KCCA lines up health camps, clean-ups ahead of city festival's return

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The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) executive director, Hajjati Sharifah Buzeki, has revealed that health camps and street clean-ups will be a major part of the preparations for the 2025 city festival.

Buzeki, on September 16, 2025, announced that at every division head office in Kawempe, Makindye, Nakawa, Kampala Central, Rubaga and City Hall, there will be a health camp a day before the festival.

“We have pre-festival activities for the city dwellers and in each division KCCA has organised health camps, whereby residents will be treated to free checks and free medications,” she said while addressing the press at City Hall and receiving a cheque worth sh200m from Ham Enterprises.

She added that the authority will also hold clean-up exercises in the city ahead of the festival, with a no-litter day in which residents will be requested to pick up any plastic littered.

KCCA aims to change residents’ attitudes towards cleanliness in the city and discourage the mindset that it is the authority’s sole duty to clean. “KCCA collects garbage in the city, but it is the responsibility of the residents to dispose of what they have generated,” she said.

On the last Saturday of September, before the festival, the city residents will observe a car-free day with only bicycles and pedestrians allowed along Constitutional Square and Kampala Road.

Reading the road map of the festival, KCCA deputy executive director Benon Kigenyi said that the march through the city will begin at Kyaggwe Road, Buganda Road, Kampala Road, Jinja Road and Wampewo Avenue, ending at Kololo Independence Ground.

Kigenyi noted that revellers will enjoy entertainment, new innovations, and various activities showcasing the city.

Buzeki called upon civil society organisations, the private sector, business communities, development partners, companies, and service providers to support KCCA for the festival scheduled for October 5.

She thanked businessman Hamis Kiggundu for his contribution to the event. Kiggundu handed over a dummy cheque of sh200m to Buzeki and encouraged property owners and the business community in Kampala to support the cause.

The festival is intended to draw people of diverse cultures, businesses, communities and religions, including foreigners.

It is a signature brand that brings multitudes to Kampala to celebrate culture and unity while providing immense networking opportunities for business.

In previous editions, the event attracted over two million revellers, cutting across different age groups and backgrounds.

Billed as the biggest street party in East Africa, the festival has become an annual event uniting city dwellers, stakeholders and business people.

It focuses on togetherness, one of the city’s oldest and most treasured cultural values.

The festival was last hosted in Kampala in 2018 before the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.