Forum for Women in Democracy Uganda

This is my personal experiences at Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) during a three-week internship in July 2012. I relay my experience with FOWODE projects and how they fit into the greater mission of the organization, as well as how these assignments and l experiences relate to where FOWODE is moving in the future.  http://www.slideshare.net/FOWODE_1/documents M y major assignment was drafting FOWODE’s gender policy which would be an addendum to the human resources manual that governs staff at FOWODE. Originally, based on my research, I thought this document was going to be a 20 page report on how FOWODE does gender in the larger community, including overviews of all of their projects, past, current and future but it turned out to be an overwhelming task. I reviewed the organization HIV/AIDS work place policy and the Human Resource policy and once I understood the general format that they were looking for, I began to research women’s rights organizations and other U...

Lauren met with Opmo Onono Patrick a secretary  for VBC Waribu Cing Osi village and  a plumber  by  profession who shared  with her the works of the VBC I heard of other VBCs ( Village Budget Clubs ) in another sub county and the work they were doing, so when Forum for Women in Democracy approached us to start one in our area, to monitor service delivery and hold our leaders accountable, it was like a dream come true. The major problem in my community was that people didn’t know their rights or about government programs. We did not participate in planning for the community, and we often didn’t see government money that was supposed to help our community. We also had issues with the hospitals; the health workers were not treating people equally or fairly. Some teachers were also abusing their position by having students cook for them. But since we started monitoring the schools, some of these incidences have stopped. We received training from ...

Police in Kibaale is investigating the death of a pregnant woman which occurred yesterday 9th July 2012 at Isunga Health Center II in Kibaale district. There are conflicting reports on the cause of her death with some claiming, she died due to negligence of the health personnel while unconfirmed sources reported that the woman who was six months pregnant died of malaria. Whereas the cause of her death is yet to be established, the nurse who was on duty at the time this expectant mother died is under police custody and will be helping Police in these investigations. Tinner Areeba a FOWODE Kibaale field officer, who coordinates the district village budget clubs that regularly monitor government performance in delivering services and demand accountability from duty bearers in this district, was today summoned by the District Criminal Investigations Department to help in the ongoing investigations. She stated that the death of this pregnant woman is of critical concern to the Kiba...

  Posted  Sunday, May 6  2012 A consortium of civil society organisations are pushing for government reforms in the health and education sectors to among others have the percentage of government allocation to the health sector increased to meet the Abuja Declaration target of 15 per cent.   Boosting education Presenting their position paper on the national budget framework for next financial year before Parliament’s Social Services Committee recently, the group led by the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CS BAG) gender coordinator, Mr Julius Mukunda, also recommended a 20 per cent budget allocation to boost the quality of universal primary and secondary education. The team that advocates pro-poor budget policies in the country, also called for the review of teachers’ salaries to Shs400, 000 from the current Shs270,000. Health sector The government allocated Shs800 billion to the health sector last financial year but it...

Civil groups say government should reduce its supplementary budgets to channel money in priority areas.   By Ismail Ladu , Monday, June 18  2012 As the Budget Day excitement ebbs, the pressure is now on government to maintain financial discipline. Civil society organisations and the private sector are pressing for assurances that would be a stop to repeated supplementary budget requests. “All that is left now is for government to channel the resources in productive areas and not consumption. We hope to see less and less supplementary budget in areas that do not create wealth,” Private Sector Foundation (PSFU) executive director Gideon Badagawa told Daily Monitor in an interview at the weekend. In a post-budget luncheon organised by the private sector on Friday in Kampala, Mr Richard Kaijuka, a businessman and former Minister of Energy, asked for assurances from Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka that there would not be any requests for supplementary b...

Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) takes this opportunity to congratulate Right Honorable Margaret Zziwa on having been elected Speaker of the 3rdEast African Legislative Assembly (EALA), the first woman to hold such a position in EALA. Rgt. Hon. Margaret Zziwa Swearing in as  Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly As a women’s organization promoting the participation of women in leadership positions, FOWODE is glad that this time round we have a woman holding this very important position in the region. We trust that under your leadership you will be able to steer the East African Assembly to be more sensitive to issues of women and other marginalized groups especially in the process of integration. We pledge to work with you to further entrench gender into the East African legislative and policy making processes and we call upon other stakeholders to do the same. We thank the Honorable Members of the East African Legislative Assembly who felt it ...

‘A nation is wealthy by the wealth of their virtue.’ No wonder it has never ceased to amaze me that Uganda is among the impecunious nations. Have you not ever pondered on why Uganda is so impoverished, with phrases like ‘I am broke’; ‘No money’ and ‘Please bail me out’ being so common nowadays? Well…wonder no more because the answer is: It simply has no VIRTUES!! ‘Women have strengths that amaze me They bear hardships and they carry burdens, But, they hold happiness, love and joy. They smile when they want to scream.’ So the question is, if these beings are quite unique and amazingly special: Why then is Domestic Violence on rampage? Why is it that the things we love actually kill us? Globally, one in three women and girls experience physical and / or sexual violence . 60% of women in Uganda and 59% of married women have experienced physical violence since the age of fifteen mostly perpetuated by their husbands or partners according to an Isis-WICCE Report on Domestic Violence in...