcoming athletes while being paid handsomely for it.

It’s high time that sports personalities are recognized in Uganda because they are in a multi-billion industry known all over the world and the government can make it possible for them to reap fruits from it.

Faraja Africa Foundation conducted this year’s first regional Youth Parliament in Masaka district on June 20, 2022, at Muteesa 1 Royal University. The attendance of youth leaders in this region showed eagerness to fully participate in the motions that were to be debated on. All the regional Youth Parliaments were funded by the European Union and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH under the German government.

The Youth Parliament couldn’t proceed without first electing a speaker. The nominees were Zahara Nalubyayi and Festo Kato. After a tight election process, Zahara emerged as the winner with a total of 35 votes defeating Festo Kato who garnered only 14 votes. With the Speaker elected, the house dived straight into its first motion which was “Urging the government to facilitate skills development for young people in order to solve the problem of unemployment.”

The motion caused a heated debate in the house because one of the major issues facing the youth in Uganda today is nothing other than unemployment. As stated by Festo Kato, “Over 40% to 60% of the youth in Uganda are unemployed.” Our education system focuses more on theoretical knowledge and when the youth finally graduate from university, they don’t have the confidence to apply the knowledge they acquired in school. That’s something that the government can look into so that young people can gain more practical skills while in school and be able to apply those skills in the workplace.

Some of the participants who gave in their submissions during the debate claimed that it’s not the government’s problem for the youth to be unemployed. They argued against the motion saying that it’s the youth’s sole responsibility to be job creators rather than job seekers. The youth shouldn’t wait for the government to give them jobs but should instead be proactive enough to use their creativity, talents, and skills to come up with business ideas that can enrich them.

However, other young people in the house supported the motion by saying that government should give them jobs because they pay taxes and the government should use that money to create jobs for them. They went further by saying that due to the current high costs of commodities in the country, the taxes to be paid have increased and yet most of them are still unemployed.

The big question from the youth to the government was, “Where does our money go?” Of course, some of the youth were complaining about how government officials simply use the citizens’ money to enrich themselves. A recent example that was given was the Ugx 40m that was given to Members of Parliament in an economy where the average Ugandan is crying of high commodity prices.

The debate showed how brilliant these young people are and also speaking matters from the heart. We believe that majority of the youth being unemployed in Uganda is part of the government’s responsibility because young people are the leaders of today and tomorrow and if they’re not provided with the necessary skills that can put them in positions of power and curb unemployment, then where is the Pearl of Africa heading to?

 

Faraja Africa Foundation will be hosting the 5^th National Youth Parliament on 5^th August 2022 with support from the Civil Society in Uganda Support Programme which is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with funds from the European Union and German government under the Creative Youth Inclusive Policy Engagements and Legislation (CYIPEL) project. This National Youth parliament is a platform for young leaders to express their political, social, and economic views as representatives from the grassroots. This year’s seating is under the theme Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a world for all Ages.

Faraja Africa Foundation is collaborating with other partners that include, the Parliament of Uganda, the East African Community, ActionAid, Centre for Policy Analysis, Uganda Parliamentary Forum for Youth Affairs, National Youth Council, the Rose Namayanja Foundation, Advance Afrika, Interparty Youth Platform, Uganda National Students Association, Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Restless Development Uganda among other partners.

Faraja Africa Foundation is calling upon the youth to engage themselves in advocating for their inclusion in national policy-making processes and the policy implementation under the National Youth Parliament. The motive behind this seating is to have the youth issues addressed like; poverty, unemployment, and social injustices. The resolutions that are discussed in the National Youth Parliament constitute a petition that is tabled for discussion in the Parliament of Uganda for action and policy implementation.

Therefore, we call upon youth leaders of the National Youth Councils, Student Guild Councils, District Youth Councils, and local councils across the four regions in Uganda to apply for participation in this year’s National Youth Parliament that will take place at the Parliament of Uganda as we use the top-bottom approach to have the voices of the youth echoed at the top.

Application Procedure

Check your eligibility – do you fulfill the following Prerequisite?

A young Ugandan (female or male) between the age of 18 – 30 years as of December 31st, 2022?

Then

1. Complete the application form.
2. Tweet or post on the National Youth Parliament on any of the social media platforms with hashtags #YouthParliamentUG
3. Follow National Youth Parliament and Faraja Africa Foundation; Twitter – @FarajaAfricaFdn | Facebook – Faraja Africa Foundation | Instagram – @farajaafricafdn

(Mention or tag National Youth Parliament and Faraja Africa Foundation in your post or tweet)

 

Deadline: 25th July 2022 at 11:59 pm EAT.

For more information, email info@farajaafricafdn.org

Click the link here to fill out the form: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jqpb9BTOMYKMh944uBKOFltS3UjppbmeaR4s9Uc5bRI/edit?usp=sharing]  and follow the instructions to be part of the National Youth Parliament 2022.

For more information, please email info@farajaafricafdn.org

 

As secondary schools were opening up for the second term in early May this year, science teachers around Uganda went on strike deciding not to teach until when the government intervened and increased their salaries just like other scientists which had been the initial plan of the government. This put a lot of pressure on the government because it meant that students wouldn’t be studying and school operations would be disrupted.

To address their problem, His Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni agreed to increase their salaries by 300% in the national budget 2022/23 and this will be effective starting July 2022. Having been promised the increment, the secondary science teachers who are graduates would be getting Ugx 4m per month but the government said that it would only afford to pay them Ugx 2.2m per month. The diploma science teachers would be getting Ugx 3m but the government said it could only afford to pay them Ugx 1.4m per month.

From the national budget 2022/23, Ugx 95 billion was allocated to the salary increment of science teachers excluding arts teachers. The salary increment angered arts teachers who blamed the government for being unfair and discriminatory. On June 14, barely a week after reading the national budget, The Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu) called the budgetary decision a discriminatory policy that saw more than 100,000 secondary arts teachers going against the government’s decision.

The national chairperson of Unatu, Zadock Tumuhimbise, and the secretary-general Filbert Baguma had a meeting with the president on June 18 at State House but the two parties failed to reach a decision. The president insisted that he was going to first concentrate on the science teachers and the arts teachers would be sorted later on in the next financial year.

President Museveni urged the arts teachers to stop striking and go back to work which angered them the more. The President further instructed the Ministers of Education, Public service, and Finance to look into Unatu’s issue and find a way to handle the arts teachers’ salary push. In 2018, Unatu signed a collective bargaining agreement with the government which stated that all the salaries of teachers would be increased but when the government came up with an innovation strategy that would enhance the salaries of all scientists, science teachers also wanted to be included in that plan which left out the arts teachers.

Filbert Baguma said that the government has all the power to increase the salary of arts teachers and all it has to do is come up with a supplementary budget that caters for arts teachers as well because it would be unfair for an arts teacher teaching in the same secondary school with a science teacher who will be getting more salary than him at the end of the month.

Baguma argued that arts teachers have the same workload and operate in the same working environment as science teachers so it would be unfair for the government to discriminate against them. The country also needs arts people who can become politicians, economists and lawyers to mention but a few and they can also lead to the transformation of the country. Will the government hear the arts teachers’ plea and increase their salaries? That’s a topic that needs to be handled by the people at the top.