Interview with Dr. Noerine Kaleeba, Founder and Patron, TASO Uganda
Is it possible to encourage peace in Africa?
Peace, in my view, is not only the foundation but also the key pillar of growth and development for any society or country.
Africa as a developing continent requires peace and must therefore encourage peace at all levels to ensure lasting development.
The question is: Is peace possible?
I believe that we Africans have what it takes to achieve and maintain peace.
Should we even try to encourage our people to hope that one day we will have the required peace for the development of our continent?
I have no hesitation in giving a positive answer to those two questions because I believe that we Africans have what it takes to achieve and maintain peace. I can also add that we have no choice but to work towards peace, not just for ourselves but for our children and great grandchildren. Peace in Africa begins with the individual, radiates through the family, the community, and through the nation.
Dr. Kaleeba (far right) and her team at Komo Learning Centres (KLC) in Uganda
Peace in Africa begins with individuals, radiates through family, community, and nation.
And for peace to prevail at an individual level one has be able to access and enjoy the basic necessities of life, food, shelter, good health, love and dignity, and must enjoy the basic freedoms and human rights. But the glue which binds these key essentials at family, community and national levels is governance and leadership.
To encourage peace in Africa we must get our governance and leadership aligned to people’s hopes and expectations.
It is common knowledge on the African continent that bad governance and bad leadership is the fuel which keep the engines of war and perpetual insecurity running. Africa also needs continued international solidarity to address the issues which perpetuate insecurity and threaten peace. Some of the insecurities that occur in Africa are neither made in Africa nor fueled from Africa.
Some insecurities that occur in Africa are neither made in Africa nor fueled from Africa.
Nkosi Primary School students sponsored by KLC of which Dr. Kaleeba is a Founder
What are you doing to encourage peace in Africa?
Leveraging on my gifts and advantages as an African woman who has had access to good education.
Being a health worker, I decided to openly face the stigma and isolation suffered by my family following my husband’s diagnosis of AIDS in 1986.
I took up leadership and set up a support group which quickly grew into a transformational movement addressing stigma and prejudice and giving a human face to HIV and AIDS. My husband died in 1987 and this was a devastating family tragedy, but our family decision to face up to AIDS turned this tragedy into opportunity for Ugandans to recognise the danger of HIV and also deal with their prejudice and discrimination against those who were being diagnosed with the infection.
Today my efforts are focussed upon supporting and encouraging young people.
Nkosi School student sponsored by Komo Learning Centres, Uganda
This action taken by a family in crisis has now been recognised as one of the key pillars in Uganda’s relative success in addressing HIV and AIDS.
Today my efforts are focussed upon supporting and encouraging young people, many of who have been affected by HIV, to access education, maintain hope and remain focused so as to become better leaders of tomorrow.
This personal experience propelled me into the world of international solidarity which I now believe is a critical element in creating and maintaining lasting peace in Africa. We must all work together as a global community for peace in Africa.
We must all work together as a global community for peace in Africa.
What could others do to encourage peace in Africa?
Of the many vehicles for encouraging peace in Africa, I would recommend a focus on the education of young African women.
In my own case, I was fortunate to work hard at school and receive a scholarship to one of the best secondary schools in Uganda. From there, I was able to further my education and use the skills I learned to make a practical impact upon local community development here in Uganda.
When you educate a woman, you educate a family.
When you educate a family, you educate a nation.
We cannot reject that non-formal education in these communities and replace it with formal education.
But what we can do is integrate, to build a hybrid, between the two forms of education, so that, for example, learning non-formally about planting food in the communities, can overlap into formal training in schools about agricultural sciences and management.
The saying here goes, that when you educate a woman, you educate a family, and when you educate a family, you educate a nation.
And educating nations makes our whole global community much stronger.
So, educating a woman is a good goal for all of us to begin with if we wish to encourage peace in Africa.
I assess the progress on the UN Millennium Development Goal 3 as miserably wanting.
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals list Goal 3 as follows:
- Ratios of girls and boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education
- Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector
- Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament
I assess the progress on the UN Millennium Development Goal 3 as miserably wanting.
Educating a woman is a good goal if we wish to encourage peace in Africa.
As part of a global community, we all need to do better, work harder and invest more in Goal 3. It is not about giving hand-outs.
It is about stimulating development so that development can take off on its own strength and find its own wings.
