Wakiso Woman Member of Parliament, Betty Ethel Naluyima has observed that there is a strong co-relationship between a person’s level of education and his or her ability and urge to decently develop with the intention of raising their status in society.
Naluyima disclosed that bearing this fact in mind, she rose to the reality of starting an initiative fraught with stimulating into the nation’s children a new love for education through getting down to earth and behaving like their peers to achieve this goal.
Susan Wamala Sserunkuuma: Singing Praises to the Education Icon
“I began by convincing fellow administrators in Wakiso district to get back into school uniforms, go back to learners in their schools and talk to them in the language they understand best, that of fellow learners and eventually, the ‘Naffe Tusome’ programme took root,” she said.
Joined by Wakiso district chairperson, Dr. Matia Lwanga Bwanika and other local government leaders including sub-county chairpersons and councilors, Naluyima said that they visited different schools while putting on school uniforms, a gesture which interested learners so much but also the teachers.
“We visit learners in their different classrooms, interact with them, eat porridge, posho and beans with them and later address them in assemblies tackling different issues that affected them. Through these engagements, we have realised learners who had different obstacles either from their schools or their homes and we have provided solutions,” the legislator said in an interview with Kyaggwe TV reporters from her office at Parliamentary Avenue on Wednesday.
After carrying on a number of school visits, Naluyima said that some of her fellow legislators picked on the idea and replicated it in their constituencies and it still gave positive results to them.
She singled out Geoffrey Macho of Busia Municipality and Betty Nambooze Bakireke of Mukono Municipality saying, there are also many others who have done the same in different ways.
The MP said the idea of starting ‘Naffe Tusome’ struck her mind the year Wakiso district emerged on top of districts with teenage pregnancies immediately after the COVID 19 lockdown.
In 2020, Wakiso district registered 10,439 teenage pregnancies, the numbers which ranked the district in a top position in Uganda.
According to the 2020 report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a United Nations agency that focuses on sexual and reproductive health, the numbers of teenage pregnancy were highest in districts of Wakiso (10,439), Kampala (8,460), Kasese (7,319), Kamuli (6,535), Oyam (6,449) and 6,205 Mayuge.
Explaining further, Naluyima said, “I immediately realised we needed to wake up and shape up; I began on the campaign of convincing child mothers that even with two children, a person could still go back to school and perform sensibly, and this gave me a beginning point”.
She said that local leaders including area MPs, Wakiso Mayor, the LC V Chairman and councillors joined her campaign starting by convincing mothers, and then set on to schools, adding that today, with assistance from Save the Children, the service has been extended to four schools in each of Namayumba and Gombe, and further away in the island sub-county of Bussi.
Naluyima who doubles as the Publicist for the parliamentary forum for children, said the baseline for their operation is the logic to let everybody get an opportunity to be educated.
“We have gone to the media, interacted with good Samaritans to avail us with logistics including scholastic materials, sanitary ware for the girl child, and other necessities and as it is, the sky is the limit”.
She therefore said that through the Neffe Tusome campaign, she has been able to give out thousands of logistics including sanitary towels, scholastic materials to school going children across Wakiso district.
