Menya Muzamiru (with Mary Suzan Abbo, Dr. John Badhwe, Jessie, Lucy, Esther, Nikki, Moses, Margaret, and Harriet Achieng)

This oral history interview with Menya Muzamiru, Mary Suzan, Jessie, Lucy, Esther, Harriet, John, Margaret, Nikki, and Moses took place on June 27th, 2023, and was conducted by Peg Spitzer. It lasted 90 minutes.

We are happy for everyone joining this call. I sent Mr. Menya the questions ahead of time so that you could address them in this Zoom conversation. How about if we go around “the room” to let you speak?

Mary Suzan Abbo: I am the managing director for the Center for Research Energy and Energy Conservation. I do many other things, including charity work to inspire women and youth in my community. Through my organization I work on education, training, and skills-based programs for women. We work on knowledge innovations – to help small business entrepreneurs scale up, which was especially important after the COVID pandemic.

As a result, we had to make a lot of adjustments in strategies and tools to be able to maintain clients and access clientele quickly. Also, we needed to reduce operational costs and try to stay afloat with businesses, which involved a lot of knowledge management training on technologies that women can use to empower themselves and access revenue.

The main technology (renewable energy technology) is alternative fuels for cooking and using solar technologies. This opportunity is especially important for women and youth to stay afloat and generate income. They can build their skills and improved their livelihoods. My background is in engineering so most of the businesses I work with focus on technology and knowledge.

I first started working with RUCODE when I met Mr. Menya. In some of those meetings, we discussed renewable energy interventions in the context of climate. We shared ideas and I updated him on the work we’re doing with women in renewable energy that was more focused on interventions. In our meetings, we discussed energy or climate change issues in the work we do with women in refugee settlements. We focused on renewable energy and building women’s entrepreneurial skills. Mr. Menya updated me on RUCODE’s programs, and I was immediately interested.

I work in the community where I grew up and in several other communities. I didn’t grow up in only one place. I lived in the eastern part of the country and did a part of my education in central Uganda; and then with my work I’ve also moved to the north — so I’ve basically covered the region. I did several interventions on clean cooking (training) with women from the area where I grew up. My kind of business and work is very field intensive and community focused because this is where the solutions are required.

In my work, several people have inspired me, especially when there are challenges and difficulties. Many different types of people support me: Some are more technical on topics relating to technologies; others are more spiritual and were especially important during the COVID pandemic. I have a group of people that I studied with, and we are constantly discussing and communicating. I have several mentors and most of them are women but also especially in technology. I have mentors who are doctors and professors in my field who are doing a lot of work with climate change, for example the Chairman of my Board is very experienced in renewable energy technologies and has a huge global network on technical matters. I’m usually talking to her and other ladies in the sector who are in energy; some are in the government such as the Director and the Minister of Energy, and other senior energy officers.

My spiritual mentors are ones are from church organizations who do charity work.

Jessie: In the future, I want to be a pediatrician because I love children and want them to live a happy life. I was introduced to this work (with RUCODE) work through Mary Suzan (Abbo). I studied at Hillside Primary School and, in my sixth or seventh year, I moved to Fairways Primary School. I look up to Dr. Flavia Namiiro in neonatal care at Mulago National Referral Hospital. She’s the pediatrician who has been treating me. I was also inspired by my paternal uncle. He’s a dentist but he helped me discover that I wanted to be a doctor.

Lucy: I have been working mainly with different business groups and small groups especially targeting women in different capacities in their businesses – around new energy and integrated technologies dealing with plagues and biofertilizer production. I’ve also been working very closely with the rural cooperatives as a profit-making organization/company.

We look for partners within cooperatives and, in the cooperatives, there are several women and young members (especially young women). Youth are part of the cooperative society, especially in the northern part of the country and in fishing communities. We address health related issues especially affecting women farmers to spread awareness at the household level about immunization and reproductive health. Recently, we started a training hub, which is an innovation hub targeting young people.

I am a social worker by profession, and I also hold a diploma in postgraduate public health. I’ve also trained in renewable energy under population health and the environment.

I work on several projects in the community where I grew up. I’m implementing them as a “role model” to young women and other women who lack self-confidence. I also scale up to other communities where our projects fit.

I have several mentors: Some of them are much older than me. I learned from people who grew up in my village where I grew up. I admired those who did/do things differently. Some of them are very old and they share their memories, which is why we have started the Golden Memories Project to remember the old – to share their memories and share their expertise, which may not be written in books, but it is there in their communities. We (and they) want to help the younger generation grow up with this rich rural background. The Golden Memories Project is trying to reach out to old people especially those who are retiring and no longer active.

This is fascinating. What kinds of knowledge did you gain from the elders?

One individual who mentored me used to be my teacher in the university, Maxine Ankrah, and one of the things that she trained us in—when we were doing our social work training—is for women to be self-reliant and independent. That is, not to wait until the crisis happens and to be resilient and work out different options – to ensure that you’re living a healthy life and, at the same time, looking for opportunities in business. You look for opportunities when life suddenly changes. Maxine Ankrah is a very old lecturer now. She’s a “gender conscious” consultant and one who has groomed several social workers especially women. I think I took from her the importance of telling stories: If you never tell a story, people will never get to know what to watch for. You can tell a story of how you’ve built your business step-by-step and that you don’t give up even if things don’t work out. You still go on. For example, during COVID, several businesses closed and then we got different options and different opportunities to think differently. So that is part of the training and mentorship that I got from this lady.

There are many other mentors whom we are really looking at and taking on: Technology is changing so fast! Today, technology has brought a lot of information from all around the world into a very small village—A Zoom call, for example. I’m talking with you in New York. How we tap into this technology for different age groups and generations to make life more rewarding is crucial.

Thank you, Lucy, for connecting storytelling to capacity building.

Esther: I have a bachelor’s degree in public administration and management. I got linked up to women’s empowerment groups after university; and they linked me to businesswomen in clean cooking technologies. I’ve been able to promote electric pressure cookers and sell them to the community I live in and the other communities I don’t live in.

I want to raise awareness among the communities and sell the electric pressure cookers (EPCs). I identify people who have the money to buy the EPCs outright as well as those who can make deposits to access the EPCs for clean cooking to save energy and conserve the environment.

Most of the mentors are through environmental conservation meetings focusing on gender—for women and men. Mr. Menya linked us to digital sharing through the Spark Hub Lab. Also, my mother was a great mentor: She looked after us and made sure that we were able to go to school. Many girl children, especially those who suffered from COVID, didn’t succeed in school. But women’s empowerment groups formed circles to collect money for the girls to attend school and get an education.

Harriet: I’m a social worker and when I got an advanced degree (my masters’ degree) I focused on gender. I was very passionate about empowering women, that is, equipping them with skills and providing opportunities equal to that of men. Women have really lagged behind, so my passion is about relieving women of the burden by enhancing them with the right technologies and tools and skills….to relieve them of the burden of work from home to office to school to wherever.

I grew up in poverty with no convenience items. Everything we did was manual. I grew up with grandparents because my parents were young children – my mom was a 16-year-old, and my dad ran off because he could not take care of his responsibility, so my grandparents took me in. Growing up there was a lot of intense work and, at 10 years old, I went to a boarding school, which was very hectic because I must wake up very early do a lot of manual work. There was too much struggling and I felt like women have so much burden of work that has been placed on them because of society. They have not been helped, to alleviate them from this kind of burden, because there are no proper tools for cleaning up in the house. Everything is backbreaking and every kind of tool or technology that was enhanced to help was given to the men.

That experience kept me away from getting married, being a mother and nurturing children … Women have this hectic work—to take care of children and all the chores. The man is only to be a hunter: If he has put a roof over your head, as long as he’s given you a meal sometimes, that’s it. Once men are deprived of their masculinity, they tend to coil away and move away. They will run away like my dad did: He left the responsibility to a 16-year-old mother. Men will not do anything at all, so the whole shoulder and burden of raising a family relies entirely on women.

Because of this, I decided that I needed to do something about this whole setup; so, when I went for my postgraduate degree in Iceland, I became a lot more enlightened about the rights of women in every capacity. We have the rights to enhance ourselves to build ourselves out. We shouldn’t sit around and wait for men to be the providers. Women must acquire skills to get knowledge because it’s our right to allow ourselves to learn new things.

This was especially crucial during the COVID pandemic season in my community. For example, there was this 18-year-old who got pregnant, and the man was deprived of his earning: He could not work as a secondary teacher because all the schools were shut down. So, the 18-year-old pregnant lady moved in with her relatives next door to me. I asked my friends to give clothing and food to her. She and her relatives often went without food and lacked proper healthcare. Then, my friends and I began to help communities by providing transportation for pre-natal care appointments. In that kind of setting, my passion is really seeing a woman thrive. I will drop anything to just see that a woman’s life is made better.

My passion was driven because not so many people around me were educated. My mom dropped out of school at 16 because she was not allowed to attend classes after getting pregnant. I didn’t live with her but occasionally I would go to her home for the holidays—she got married and moved somewhere else. I was deprived of my mother’s love growing up because I was living with my grandparents who were responsible for over 20 people in their community. It was a kind of extended family with 12 children and other relatives. In the homestead, relatives kept coming and going. The village mentality is that if you have relatives around, they will help you with farming to feed people. At one time, I remember we had well over 23 people in the house. There was no proper love and affection for a child to receive because of everyone is scrambling to survive.

I would go to my mom and ask her why I couldn’t live with her, and she told me “Harriet, if you lived with me you would not get an education. Whatever it is that you’re doing, remember that your future is bright if you keep focused. I know you’re a smart girl and you’ll make it on your own.” This was a very hard statement coming from a woman who knew that she couldn’t do anything for me. I knew that she would want to live with me, but she could not provide for me financially and put me through school. If I lived with her, I would have to take care of all her needs, so she just decided to drop me off. She was the first person that pushed me to get an education.

Dr. John Badhwe: I have worked as a consultant for some time with Mr. Menya and have come to learn how the rural community is really suffering because of the areas they have mentioned, namely, poverty. I got connected with Mr. Menya because he’s in charge of training and giving the community some species of trees to grow (not to cut down). Destroying the forests is devastating worldwide, including in Uganda. People cut down the forests for survival. Every previous species, which lasted 30 years 50 years, is being cut down. So, recently, we came up with a species that can be grown by the people. In three or four years, this species can give some seeds, and, from those seeds, we can get a lot of a lot of the things without cutting them down. We are promoting this species in rural areas by sensitizing the community by keeping the trees and green spaces. Growing trees can be self-sustaining and generate income. At the same time, we are improving the method of cooking so that people don’t cut down the trees for wood.

I have a PhD is in engineering and, with Mr. Menya, we have an institution where we train vulnerable women. In our institution, about one month ago, we trained 126 women, 56 of whom were barely above 18 years old and had babies. Poverty is a result of these pregnancies. We gave these ladies skills. I sympathize with them when I see a young girl holding a younger baby with no help at all. If there is a way to help, because already these girls have dropped out of school. We train them in, for example, hairdressing and soap making. The training could go a long way since these younger girls already are at a disadvantage.

I grew up, of course, in a rural community and I am more interested in improving my community because from where I got my PhD (in China), I realized that nobody is going to improve your community apart from you. That’s why, when I came back from China, I tried to establish an institution that can improve the community. I studied in China for seven years to obtain my masters and PhD in Shanghai and travelled “up country.” First and foremost, I observed how people love their country. That’s most important. You must be patriotic. You must like your country. When Chinese people go abroad to study, for example, in Canada, they still go back and develop their country. When you go back home, you must love your country and love yourself and try to use every strategy possible so that the community can compete nationally and internationally. That’s how we created an institution to help these disadvantaged children.

[Note: Dr. John’s wife, Margaret, is the headmistress and teacher at an international school which supports many girl children especially in vocational training.] 

Nikki: I am currently in my third year studying, doing my bachelors in journalism. I was involved of course with Mr. Menya through my mom and just networking in the Spark Hub Club. We’re able to get access many ideas and programs to use these for women’s empowerment through media as a visual platform to tell more stories about our people.

Aside from my mom and Mr. Menya, living in a digital era, I have access to social media and podcasts. Through this, I meet up with different content creators and journalists in my field. I’ve been able to use the Internet and meet people who are doing the same thing—or even more much more than I am doing—around the world.

I’m doing university in Kenya and but I’m currently in Uganda so I’m trying to be able to use all the different areas and parts currently to link up and use media to create climate change awareness to improve our in our environments through collaborating with content creators and different influences around the world.

Mr. Menya: It is important to promote the voice of the woman and link up communication within the global world for women’s rights. We want to share this information with the communication officer at UNDP headquarters Angelica Angelina from New York. Nikki has been selected as the person who is going to link up with the UNDP headquarters and with Sarah Marchildron from the UNFCCC as the communication lead for the women’s empowerment group in Africa from Uganda.

We are now using the Digital Spark Lab for Ugandan women to transcend national borders.

Moses (Director of the Digital Spark Hub Lab): I’m currently running an innovation hub. I work with Lucy and Nikki. Basically, the Spark Hub Lab creates a digital platform for young women entrepreneurs to share ideas and connect to each other and gain access to information. We are working to open an online academy so that women can access information on their smartphones. They will be able to access information and training to get online coaching. For example, we could have 300 women on the platform and mentor them.

I am committed to this because we were born by women, we were nurtured by women, and women cook for us every day. We feel the need to join forces because, when a woman is empowered, the whole community is empowered, the nation is empowered, and the world is empowered. I have a daughter and I would like her to be empowered to be independent.

Margaret: I’m a teacher by profession and I’m running a school in Uganda. It is in that setting that’s been running for some time to carry out holistic education, which can help citizens become self-reliant. The school runs from primary to secondary school. We have 500 students; but, before COVID, we had somewhere around 1000 students. The area has so many vulnerable children who cannot afford to sustain themselves, so we try to help them. Now we are helping them get skills to start their own small enterprises when they leave school. As for now, as they go through the academic journey, they need financial assistance and so vocational education makes sense.

Mr. Menya: We have come from very far since we started RUCODE. We are scaling up and linking up with various networks—individuals, organizations, faith-based groups, and experts in various fields of business. We focus on rural women and, in 2021, we looked at the bigger picture on how to scale up our work. Now this is a women’s movement, inspiring and motivating others to start up and strengthen their businesses.

When you look at the people who have given their testimonies today, some of them are individual women entrepreneurs, some of them are women leaders in their companies, some of them are working in networks. They are ALL working as women for common cause and what we are trying to do is amplify the voices of the woman in business to make sure that they are not left behind especially under the challenges of climate change. We try to look for different thematic areas in business, for example, Anna represents the coffee exporters and the coffee entrepreneurs in Africa. She’s on the board of directors and she makes sure that women move ahead.

The connection was poor so we could not talk with Anna, so Mr. Menya explained her work.

Mr. Menya: We also have Lucy who is spearheading our efforts to digitize, monitor, and evaluate a system to make sure that there’s coordination of skills. There are those who drop out of school because of pregnancy, and we want to make sure that they are represented, too. Others who have not yet participated may have certain leadership roles that will inspire and motivate others.

We have an overall structure to coordinate information through the Spark Hub Lab. That way, we hope to attract funding, which is a very big challenge.

Dr. Mary Suzan is instrumental in working throughout all the government ministries in the public and private sector and making sure that women’s voices can be heard, and the knowledge is well coordinated and well managed. We are preparing ourselves so that, on August 24th, we shall have another Zoom meeting at the global level; and we want to be coordinated to deliver our information.

As for what she would like to see added to our current initiative, Jessie suggested building a holiday camp for children 10 to 16 years old; offering internships (shadowing opportunities) for young students to learn about many occupations; and creating storybooks with colorful pictures for children (they don’t like reading a lot) plus a kit for doing practical stuff.

Jessie: We would like to build a holiday camp for children 10 to 16 years old;
offering internships (shadowing opportunities) for young students to learn about
many occupations; and creating storybooks with colorful pictures for children (they don’t like reading a lot), plus a kit for doing practical stuff.

Moses: A few years back, I got an opportunity to work with an organization that was doing customized stories in several geographical locations. For example, we had story books for children in Uganda. Every page had an image and dealt with such topics as young girls who come from school and are forced to work, to cook, to fetch water, and, at the end of the day, do not get an education. If I can remember, we had some 40 titles/storybooks that included colorful graphic designs.

Maybe we can also create an inclusive digital platform where the women can interact and play with cards. For example, we can talk about gender-based violence, sex trafficking, PTSD, and so on. We could make it a very interesting journey, with a bit of entertainment and education at the same time. With time, we may be able to do that.