Despite her disability, she lifted unprivileged girls out of poverty

Jul 24, 2013

She was struck by polio as a child, leaving her crippled at a tender age of four months. Coming from a polygamous family worsened Harriet Kawuma’s upbringing, especially in a rural and poverty-stricken village.

By Charles Kakamwa

She was struck by polio as a child, leaving her crippled at a tender age of four months. Coming from a polygamous family worsened Harriet Kawuma’s upbringing, especially in a rural and poverty-stricken village.

However, Kawuma used the odds against her to spring up success by lending to the unprivileged. This explains the birth of Tubalera Kawuma Vocational Centre in Jinja municipality.

She started with 13 students in a ramshackled building, but the centre, has, in the last few years, churned out 500 skilled and enterprising students.

She faced discrimination right from her family members up to the community, but managed to grow into a pillar for others.

“I grew up in a polygamous family and experienced what it means to live with bad stepmothers. As I was growing up, I saw challenges girls underwent, including deprivation of social and economic opportunities on account of being a girl-child or disabled,” Kawuma, the director and founder of Tubalera Kawuma Vocational Centre, says.

The 52-year-old woman and mother of two, says her situation ignited her resolve to initiate a project that would contribute towards the improvement of girls in society through imparting knowledge and skills.
 


Kawuma, the woman behind the institute


She started as an instructor at the Government-owned Mpumudde Rehabilitation Centre in Jinja municipality, where she was posted as a tailoring trainer by the Ministry of Gender, upon her graduation from Kireka Rehabilitation Centre in 1991.

While at Mpumudde, she became the head of the tailoring section and at one time served as the centre’s caretaker director for three years.

Though the centre provided her the opportunity, she had always desired to empower vulnerable girls by equipping them with vocational skills.

“I wanted to run my own vocational institute, where I would have authority to admit and train as many girls as I wished.

Armed with experience as a trainer and administrator, together with three volunteers as instructors, Kawuma opened Tubalera Kawuma Vocational Centre in February 1997 in a rented old house in Mpumudde division.

“We started with 13 students, but only five completed the two-year course. It was challenging. I almost gave up, but I persevered amid hardships,” she said.

In 2002, Kawuma got her miracle. One day, while at the institute, one of her friends came to visit her together with a white man, Johan Bonik from Holland. He was impressed by the project though saddened by the pathetic condition under which it was being operated.

Bonik pledged to renovate the building and eight months after his return to Holland, he sent sh30m to Kawuma.

Kawuma immediately bought iron sheets to renovate a leaking classroom, but the offer instead caused her eviction from the rented premises.

“The landlord misinterpreted the kind gesture. He accused me of plotting to grab his property and ordered me out of the premises,” she says.

Left with no option, Kawuma used the funds to buy a plot of land on Kamuli Road, Mpumudde division in Jinja district, where the institute stands today.

She used part of the money to set up the first building, part of which serves as an office and the other as a girls’ hostel. Students occupied it before its completion in 2004. Through Fr. Gerald Picavet of Jinja Diocese, Bonik again sent sh130m for further improvement and expansion of the infrastructure at the institute.

From five students at the first graduation ceremony in 1998, the institute passed out a total of 68 girls at its latest (15th) graduation ceremony in 2012. It currently has a total of 150 students and 16 staff.

Since its inception in 1997, over 500 girls have graduated from the institute, with certificates in tailoring, nursery teaching, catering, guidance and counselling, hairdressing and computer education.

Aware of the plight of people with disabilities, Kawuma gives priority to girls with disabilities, who pay half of the tuition at the institute.

Whereas the minimum requirement for admission to the school is a primary leaving education recommendation, people with disabilities do not need any transcript to join any training course.

This, Kawuma says, is meant to encourage more disabled girls to seek education to better their lives.

She also solicits support from well-wishers and corporate organisations and gives out kits such as sewing machines to students, upon their graduation. This is to enable them initiate income-generating projects.

Kawuma says her goal is to mould girls into responsible mothers that can contribute to nationbuilding.

Jennifer Ochaya, a tailoring instructor at the institute, describes Kawuma as her mentor and passionate about improving the status of women.

“She taught me tailoring in the early 1990s. When she started this school, she called me to teach and we have shaped hundreds of poor girls into self-sustaining individuals,” Ochaya says.

Sarah Nagama a former student at the institute, describes Kawuma as a disciplinarian, who gives no room for immoral behaviour amongst students.

“She is strict. Once students enter the school compound, they cannot move out without her permission,” Nagama, now a teacher at mother Sanyu Memorial Primary School in Nazigo, says.She adds that training at the institute is done through a hands-on approach.

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