Its been nearly a month now since I’ve returned from my first trip to Uganda. It takes some time to process what you see when you visit any foreign country, and this country particularly highlighted that rule. No doubt, there are practical questions we were asking as an organization: What is the status of our projects on the ground? How are the widows that we support progressing? What things will we do differently to improve our impact? But when you dig deeper into the challenges facing a particular context, there often emerges one resonating theme that still rings in your heart long after you leave. For me, that feature was simple: To be a woman in Uganda is to lead a life that will face constant inequity, challenges, and lack of opportunity, simply because of your gender.
The reality of the global struggle for gender equality may seem like common knowledge. It’s true that women’s issues in the developing world has received more attention in recent years. Books like Half the Sky, written by New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, have brought topics like forced prostitution and gender based violence into the mainstream. Issues like these certainly do exist in Uganda if you’re willing to look. What struck me more during my visit, though, was the general attitude that exists about a woman’s place in society. It is an attitude that permeates the entire culture. Women are second class and worth less at every turn, and girls growing up can expect to hear that message during every stage of development. Nowhere did I get a clearer lesson of this then during a sit down with Anne Elotu, wife of Joseph Elotu, our TCON country director. View part of that discussion, now, where Anne explains How A Girl is Viewed Here.
TCON is passionate about cultivating hope by empowering women in Uganda. We have primarily targeted our resources towards the overlooked widows in Teso and Gulu precisely because we believe that if these ladies can begin to see themselves as fully human and capable of creating change, they will carry that message on to the children in their care. A widow in Bukedia passionately declared to us as we visited, “I am better off than many married women in my village now! I can stand on my own two feet and support my own children’s education!” Such a message can be a revolution for an upcoming generation of girls who more commonly might have been taught that they are worth less. They are Uganda’s future. They are The Children of the Nile.