Africa-Press – Uganda. First Lady Janet Museveni has been engaged in several projects meant to improve the livelihood of Ugandans, especially women and children for about 37 years.
This was revealed in a short documentary shared at the meeting of the spouses of the Heads of State and Government who attended the 19th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Kampala last Friday.
In the documentary, Ms Museveni highlighted some of the programmes that she came up with to improve the lives of women and children since 1986 and echoed her commitment to empowering those in need.
One of the programmes she came up with is the Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) which she said uplifted the lives of vulnerable children in the country.
UWESO was formed to provide relief aid to needy children left parentless in the mid-1980s as a result of the HIV/Aids scourge.
“[Those] were the days when the Aids scourge was ravaging Uganda, resulting in the tragic loss of parents and leaving behind many orphans,” Ms Museveni said.
The organisation provides education, child protection services, health services and ensuring food security and nutrition for orphans and vulnerable children and their caregivers.
Ms Museveni said when she became the Minister of Karamoja Affairs, she introduced farming projects to help the Karimojong boost their food production.
She added that work gives people hope as they learn better methods of growing food while taking care of their homesteads and families.
However, Ms Museveni said people must be motivated to know why they need to change and they can gain from it.
“So when I realised this essential truth about development, I knew that for as long as God gives me space in leadership, my job would be to motivate our people and our communities and show them that it is possible to improve their lives by taking charge and participating in the processes of change,” she said.
She added that change is a process that takes time, and requires patience and some understanding of human nature particularly when it involves communities steeped in cultures and beliefs.
“Every time I visit a community we have been working with and see the excitement in the faces of motivated people, then I recall how they were at the beginning of our development programmes. I feel humbled and grateful for the opportunity I have been given to participate in this work,” Ms Museveni said.
As a Minister of Education and Sports, Ms Museveni said she has been pushing programmes aimed at emphasising the need to provide lunch at schools as a means of motivating children to stay in school.
Ms Angeline Ndayishimiye, the First Lady of Burundi, also shared her experiences while advancing the welfare and empowerment of Burundi’s population, particularly in areas such as education, healthcare, and social progress.
Ms Mignon Bowen-Phillips, the wife of the Prime Minister of Guyana, said she was inspired and would consider her involvement to contribute positive change in her home country.
Ms Sadia Shahal, wife of Singapore’s Second Minister for foreign Affairs, who represented her First Lady also attended the function, among others.
On January 21, the ladies visited Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital.
In a speech read for her by Health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng at Mulago, Ms Museveni revealed that the government plans to construct more specialised women and neonatal hospitals across the country as part of efforts to improve the country’s healthcare system.
Dr Aceng said the facility has helped to reduce the maternal mortality rate to 189 per 100,000 live births from 336 five years ago.
Source: Monitor
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