🔴 Day One of Rotary International president's visit to Uganda

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 ROTARY PRESIDENT VISITS UGANDA 

Edited and presented by Joseph Kizza
Updates by Simon Peter Tumwine & Nelson Kiva
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 1:33 PM 

'We appreciate your support'
 
In his remarks at the Makerere University Rotary Peace Centre, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe hails the work done by Rotarians. 

❝Rotary Peace Fellows are doing great work in their communities. The sector is becoming stronger and stronger. We want to appreciate your support, as Rotary International, for the work that the sector does and I want to appreciate in his [RI president] presence the Rotary fraternity in Uganda which has made this centre feasible and vibrant.

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 1:20 PM 

📸 RI president at Makerere University

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 1:15 PM 

Makerere VC welcomes RI president

On to the next part of today's jam-packed programme for the visiting Rotary International president. After the morning engagments at Kawempe, Francesco Arezzo is now at Makerere University for more activities.

He is welcomed by Vice-Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe and other officials. The next activity is at the Makerere University Rotary Peace Centre.

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 1:12 PM 

RI president Arezzo at a glance

Francesco Arezzo is an orthodontist in private practice and owns an agricultural enterprise that produces extra virgin olive oil in Sicily, Italy.

A member of the Rotary Club of Ragusa, Italy, he was selected by the Board of Directors to become Rotary International’s president for 2025-26 from July last year following the unexpected resignation of RI President Elect Mário César Martins de Camargo on June 8,2025.

Arezzo is a graduate of the University of Padua and a member of the Italian, European, and American orthodontics associations, as well as the Italian and European lingual orthodontics associations. He is a dentistry graduate of the University of Cagliari, where he also received a master’s in lingual orthodontics.

He has served as vice-president of the National Association of Italian Dentists for the province of Ragusa and was the founder and head for seven years of the Ragusa delegation to the National Trust for Italy.

Arezzo is also the owner of an agricultural enterprise and producer of extra virgin olive oil in the Monti Iblei region of Sicily. He has been vice-president of the administrative council of the consortium controlling and regulating quality production of oil in that region. He owns two boutique hotel settlements there. He enjoys modern art and opera.

A Rotary member for 36 years, Arezzo has served as vice-chair of the Joint Strategic Planning Committee and as RI director, chair of the 2023 Melbourne Convention Committee, learning facilitator, and district conference presidential representative, among other roles.

Arezzo's partner, Anna Maria Criscione, is an entrepreneur in the tourism field. The couple are Benefactors and Major Donors to The Rotary Foundation.
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 12:47 PM 

What does Rotary do?

Rotary is a global, non-religious, and non-political service organization of approximately 1.4 million professional and community leaders from across  the world. 

Members, known as Rotarians, join local clubs to promote humanitarian service, high ethical standards, and world peace. Their primary motto is "Service Above Self.” Rotary International's world headquarters is in Evanston, Illinois, USA.

The following are the organisation's areas of focus:

• Promoting peace
• Fighting disease such as Polio and Malaria
• Providing clean water
• Saving mothers and children
• Supporting education
• Growing local economies
• Protecting the environment
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 12:40 PM 

Kawempe National Referral Hospital executive director Emmanuel Byaruhanga delivers a presentation on the volume of work that the Kawempe facility handles every day.

WATCH  👇🏽


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 12:34 PM 

WATCH: 'Our fertility rate is high'

Earlier, health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng contextualized the importance of the Oxygen for Life project at the Kawempe Neonatal Hospital in Kampala.

WATCH  👇🏽


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 12:25 PM 

📸 Officials inspect Kawempe facility

The Rotary and health officials have inspected the equipment at the Kawempe facility, including the radiant warmer.

As explained by medic Eva Nangalo, the radiant warmer is an open-bed, overhead heating device used in neonatal care to maintain a newborn's body temperature, particularly for premature or critically ill infants in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs).

It uses infrared energy to provide stable warmth, with servo-controlled or manual modes for precise, continuous temperature regulation.

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 12:03 PM 

Arezzo hails frontline workers

In his remarks, Rotary International president Francesco Arezzo emphasises the need for stakeholders to unite for a common good, saying the Oxygen for Life project exemplifies such a spirit of unity.

❝This project comes from a strong need of the community and it is done with the community. It is done with the frontline people. Every day, every week, every month, they work on mothers and children.

You are our heroes. You are our essential people because there is no project without you. So thank you for your dedication, for your commitment.

It [the project] was the result of the co-operation of over 40 clubs united to work together. Not only Rotary clubs but also Rotaract clubs. It is so important to work together.

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 11:47 AM 

Aceng thanks Rotary for Oxygen for Life project

Health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng thanks Rotary for the Oxygen for Life project, a maternal & child health initiative, at Kawempe Neonatal Hospital.

❝Our population adds 1.5 million babies every year. So our fertility rate is high, at 4.5 babies per woman. This is the facility that delivers the highest number of babies in the entire country.

So, having this project here, Oxygen for Life, is extremely useful and critical because it comes to save lives so that every mother can walk home with a baby. The mothers go home alive and the babies go home alive.

Our maternal mortality rate is still high at 183 per 100,000 live births but also the neonatal mortality rate at 22 per 1,000 is still high.

So a project like this is most welcome especially at this time when we are looking forward to reducing our maternal mortality to 70/100,000 and neonatal mortality to 10/1,000 hopefully by within the next two to three years.

So we want to thank Rotary so much for this project and thank you for choosing Kawempe.
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 11:26 AM 

Arezzo meets medics at Kawempe

✍️🏾 Reporting by Nelson Kiva:

Rotary International president (2025-2026) Francesco Arezzo has met medics at Kawempe National Referral Hospital in his first official engagement on his two-day official visit to Uganda.

At Kawempe, he was briefed by the hospital executive director, Emmanuel Byaruhanga (pictured below), who reported that they handle about 550 women daily on a daily basis. And that on average, they handle at least 150 women impatient daily and 400 outpatients.

Byaruhanga reported that they handle at least 250 children daily, including in and outpatients.

"On average, we deliver 60 babies every day and a third of them are delivered by cesarean section (C-section)," he added, saying that since they use various equipment for the work, they need support.

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 10:55 AM 

 BREAKING NEWS 

Arezzo arrives at Kawempe

And here he comes...

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 10:30 AM 

Debrief at first venue

Ahead of the arrival of the Rotary International president at Kawempe Neonatal Hospital in Kampala, health and Rotary officials are already at the facility for a debrief in the office of the executive director of Kawempe National Referral Hospital, Emmanuel Byaruhanga Kayogoza.

Among those present are health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, Rotary International Director-designate Emmanuel Katongole and Rotary governor of D214 Christine Kawooya.

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 10:23 AM 

📝 Busy day one programme

The visiting RI president's day one programme includes a visit to Kawempe Neonatal Hospital in Kampala and Makerere University Rotary Peace Centre.

Later in the day, he will meet with Rotary leaders at Speke Resort Munyonyo, before holding a press conference.

Also in the evening, Arezzo is scheduled to have a private meeting the Katikkiro (Buganda Kingdom prime minister) Charles Peter Mayiga at BCF Courts, where a dinner will late be held.
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 10:07 AM 

Francesco Arezzo arrived in Uganda in the early hours of Friday to begin his two-day visit to Uganda. He and his wife Anna Maria Criscione were warmly received at Entebbe International Airport.
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 10:00 AM 

Rotary International president visits Uganda

Hello and welcome to New Vision's live text coverage of the visit of Rotary International president Francesco Arezzo to Uganda.

The Italian, who is a member of the Rotary Club of Ragusa in Italy, was selected by the Board of Directors to become Rotary International’s president for 2025-2026 from July last year following the unexpected resignation of president-elect Mário César Martins de Camargo on June 8, 2025.