National Resistance Movement women leaders in Jinja city want taylormade economic empowerment programs, geared towards improving their livelihoods. The women leaders made this prayer during the celebrations of President Yoweri Museveni’s swearing in ceremony at the Jinja city’s NRM offices on Tuesday.
The women say that, they have been mobilizing grassroots support for the party over the past six elective terms, however, their poor living conditions have exposed them to mockery within their communities. They say that NRM’s wealth creation gospel should be directly reflected in their individual lives, which will position them as true ambassadors, who not only profess better lives, but are equally true testaments of improved livelihoods.
Madinah Namuganza, the NRM women chairperson in Aldina cell, says that she started supporting NRM as a young woman in the late 1990’s and she has grown to appreciate her party structure.
Namuganza is, however constrained by living in continuous poverty over time despite actively preaching NRM’s ability to create wealth for all. Namuganza, who hawks clothes in Jinja city, says that there is need for an extensive development program, targeting to boost NRM’s grassroots mobilizers with low interest credit facilities, to better their livelihoods.
Hawa Tibitondwa, the chairperson of NRM in Wanyange cell, CLAIMS that their party seems to value them during campaigns and abandons them thereafter.
Tibitondwa says that even the saccos formed during political mobilization periods are never productive and their shelf life normally ends before celebrating their first birthday.
Tibitondwa argues that as they pride in four decades of uninterrupted leadership, NRM should devise means of empowering its grassroots mobilizers, given its economic muscle, to give back to the party.
This she says will reduce on the dependence syndrome of mobilizers relying on powerful politicians for financial support, since they will have sources of income.
Aisha Kawooma, the chairperson of women league at Lubas road cell, says that affirmative government poverty eradication programs like parish development model, Uganda Women Empowerment Program and Grow are so competitive that they lock out willing individuals for not fulfilling the set criteria.
Kawooma says that the times have changed and so has the nature of the population, which is ever demanding mobilizers to live by example, rather than pointing them to a life of wealth, they are unable to walk in themselves. Kawooma adds that without leading better lives, they can never influence the general public to continue supporting the NRM, irrespective of their party registering great strides at national level.
Asuman Kambo, the administrator of NRM in Jinja city, says the concerns of the women will be submitted to the party’s top leadership for consideration.
Kambo notes that they have been encouraging largely their youthful supporters to enroll for vocational skills at the presidential zonal hub and a number of them are currently operating functional enterprises. Kambo has also tasked party supporters to start small and grow their businesses into powerful enterprises, capable of improving their livelihoods for good-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
