Apenyo, the feminist who won''t relent

Her dream is to see women stronger and healthier. . .


By Owen Wagabaza

For Mildred Apenyo, when it comes to women’s issues, the tone changes. 

Formerly a columnist in Sunday Vision with her no-threads-barred column Stiletto Point, Apenyo is also a passionate feminist.

In one of her blogs, she posts, “I’m sick of hearing things like: all women go crazy for chocolate, a Ugandan chick won’t date you unless your wallet is larger than her behind, women will date the first person who shows them attention, not because I can prove them wrong but because it’s terrible to judge all women by some narrow standard you got from dating all of three. Femininity cannot be narrowed down to diamonds or shoes or wallets or the color pink.”

Early last year, Apenyo quit a well-paying job as a copywriter in one of the advertising firms in Kampala to open up a women-only gym with an aim of seeing women stronger and healthier. The gym is the first of its kind in Uganda.

With such an idea, Apenyo was among the 28 chosen from over 2,000 entries for the inaugural Mandela Washington Fellowship where young African leaders attend six weeks of intensive executive leadership training, networking, and skills building in the USA henceforth gaining the skills and connections they need to accelerate their own career trajectories and contribute more robustly to strengthening democratic institutions, spurring economic growth, and enhancing peace and security in Africa.

The fellowship is designed to encourage and foster the ingenuity, confidence, passion, and commitment of the next generation of African leaders.  It offers young leaders an unparalleled opportunity to meet and share ideas with some of America’s dedicated leaders from community organizers to the President of the United States.


Who is Apenyo?
 

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Born 24 years ago to city lawyer Dalton Opwonya, Apenyo says she grew up in a crazy family with crazy people.

“Biologically we are six, but our home always housed up to 20 people at a go. Aunties, uncles, nephews and cousins were always at home. Whenever the number would seem like reducing probably after finishing their education, getting employment or even marrying, dad would go to the village and bring more.

“Home was always fun, because we were such a huge happy family,” she recalls.

Her memories also resurrect the times when her father refused to use electricity from the then-UEB, citing cheating from the defunct company, and instead came up with his own innovations. “He bought a mortar and through a process I don’t remember very well, we started making our own electricity manually. The process was boring and tiring, but dad would not relent. That was craziness at its peak.”

Growing up in Bugolobi Flats, Apenyo joined Makerere University in 2008 for a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication, a course that did not appease her father. “He was very disappointed when I did not do law. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”

 After her graduation in 2012, Apenyo got a full-time job as a copywriter in a local advertising firm.


Apenyo, the writer chick

The name for her official Facebook account is Mildred Apenyo. That writer chick. Indeed Apenyo is a writer chick. She has previously been a columnist with Sunday Vision, is a popular blogger, a fiction writer and a number of her works have been published in both local and international journals, notably Storymoja in Nairobi, Eleven-eleven journal based in California, Uganda Modern Literary Digest, Short Story Day Africa based in South Africa as well as writivism anthology.

She began writing way back in her Senior Six (S.6) vacation.

“Around 2008, my friends and I wanted to start up a magazine and one of the people we wanted to recruit was celebrated writer Ernest Bazanye. I was given the responsibility to convince him to join us. At the end of our first meeting, Bazanye requested me to start writing for Kawa, a lifestyle magazine in Sunday Vision which he was editing. Four years later in 2012, I was given a full column, Stiletto Point, that runs up to today.

 Apenyo says she has a deep-lying love to tell stories. “Writing is my first passion.”


YALI experience
 

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Apenyo with Ndaba Mandela, Nelson Mandela's grandson, at the White House, US

Mildred Apenyo was one of the 28 Ugandans chosen for the inaugural Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) 2014, later renamed Mandela Washington Fellowship. Apenyo is still in awe at how her last minute application to the YALI initiative made it through in the cut-throat competition.

There were over 2,000 applications from Uganda and 80,000 from Africa. “I was humbled when my idea of starting a women-only gym, young as it, was accepted. It gave me confidence that I was on the right path and my idea was solid.”

At YALI, she was posted to Notre Dame University in Indiana where she spent two months with other 25 participants from different parts of Africa.

“We had classes every day, they were packing u with so much information about business. People from IBM, Coca-Cola, PricewaterhouseCoopers and many other mega companies were some of the people lecturing us. Going to a great university with a great business college was a plus for me. I learnt a lot about starting and running a business and there were so many great people to inspire me on the programme,” she says.

After the fellowship, Apenyo was among the selected 100 of the 500 at the fellowship who were chosen for internship in various organisations. She had her internship at Small Business Administration, Washington D.C for the following two months. “Small Business Administration, Washington D.C works with small business owners, giving them any kind of help that they need,” Apenyo says, adding that the Mandela Washington Fellowship was a great opportunity in her business endeavors.

When she came back after the fellowship, business became intense and tiring. “Everyone wanted to work with me because of the fellowship hype. I had to be hospitalized for a week because of the stress. Eventually, I stabilized, paced myself and started looking at opportunities objectively.”


FitcliqueAfrica
 

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In early 2014, Apenyo resigned from her job as a copywriter in Kampala to set up FitcliqueAfrica. She says she got the idea to start FitcliqueAfrica after then-State Miniter for Youth and Children suggested that men who rape women dressed in miniskirts, bikinis and tight jeans have no case to answer.

“I realized that our leaders don’t care at all about women’s issues,” she reveals.

She had earlier experienced the borderline sexual harassment from trainers and other men at the gym. “A man attempted to throw a dumbbell at my head because I had refused to budge from the machine I was using. He insisted that his training required use of all three machines and poor little female me had to wait until he was good and done. When I refused, he lunged at me with the dumbbell and had to be restrained.”

Apenyo adds: “Even then, I had got fed up of feeling like trainers are not in touch with my workout goals and of being told ‘you are a girl, you should not do that, or that will make you hard like Golola’. What is wrong with having a body like Golola?”

She thinks that at times, women need to create a space of their own and that fitness is not all about being skinny. “You can be healthy at every size. You have to accept your body in its size at every moment. Intense self-love and body acceptance greatly lead to a healthy life.”

Her brainchild FitcliqueAfrica is a social enterprise that is passionate about safety and wellness of African women with a long term plan of opening women-only gyms in various parts of Africa. “We run a safety curriculum for university girls, market and corporate women as well as women in the regular work force and the focus is on physical and psychological violence,” says Apenyo.

At the gym, they have classes in aerobics, kickboxing and personal safety, dance, Afrikan yoga and the popular strength training which runs three times a week.

They also promote wellness through the use of herbs like lavender, rosemary, aloe vera and sesame (simsim). In this arrangement, the gym has a garden in which they plant such herbs for distribution to members. They also run an interactive page on social media.

 “On social media, we discuss issues affecting women, how we can solve them and many other topics that dignify and glorify the African woman,” she explains.

To her surprise, her gym has been a success. More and more women are joining us. At the moment, we have a membership of over 150 women, with the most popular classes being strength training that is taught three times a week. A number of companies have also hired us to train their workforce. 


Apenyo on life

She says she tries as much to live a life free of chains. “I cannot stand anyone who tampers with my freedom.”

When I tell her that her hairstyles are always a stunner, Apenyo reminds me that those are the chains she tries to be free from.

“Why should I dress for onlookers rather than my own comfort? That is chaining myself. I try as much as I can to satisfy my soul before anyone else’s. “I wake up and ask myself, ‘what does Mildred want?’ If Mildred feels she wants to cut off all her hair but for a little patch of dreads in the middle, then that is what I do,” she says, adding that this goes into how she chooses her clothes as well. The result is a woman who always looks comfortable in her skin and clothes, despite several curious glances from those around her.”

Apenyo attributes her self-fulfillment to friends and family. “My friends have always been supportive in many of my life endeavors, and believe me, they always draw wonderfulness in me – they make me blossom.”