The charity drive and giving back 

On February 24th 2024, some of the members of the YOHEP organisation accompanied with students of Makerere University from the Masculinity class visited the Katanga slum which is located in the valley between Mulago Hospital and Makerere University, in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. Like in many slums, Katanga has poor housing and is crowded with people of different genders, ethnicities and ages such as children, youth, adults and the elderly. There is also a big channel (that comprises water, sewage, different sorts of garbage) that divides the slum but there are bridges that connect from one side to another. There are also small channels that weave through the houses in the slum that call for leg stretching and looking down while walking in the slum.The plan was to donate clothes, shoes and bags collected from members of the organisation and different well-wishers. Most of them were for children, youths and adults. Our CEO Elizabeth Atuheire together with Celine, a member went on and found members of the community that would help direct us to the chairperson’s  offices as well as  in the distribution process. After requesting for permission from the community leaders, we started the distributing materials to the families in need. I saw the joy, happiness and love from the people of Katanga region that were given something that day. It was so amazing that YOHEP had made a child, youth, mother and father of the Katanga slum smile.

Most of the women we interacted with disclosed that their children in the Katanga slum go to Wandegeya Muslim Primary School which is a government school but the school charges 70,000shs – 75,000shs per child as fees. This  is expensive to most parents who live in the slum, especially the single mothers. When I asked about the employment status of people in the slum, I found out that most of them have stalls and others work in “jam” When I asked what “working in jam” means, I was told that they sell goods in traffic jam to drivers and passengers when cars are congested and moving at a slow speed. While we were distributing, I saw a boy who touched a woman’s bum and so I was triggered to ask about the behaviour of boys in the slum. One  of the mothers told us that boys behaviour here is not good at all. She told us how she had taken her  son to the village to avoid such. “Most of the boys that grow up here, we were told, start stealing at a young age, they are vulgar and drunkards.” This brought to our  attention that boys in this slum need some attention.

On Teenage pregnancies: The short interviews I had with the teenage mothers made me realise that some of these girls do not see any thing wrong in getting pregnant while in their teen age. I consistently asked, did you want to get pregnant? The replies were similar, they were okay with having kids at that age, they weren’t sure of it but had thought of it. It hit me hard when i later learnt that  they often start thinking of having children at like 14 years of age. Most of them are school dropouts due to lack of fees. Menstruation: The time they lived in the villages they claimed they couldn’t even afford to buy pads. They were used to put together cotton clothes. It was good to know that they can now afford sanitary towels sometimes and when they fail, they go back to the old means. YOHEP UGANDA is not the first organisation to visit the Katanga slum, a number of organizations have come in to empower and support teenage girls, and young mothers. These have trained women with different skills such as tailoring, manicure and pedicure among others. As a youth-led and youth-centred organisation, we have a task cut out well - to contribute towards empowering teenage mothers who find themselves in such great need. How to do this, should be our key focus.  

By Gloria Nabunya-SRHR Manager