I was born in Uganda and migrated to the USA with my mother and siblings
when I was 12. I have now completed college and pretty much you would have to
delve deep to know my heritage since the American in me takes precedence. Even with that said I am still proud of my
heritage, so proud that I will never forget where I came from. When some people
see me, they see a suburban Boston kid; it’s when we start splitting the Atom that you find that I have a rich royal heritage
that I am so proud of. After some serious reflection in the past, i realized
that I was not representing my Ugandan side in an applicable way. I can speak
Lusoga (the language of the Basoga people) but being a Musoga is much more than
that. So I put some thought into how I could represent where I came from and
the answer has been in my face for three years, just never gave it thought
until recently. Ok where should i start?
So in 1998, an Organization named Twegaite (meaning,
let’s unite) was formed in New Jersey. It started out as an organization of
Basoga and their friends in the Diaspora with the commitment of the development
of Busoga and Uganda. Now it has grown into a multinational organization and
has taken on initiatives that include improving the livelihoods of communities
where Basoga and their friends live across the world.
I got involved in Twegaite about three years ago, back then I was a part of
the organization for the fun of it. You get to go to a three day convention
every year held at the best hotels in cool cites. I am talking about LA,
Boston, Minneapolis, etc. It’s fun, trust me. Lots of dopamine stimulating
activities packed in 3-4 days. Though that’s all it was to me, fun, until this
year. So this year, I was impressed with all that Twegaite had accomplished in
a short amount of time. The Organization has managed to expand a village Micro
Finance program within Busoga and others; with the money given to the village
groups directly, it has helped increase farming production output, and
therefore increased earnings, which promotes socio-economic development. Note
that Twegaite directly deals with the communities and not through the government.
This is real good because when it comes to Africa the governments there is so
much corruption and ineptitude. If one sends support funds to people in need in
those funds will go through the governments first and by the time it reaches
its intended destination, there are little or no funds at all. Can you imagine
that? You donate money to a third world country to provide relief for poverty
or people in a drought and then the government puts it away in its pockets.
Some African nations exports many resources and get plenty of money out of it
but where does that money go? Not in Healthcare or education. Anyway, Twegaite
works directly with the community. If one wants to donate their funds for a
good cause Twegaite is an excellent Organization to use in order to achieve
your goal; it will get it to the right people and not greedy and corrupt hands.
That's not all, other community development goals for Twegate include
rebuilding Tourist cities in Jinja and surrounding districts of Busoga. The
organization is now working on building a good school with a health care
center, public Library computing center, and other support activities involving
the community like metal and wood work, mechanical center, agricultural
mechanized unit and a farm. Now, if your
grown up in a first world country, a functioning full library for example is
something part of your society in every city. In Uganda public libraries are
very rare and nonexistent in most communities. So building a public libray with
updated books and computing center with internet connection is a game- changer.
The library and computing center will not only serve student needs but it will
provide knowledge and education for the community it will expand their
horizons. Third, one of the primary goals that the Organization is extremely pursuing
this year and the next is to build a Cancer Center and education institute at
Jinja regional referral Hospital. This is and has been a high task. The project
started in September 2012 and after 7 months of hard work it has progressed
fast. Twegaite has convinced the government and the city of Jinja to donate
land for the cancer center. The organization has partnered with Ugandan
communities across the world, key government bodies including the Speakers
office (Uganda), and now plans to hold benefits to raise more than 5 Miliion
dollars required for the first phase. Twegaite is consulting with American
hospitals and many physicians have expressed interest and have assented to this
worthy project. Some medical equipment has been acquired as well. This has been
good progress but there is still so much to do before the cancer center is up
and running. The plan is to build a state of art center and plan an efficient
health care service delivery system that will be replicated throughout the
region. If you would like to know more or be a part of Twegaite Organization,
there are two links on the bottom of this post. One will bring you to the
website. The other will bring you the Twegaite blog. Post note, i learnt about
the organization goals in the beginning of this year. I was in the organization
for three years and barely knew what the organization stood for. What was i
doing for the past three years? I could have been more applicable and that’s
what I am striving for now.
The organization also works behind the scene to
advocate for policies that enable social economic improvement I Busoga and in
Uganda.
So I have been pondering how I can get involved:
I wanted to start with this blog to get opinions of my peers since many of them
are clueless like I was 3 years ago. I do feel like there are bigger issues out
there than the daily razzmatazz and besides getting involved makes life worth
living for right? Anyway the most important issue is to find money for these
programs and I am going to be part of a benefit – fundraiser program. I am more
interested in Microfinance b’se it’s kind of a social investment program where
you loan money to folks at low interest rates using Twegaite, and you better
people’s lives while benefiting yourself. This way there will be no donor fatigue.
The other way is to interest philanthropies and you my audience, this
organization has a bunch of focused, hardworking, altruistic individuals and
its difficult to find this bunch and I want people to know so share your
thoughts and ideas here of how to better get involved.
