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Uganda’s Military Took Over Public-Sector Construction. Private Contractors Are Reeling.

Jan 20, 2025 | globalpressjournal.com | Nakisanze Segawa |GPJ Uganda

KAMPALA, UGANDA — In 2021, the Ugandan government announced a policy that the military would take on all new government-funded construction projects in the health and education sectors. In the years since, the scope of the directive has unofficially widened to include most public-sector projects, and private contractors say they’re struggling to maintain their businesses. There’s growing concern that the directive is the latest in a series of moves to consolidate and centralize power.
They Needed Money Fast. They Got It - Only to Lose Everything.

Aug 31, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Apophia Agiresaasi |GPJ Uganda

WAKISO, UGANDA — Fredrick Nathan Rubahimbya needed money. It was June 2019 and his daughter’s final university exams started in a week. He needed to pay 800,000 Ugandan shillings (215 United States dollars) in fees so she would be allowed to take them. He tried to borrow from relatives and friends, but nobody had the money. He contacted a local microfinance institution, but they said it would be a two- to three-week process, he says. “I wanted money immediately.
Charcoal Ban Drives Up Prices in Uganda, Putting Small Businesses in a Bind

Aug 14, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Edna Namara |GPJ Uganda

KAMPALA, UGANDA — Gertrude Arineitwe spreads out her green polythene bag at the charcoal shelter. The charcoal seller, a woman from whom Arineitwe has bought charcoal for the past four years and who has become a friend, empties a spadeful of charcoal into the bag. Black dust wafts in the air. Soot-colored pieces fall into the bag, clanging as they land. Arineitwe watches, waiting for the seller to add more. But she doesn’t. She’s done — and the bag is only half full.
In Uganda, a Substantial Teacher Pay Raise Isn’t Good News for Everyone

Jul 29, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Apophia Agiresaasi |GPJ Uganda

KAMPALA, UGANDA — Avis Natukunda would still be in private school if it weren’t for a lack of teachers. The aspiring economist needed to pass her exams to be able to go to university, but when she sought out her teachers, particularly her math teacher, to go over materials she didn’t understand, they were nowhere to be found. So, in the middle of the 2023 school year, Natukunda, 17, asked her parents to transfer her from the private school she’d attended for four years to a public school.
A Network of Hope: Shelters in Uganda Unite to Safely House LGBTQ People

Jun 26, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Beatrice Lamwaka |GPJ Uganda

WAKISO, UGANDA — In 2021, John Grace’s father gave him an ultimatum. If he wanted to continue serving LGBTQ+ people, he had to stop identifying as one. “[He] told me not to go back home until I become straight,” Grace says. Grace refused. He was and remains the coordinator of Uganda Minority Shelters Consortium, an umbrella group he founded in 2020 that works with independent shelters to provide safe housing to LGBTQ+ people across Uganda.
LGBT Ugandans Shut Out From Asylum by Impostors

Jun 12, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Nakisanze Segawa |GPJ Uganda

KAMPALA, UGANDA — In July 2015, Uganda didn’t feel safe for Ariana Mutomi. It was just over a year after President Yoweri Museveni signed an anti-homosexuality bill into law. Although Uganda’s Constitutional Court annulled the law later on procedural grounds, anti-homosexuality sentiments were on the rise in the country. Afraid, Mutomi relocated to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, where she hoped for a safer life and a chance to seek asylum in Canada.
Behind the Wheel With Uganda’s Pioneering Women Drivers

Mar 3, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Edna Namara |GPJ Uganda

KAMPALA, UGANDA — Birabwa Hajara’s braids are long enough to reach her hips if she let them down. But she doesn’t. “Some jobs limit our freedom of expression. A driver cannot let her long hair loose. It will be prickly,” she says. Instead, she ties the braids into a knot above her head, a style whose shape has earned it the local nickname “doughnut.” It’s 5 a.m., still a little dark, and the 42-year-old is already up and about on her first job as a school driver.
How a Tourism App in Uganda is Making Its Mark in East Africa - and Beyond

Jan 29, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Beatrice Lamwaka |GPJ Uganda

KAMPALA, UGANDA — When Brian Namanya traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, for a conference in 2019, he was eager to experience the city. But it was his first time, and he didn’t know where to begin. One of the options was to pay travel agents for a tour, but this would have been costly. “I ended up not doing anything. I just stayed at the hotel,” he says. This got him thinking. What if there was a platform where you could book walking tours with a local who knew the city well?
Worth the Salt? Artisanal Miners Continue to Work Despite Health Concerns

Jan 10, 2024 | globalpressjournal.com | Edna Namara |GPJ Uganda

LAKE KATWE, UGANDA — At first glance, the branches scratching the surface of Lake Katwe look like a gripping artwork for the way they create different shapes in the water. If, to an outsider’s eye, their arrangement may seem random, for the thousands of artisanal salt miners whose livelihoods depend on the lake, every branch serves a purpose as they are used to mark the borders of their salt pans.
A Fight for Land in the Shadow of a Ugandan Mountain

Dec 4, 2023 | pmldaily.com | Nakisanze Segawa |GPJ Uganda

This story was originally published by Global Press Journal. KWEEN, UGANDA: One morning in May 2023, Sangura Masai was washing his face at home in Kokwotorokwo, a village on the outskirts of a vast national park in eastern Uganda, when his two teenage sons rushed toward him in fear.