Viola Namylo - Humanism and Women’s Empowerment in Uganda
Interviewed by Cailee King
Question: Please tell us about your childhood.
My name is Viola Namyalo aged 23. I am currently the Chair for Young Humanists in Africa, Membership Director for Uganda Humanist Association and I hold the same position for HALEA (Humanist Association for Leadership Equity and Accountability) to empower young people and women in Uganda. I am a full time worker with HALEA.
As a child, I never had a chance to interact with my father since he died when I was just a month old. I grew up in Makerere Kivulu (one of Kampala’s slums) with my mother, she was a Born Again Christian who loved the lord so dearly. She taught me how to love and trust the almighty God. I attended church with her every Sunday and conducted daily prayers at home. My love for music pushed me closer to church activities since I was very active in the children’s band. My mother was so proud of me every time she saw me singing for the lord.
Life in the slum was never easy, hustling everyday but getting little to eat . My mother was sickly she couldn’t work for many hours, yet she had to provide for her daughter. This made the whole situation worse. At school I was among the students to be sent back home because of failure to pay school fees and related requirements. Food was also another challenge to us, I had to find jobs in order to make our life better. I remember doing domestic work like fetching water, cleaning people’s houses and doing laundry for university students. At this point I was between nine to ten years old.
Because my mother was sickly and financially unstable, she talked to the pastor asking him to take me into the church orphanage. This orphanage was for total orphans however, since the church leaders knew how poor my mother’s life was they took me in. Besides, I was very active in church, perhaps this also played a role. One year after joining this orphanage, my mother died. I was taken good care of at the orphanage, I went ahead with my education, and as I write, I am happy to say that I finished my first degree In Music at Uganda's top university, Makerere University Kampala in 2018.
Q: How did you become a humanist?
When I was in High school, there was an organization that usually came every Friday to empower us with critical thinking skills. They started a debating club that I loved and engaged in a lot. This organization is HALEA (Humanist Association for leadership Equity and Accountability), HALEA helped me shape my thinking, love who I am and also be a better person. As a teenager, I always had questions about the bible that were never answered to my satisfaction. I always had doubt about God’s existence, because if he really existed and all loving and powerful why didn’t he provide to me and my mother in a situation we needed help? If God really loves his people why didn’t he keep them in heaven and save them from this suffering? If God loved my mother as she always told me, why did he let my mother die? Why doesn’t God forgive Satan so that everything can go back to normal? My biggest question was and still is who created God? No one has ever answered these questions to my satisfaction. My guardians at the orphanage always discouraged me to question God because he is perfect and does everything for a good reason. They also told me how evil a doubter is, this made me think that questioning God is wrong, I therefore I kept the questions and doubts to myself.
When HALEA gave me an opportunity to freely talk about any idea including the God idea during debate time, I felt free and liberated and I started loving to know more about the organization and its work. I started volunteering for the organization over the weekend and holidays, through volunteering for this organization I came to know about Humanism. I learnt that believing or not believing in God is everybody’s right, being skeptical about the “God idea” is okay and that, there are good people who don’t believe in God. This made me feel better because I had found something that resonated with me. Before I knew, I had already started identifying myself as a Humanist.
Besides empowering young people with free thinking skills, the organization also empowered (still does) women to know their rights, their worth and to note that they can do everything they want if they are given an opportunity. This also made me closer to the organization since as a girl who grew up in a slum and then after taken into an orphanage, I needed someone to help me know that I can be more than just an orphan and a slum girl. I started dedicating more time for the organization, 2012 saw me become a more dedicated volunteer, I took part in all projects especially empowering women in slums because I knew how important this was. Girls in the slums face a lot of challenges, they definitely need someone to constantly remind them that they can do better. In 2015 I was happy to be elected director for SRHR in the organization, I started conducting more sessions on Menstrual Hygiene Management because it’s a big issue here in Uganda. Girls suffer during these days, there are so many myths and taboos associated with menstruation that makes any girl hate herself during these days.
In addition, I had also seen and experienced how girls lack proper sanitary materials to use during these days. They use old pieces of clothes, others use cow dung and in some tribes, a girl is taken into a separate hat and is made to sit on a whole specifically dug for her to sit on during menstruating days. This all creates no peace for any girl during menstrual days. Our organization go to different communities like schools, slums and villages and conduct sessions on Menstrual Hygiene management, empower women, help teenage mothers go back to school and get a skill that will help them earn money to sustain their lives, and advocating for Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights.
Q: How has Uganda changed for women?
I am happy to say there is a positive change in Uganda, although we are not on a high note, I am happy that Uganda is on the road to respect, recognize and support women. Unlike the past years where women were seen as sexual objects and cooks, today women work, they are in leadership, sports, performing arts and many other sectors. Although it’s like so, we still see unequal participation of women in different sectors. Most women fear to be leaders and be at top positions. It could be because they are not empowered enough, or maybe they find it hard to balance of career and domestic responsibilities and most importantly women’s unequal access to education. We therefore still have a long way to go, we need to empower women more and support them for a better future. I am happy we are having progress as humanists women in leadership.
Q: What are the main issues for women in Uganda?
Sexual assaults
Domestic violence (it has been on rise during this lockdown)
Q: How can these problems be solved?
A lot needs to be done. However, for a start I would suggest that:
Support HALEA start business for women. One of the reasons for the raise of domestic violence is poverty. Many women are financially crippled so they look up to men for survival hence men take advantage and exploit them.
We need to support women to start income generating projects that are sustainable. At the moment, HALEA is doing this through helping Teenage mothers achieve vocational skills like tailoring, cookery, hairdressing and events management at Pearl Vocational Training College. They are taken to study any course of their interest for a period of one year. By the time they leave, they have a skill that can help them earn money to sustain their lives. However if we get your hand in this through providing capital for these teenage mothers, the dream of seeing them get financial stability becomes a reality. For example, if we can get a tailoring machine for the ones that do tailoring, a dryer and some saloon equipments for the hair dressers, and an oven for ones doing cookery, it can be a great start. I believe that if a woman is financially stable, she will never hang in a toxic relationship, hence fighting domestic violence.
We urgently need help to purchase pads for young girls, since we are in lockdown and parents not working, it is hard for young girls to get sanitary materials yet this is important. Many girls have approached me asking for pads, they badly need sanitary materials at this time. With only $ 5 you can help a girl get reusable sanitary pads that can keep her clean and healthy for a period of 12 months. We have over 1,000 girls in slums in need of this help, any support is very welcome as this is urgent.
We have thought of a sustainable project. We seek to establish a Maize Mill machine that will be multipurpose.
We urgently need support to purchase a maize miller. HALEA supports a number vulnerable people of people in different communities including those in slums and villages. Ever since we went under lock down, people have been lacking food as a result of not working. We bought some food (posho and beans) and supported some few families. We realized we needed to do more, however we couldn’t because we were short of funds, with the small money we had saved, we thought of an idea that can help us get more food to donate at a cheaper price. This was, buying a maize milling machine, this machine turns maize into posho (most wanted food at the moment). This machine will not only help us reach out to a bigger number of people, it will also help our organization generate some income since we are confident that other people will also need our services and they will have to pay some money to get them.
The outer layer of the maize can be used to help young mothers and village women to start projects such as piggery, goat and cow rearing as well as chicken rearing.
The machine costs UGX 19,000,000(USD 5300) at the moment we have UGX 2,000,000 ( USD 556) we still need UGX 17,000,000 (USD 4700) to make this happen. We welcome any support given.
Q: How can women in Uganda learn to be good leaders?
I am happy we are having more women in leadership here in Uganda. They are doing their jobs well and most importantly they are a great inspiration to the young generation. I do think Women in leadership are already good, however they should support each other to make it better. If you see a fellow woman rising up, don’t pull her down, help her climb the ladder in a way you can.
Us in leadership should be motivating more young girls to take on leadership. We should be giving inspiration talks to young girls to raise their self esteem.
Q: How can women in Uganda become successful engineers?
First of all they need to believe in themselves and love their business ideas. If someone is doing a business that she is interested in, the dedication will automatically be there. If someone is confident that she can make it, she will trust her plans follow them boldly until she reaches her goals. Connections are also important; making friends with people in the field will help them know what is missing in their business and how they can make their businesses better. Advertising and taking good care of customers is also important. In addition, we need to support businesses owned by women, most people( including fellow women) tend to ignore businesses owned by women arguing that they are lacking experience. The question is, if you don’t support her gain experience where in the world will she get it? Lastly, women need to find a way of balancing work and domestic responsibilities. Many businesses owned by women get closed down because they find it hard to balance career with domestic responsibilities , if they can find a way of balancing the two, I believe there will be a difference.
Q: Is Humanism spreading in Uganda?
The Humanist community in Uganda is growing bigger and bigger each day, as membership director of Uganda Humanist Association I can happily report that we have over 50 organizations, and 20 Humanist Schools in Uganda. These organizations are doing great work in spreading Humanism, helping the ones in need and also grow the community stronger. In normal days, we always have a monthly meet up where we physically meet and discuss any topic of interest and check on each other. We also have social media platforms that we use to share our world view and also connect more. The available technology and the love humanists have for the movement has greatly helped the humanist community to grow. With the available Humanist school, I am confident that we shall have more free minded people in the future and therefore a bigger Humanist community.