Revive ‘Mayumba Kumi’ to support local councils
“A revived ‘Mayumba Kumi’, working with empowered local councils, would put our social structures right at the level where it matters most: keeping children in school and supporting troubled citizens before they fall through the cracks,” writes Barbara Kaija
Barbara Kaija. (File)
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OPINION
Kyakwera is 12 years old. She lives in the cattle-keeping corridor of Kyankwanzi with her three brothers and their 89-year-old grandmother, now bent double and barely able to manage. Their father left to graze cattle in a neighbouring district and rarely comes home. Their mother, worn down by hardship, went back to her parents’ home and never returned. Kyakwera lives in the same compound as her uncles, who provide a few basic needs such as soap.
The Government has made Universal Primary and Secondary Education free, yet in her home it is the boys who go to school. By 15, her uncles plan to marry her off, and it will happen because not one local council official, pastor, priest or imam has said a word about her being kept out of school. In parts of the cattle corridor, the practice of fattening 14- and 15-year-old girls to make them appear ‘ready for marriage’ is still alive.
Kyakwera’s story is true, and it is not isolated. I have only changed the names to protect identity. Despite four decades of government efforts to empower women, Uganda has an estimated 5.5 million girls and women alive today who were married before their 18th birthday, including 1.6 million before age 15. These are not merely statistics about girls; they point to structural gaps in the communities around them. In the sugarcane-growing areas and fishing villages, it is the boy-child who is at risk: boys as young as 10 are forced out of school to fend for their families, and UNICEF data shows that 18% of Ugandan children are engaged in child labour.
There was a time when raising a child was a community responsibility. A neighbour could correct your child and another adult could ask why a child of school-going age was wandering the village during school hours. The child belonged first to a family, but the community also accepted an obligation for his or her formation. Today, especially in our growing towns and cities, it is possible to live metres from another family and hardly know who they are. We have gained privacy and freedom, but we risk losing the social accountability that once helped communities pass on values.
Consider the Kawempe channel in Kampala, upgraded for sh82.8b, funded by the World Bank and the Government. Yet we have all seen social media images of Ugandans dumping sacks of garbage into drainage channels the moment a downpour starts. A strong, engaged citizenry, backed by an active local council system, can challenge this behaviour before it undoes public investment. We cannot spend billions of money on infrastructure and ignore the character of the citizens expected to protect it.
Uganda’s population structure makes the challenge more urgent. The 2024 census counted 45.9 million Ugandans in 10.7 million households, and half the population is children. A shrinking number of elderly people are left overwhelmed, looking after young people, some of whom drift into drugs, alcohol or crime.
Local councils alone may not carry this load. The Government should explore reviving a voluntary and empowered ‘Mayumba Kumi’ system, a grassroots structure in which every cluster of 10 households has a designated leader. The neighbouring families know one another, and problems can be identified before they become crises. The model is not foreign to Uganda: ten-household cells have been used before for community mobilisation and Uganda Police has itself promoted versions of the neighbourhood-watch concept.
More importantly, those 10 homes could become a small school of citizenship. Children would grow up seeing adults co-operate, keep their surroundings clean and hold one another accountable, so that responsibility, honesty and compassion cease to be words on school walls and become their lived reality. Homes headed by elderly parents or grandparents would have real support in managing children and youth. As Mama Janet Kataaha Museveni has often reminded us, it takes a village to raise a child.
This is precisely why the Emerging Leaders Programme is invested in strengthening this structure. Learners cannot grow into strong leaders without an enabling social environment, and the values taught in school must be reinforced at home and in the neighbourhood. We must fix ourselves, the adults, before we can expect to fix the children and youth watching us.
A revived ‘Mayumba Kumi’, working with empowered local councils, would put our social structures right at the level where it matters most: keeping children in school and supporting troubled citizens before they fall through the cracks.
The Government has shown real resolve in tackling corruption in our infrastructure. The same resolve, turned toward our communities, could give local councils the backing they need and put ‘Mayumba Kumi’ back to work. Roads connect places. Strong communities connect people for development. Uganda needs both.
The writer is an educationist, media communication specialist and chairperson of the board of the Emerging Leaders Programme Kaijabarbara@gmail.com WhatsApp only: 0708746624