Community members especially women from the districts of Hoima, Kikuube and Bulisa hail the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) for standing with them during challenging times since oil developments started in their region. NAPE has built the capacity of women and empowered them to know their rights, to know who to engage, how to engage them but most importantly identifying issues affecting them in their communities and collectively look for solutions that are dear to them.

The women said that the coming of oil in their region has caused a lot of havoc ranging from destruction of their environment, food systems, water sources, livelihoods, land acquisition issues, compensation and evictions of people from their land has become order of the day that they didn’t ask for.

Speaking during a community-based field monitoring meeting in Bulisa district organised by NAPE in the region,

Businge Immaculate from Kaiso women’s group said, there was a lot of domestic violence at kaiso landing site given the set up and that the situation was worse since the fishing activities reduced on the lake. She said the support NAPE has given the group in form of established safe spaces to handle cases of gender-based violence and human rights violations, farm tools have boosted the livelihood and food of women that once completely depended on the lake, “we have a mother garden of vegetables from where members transplant to their home gardens. The safe space is doing wonders for our community, we have settled some cases through counselling and mediation and referred some to police.”

Judith Bero-irwoth from Ngwedo said that with the awareness the group has done on the role of safe spaces in communities, men are also coming up to report cases of domestic violence freely without shame of what the community will think of them. They are no longer dying in silence, that the silence syndrome of men is reducing. She said most of the GBV cases in her area are related to land conflicts and that the cases are well being handled by the care takers and most of them are settled in partnership with LC1, LC2, CDO and police. 

Tumusiime Joan from Kyakaboga, said she is happy to have participated in many project activities but most importantly women movement building trainings. She said the knowledge on collective thinking and actions has changed her perceptions on advocacy especially for women’s rights. She added that there is power in working as a team under one voice because you can easily be heard.

Rajab Bwengye, the project’s coordinator of the European Union (EU) funded project during the event, said NAPE is implementing a project “Deepening grassroots women rights, participation and economic livelihood opportunities in the era of expanding oil and gas extraction and the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda” and that under the project, NAPE has supported communities especially women on a number of interventions including establishing safe spaces to handle cases of gender based violence and other human rights abuses, provision of farm tools (wheel borrows and hoes) to boost their household food and income and training grass root women on movement building and organizing to challenge the status quo. He said, NAPE’s work supplements government programs of poverty alleviation, women empowerment and rights protection among others. “Government can’t do it alone, civil society can’t do it alone, and this is where a support like this from European Union stands paramount, Rajab noted.

Bwengye said since the establishment of the safe spaces in July, 2022 to date, more than 786 cases have so far been registered by the 20 safe spaces established in the three districts of Hoima, Kikuube and Bulisa with each district having 6-7 safe spaces and that of these only about 53 cases are not yet settled hailing support from the family protection units of the police from respective districts. He also noted that the interval of reporting cases to safe spaces was very high in the first 6 months of establishment with each safe space handling about 1-5 cases per week but due to the dedication of the care takers to educate their communities on the dangers of domestic violence and GBV in general, the rate at which cases are reported has been reducing indicating good work of the care takers and community appreciation of the safe spaces.

Some of the car takers of the safe spaces from Kyakatemba, holding a registry book for the GBV cases.

Mr. Rajab said that all the 30 community women’s groups that were supported with farm tools and trainings on agro ecology practices have mother gardens for variety of crops, kitchen gardens of mainly vegetables which is a big boost to their house hold food and income.

Above photos show of the mother gardens and kitchen gardens.

Above photos show of the mother gardens and kitchen gardens

Bwengye also noted that so far about 9,413 grass root women have been mobilized and recruited into the grass root women’s women by key contact community mobilisers that were trained as trainer of trainers on advocacy, mobilization and organizing for common cause and collective actions. The target for NAPE is mobilizing about 50, 000 grass root women into the movement by close of 2027 and capacitate them to challenge the status of exploitative development models on their lives and livelihoods and defend their rights in a highly patriarchal society.

Some of the members for the grass root women movement

Ms. Peruth Atukwatse, NAPE field Officer, Bunyoro region said women are good champions when it comes to fighting gender violence, promoting food sovereignty and resilient climate actions due to the close connection they have with nature and that therefore, government and other partners should target them most and support them for community development.