African Woman of the Month: Tracy Kyagulanyi

In December 2013, Child’s i Foundation’s Executive Director Tracy Kyagulanyi followed through on one of the most important decisions of her life: after twelve years of working  and building a life with her husband Roger Kyagulanyi and daughters Ella F Mirembe and Lizzy F Sanyu in the UK, she decided to move back home to fulfill a lifelong dream to work with and contribute to policy development that favors children in Uganda.Born thirty eight years ago in Uganda, Tracy’s love affair with children begun at a young age and only intensified when, during her university holidays in the late nineties, she got the chance to work with international organizations like World Food Programme and Norwegian Refugee Council in the Northern part of the country at the height of the Kony insurgency.

‘My first job was with the World Food Programme. We would go to displaced peoples’ camps and give food items to refugees. We also supported community initaitives such as ‘Food for Work’ to help communities construct roads and farm.  Everytime I was in the camp, I always felt like I wanted to take all the children home with me. Some of them were household heads robbed of their childhoods. It was very painful to leave them behind in those conditions. I really loved my job and promised myself I could do it better. And so it started like that-from that experience.’

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The death of a 19-year-old Brian OpioKau at theGuluCentral prison is a clarion call to the country to embrace restorative justice mechanisms as oppose to punitive confinement especially for young and petty offenders. Fellow inmates allegedly beat up Opio to death just three days after being remanded. His only crime was a colonial era petty offence of “rouge and vagabondism.”

According to the deceased mother Agnes Apio police on a night patrol within Gulu town arrested her son on his way to a nightclub. He was subsequently charged and remanded into Gulu Central prison. A fellow inmate narrated that Opio was beaten badly by fellow inmates for touching a door he was not supposed to touch. Now whereas the Gulu prison authorities were quick to dispute the cause of death as a result of beating, evidence suggests that such beating are indeed a very common practice in our detention facilities and in particular against young offenders. According to Ogweng, a former inmate at Gulu Central Prison and Lugore interviewed by Amani Institute Uganda, “inside the jail is a law of the jungle and when you survive once, you are more than ready to go back and pay…” The point here is that we should protect our young one who comes in conflict with the law from hardened criminals. Our justice system must endeavor to correct offenders and restore them into law abiding and productive citizens, not end their life or turn them into habitual and harden criminals. By exposing young petty offenders to mentorship by hard-core criminals, our current justice system does the reverse. Amani Institute Uganda seeks to protect rights and promote access to justice for vulnerable and at risks population, catalyse social change and harness local resources for peace, justice, climate adaption and resilience, civic awareness, juvenile rehabilitation, legal aid, information sharing, leadership development and capacity building.

Members of Parliament want government to take serious steps to address the youth unemployment. The MPs say that the current interventions do not match up to the high level of youth unemployment.

The MP for Mbale Municipality, Jack Wamai Wamanga warns that youth unemployment is a time bomb ready to explode if not addressed. The MPs who acknowledged the interventions like the Youth Livelihood Program, YLP said there is need for government to inject more funds into such projects if majority of the youth are to benefit.

Hon. Annet Nyakecho, the Woman MP for Otuke, said that the rural youth have been left out because the available funds are insufficient. She also called on those in charge of the YLP to put emphasis on training youth on viable income generating activities. While the MP representing People with Disabilities in Eastern Uganda, Hellen Asamo called for affirmative action for Youth with Disabilities while selecting beneficiaries of the YLP and the students loan scheme.

The Woman MP for Ngora, Jacqueline Amongin challenged her colleagues to promote attitude change among the youth towards work. And Buyaga County MP, Barnabas Tinkasimire asked government to prepare young people to take on leadership. He challenged leaders who have over stayed in power to step down and give young people opportunities to take leadership of the country.

The Shadow minister for Youth, Atiku Bernard said that the government is doing the youth injustice by not passing the policy. He further queried the criteria the government is using to export labour and yet there is no action plan on youth employment.

The Minister for Defense, Crispus Kiyonga advised MPs to give messages of hope to youth to avoid youth from engaging in negative activities like drug and alcohol abuse, and violence. The minister said that the MPs should tell the youth that unemployment is a structural problem which needs specific programs and time to resolve. He noted that while the government has deliberate efforts to transform the youth, it is the responsibility of every MP to ensure that youth issues are addressed.

The Deputy Speaker, Jacob Oulanyah who extended debate on the statement from the stipulated 15 minutes according to the Parliament’s rules of procedure to close to an hour, acknowledged the importance of addressing youth issues.
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