A Shining Light in Namuwongo Slum — Meet Julius from Little Light Uganda

Guy

December 18, 2020

For our new interview, we are switching things up a little; we talked with Julius, a beneficiary from Little light Uganda, about his participation in Little light’s youth group.

Tell us a bit about yourself

My name is Julius Tito Wambuzi. I am african, 20 years old and I live in the Namuwongo slum in Kampala, Uganda. I have two sisters (I had another sister who passed away when I was a child). My parents are from Eastern Uganda, Africa, and came to the city to find better work opportunities. They both work; my mom cooks and sells food to busy Kampalans, and my dad has two jobs, bodaboda rider by day and security guard by night. Despite working three jobs, it is still hard for my family to make ends meet. We do our best to get by. I wish we had more opportunities to uplift our life, but living in Namuwongo slum doesn’t make it easy. In fact, life in Namuwongo slum is the hardest kind of life I have ever lived — and still live.

How is it to live in Namuwongo slum?

Imagine waking up in the morning in a house without clean water, shabby electricity, and very basic hygiene facilities. You still manage to get ready to go about your day. Now you open the door, and what do you see? An area that is completely neglected by the authorities, with no jobs, no access to quality medical care, and a skyrocketing crime rate. And if you do get a job, you’ll likely make less than two dollars per day. It’s no surprise that most of the people I know are being exposed to drugs, prostitution, violence, all kinds of petty crimes, and even child abuse. But in every darkness, there is light. Mine was called Little light Uganda.

Little light is a self-help community center located at the Namuwongo slums in Kampala, Africa. Established in 2007, it is offering free education and free medical services to the local community alongside various programs, such as a women’s empowerment – Umoja group, and a youth group named the Youth Spoon Group.

You joined Little light’s Spoon Youth Group — what has changed in your life since?

Before joining the Spoon Youth group, I was living the kind of life almost all the african youth and teens within the slum lived; I was going to school nearby, spending time with my friends and volunteering from time to time with a local organization. After I joined, I started spending more and more of my free time at the youth center, taking part in some of its activities (meetings, life skills sessions, etc). I also went ahead and offered to help the class teachers organize their classes. I was later given responsibilities as the organization office messenger.

All of this made me feel very good because I was helping others, and I was also learning administrative skills that I knew would be useful for my future. At times, I also earned some money that I used to buy some basic necessities like clothes and medicine. This new element in my life gradually changed my lifestyle altogether, and I found myself naturally working harder and harder to help the other slum african kids change their lifestyle to a better one; going back to school, stopping drugs & learning practical skills so they can be in a position to earn a decent living.

What do you think could have happened if you hadn’t crossed path with Little light Uganda?

I think that if I hadn’t joined the Spoon Youth group, I wouldn’t have got a chance to change my perspective on life and my priorities. I was given a chance to make a significant contribution towards changing the mindset of african young people like me living in the slum. Being part of the group also helped me a lot identify what I wanted to study and what I could do to bring change in the slum. Who knows how long it would have taken me to figure this all out by myself.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

I hope to be studying Motion Graphics & Design at university, and later on start my own company that will mainly focus on telling stories from the Namuwongo slum through video coverage, photography, and books. I want to help further ideas and innovative solutions to the problems faced by the people living in the slum. I believe my work will help solve the challenges of not only the Namuwongo slum but also of other slums in the world e.g in Jamaica, Kenya, India, etc. And after establishing my slum media company, I will get back to study music, entrepreneurship & social work.

We wish Julius good luck in all his future endeavors, as we are sure a bright future awaits him!

In the beginning of the general Covid19 lockdown in Uganda, the main concern of LL was that big parts of the community living in Namuwongo slum would starve due to inability to work and make a living. Therefore, our organization collected and transferred financial support to over 300 families that we work with while continuing, despite the crisis and the shutdown of our programs in Uganda, to promote organizational optimization processes in order to be as ready as possible for the day after Covid19.

The current situation in Uganda is that all schools are still closed and social gatherings are banned although some restrictions have been eased. In the past month, the complete lockdown has been released remaining only with a night curfew, public transport has been allowed to operate and most businesses have returned to limited activities..

Although COVID-19 has been slow to take root in Africa, cases are now spreading rapidly. Taking into consideration that high numbers of the African population in general, and the Ugandan population in particular, live in crowded household and communities, the number of new infections and deaths is expected to continue rising on a daily basis due to the continued contact, both direct and indirect, between infected and uninfected members of the population.

Figure 1. The trend of COVID 19 in Africa: 17-29 March, 2020.
Data source: WHO COVID Database, accessed April 6, 2020.

At a continental level, Africa is highly vulnerable to the spread of the COVID-19, also due to the fragile public health systems and close ties (in terms of trade, investment and finance, education and security cooperation) with China. According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the unfolding coronavirus crisis could exacerbate Africa’s already stagnant growth. UNECA further anticipates a decline in employment by 48%, and 48% decline in the size of the population expected to move out of poverty. The continent will require US $10.6 billion in unanticipated increases in health spending to curtail the virus from spreading, while on the other hand revenue losses could lead to unsustainable debt.

Lastly, and importantly for medium and long-term impacts of COVID-19, it is possible that the crisis will undermine progress on financing and implementation of SDGs, and Africa Agenda 2063. UNECA estimates that US $100B is needed to bridge funding gap and propel the Decade of Action. Resources are likely to be diverted from implementation of SDG-related activities to economic recovery during and following the COVID-19 crisis.
4 UNECA, 2020. https://www.uneca.org/stories/eca-estimates-billions-worth-losses-africa-due-covid-19-impact
5 MFPED, 2020.
6 URA, 2020. Impact of corona virus on revenue performance.

For Uganda specifically, the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MFPED) provided preliminary assessment on March 20, 2020 of the short-term impact of the pandemic, anticipating the following:
(i) Increase in the number of poor people by 2.6 million;
(ii) Significant deterioration of the current account balance owing to expected severe reduction in exports, tourism receipts and workers remittances;
(iii) Domestic revenue shortfall of Shs288.3 billion in FY 2019/20 and Shs350 billion in FY 2020/21 due a reduction in economic activity. Uganda Revenue Authority anticipate a loss of UGX 116.26 billion in customs revenue by the end of June due to this crisis alone, expanding the overall revenue loss UGX 513.26 billion by close of June 20206.
(iv) Heightened pressure on fiscal space as a result of additional expenditure to address rapid response in the health sector and livelihood support for affected persons.

Figure 2. Trend of cases of COVID-19 in Uganda.
Data source: WHO COVID-19 Database, accessed April 7, 2020.

Since the Covid19 outbreak in March 2020, Little Light children center has been closed according to the limitations and the school system being shut down. In the past six months, the children are without an educational framework, and the youth group and women groups cannot gather in our center. In addition, a large part of our sales channels were also shut down, and the volunteers in the field were forced to return home due to the lock down.

The announcement of the opening of the borders to tourists was circulated last week. Uganda has opened its doors to tourists, and schools are likely to return to normal starting next year.
Little Light Children center will return to full operation in the upcoming months.
The volunteers and staff members have been preparing over the past few months for the day after. This is with the aim of returning to activity as soon as possible, so LL would continue to support the community living in the Namuwongo slum in Kampala.

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Little Light is a Non-Governmental organization (number #9225) registered under the Republic of Uganda Non-Governmental Organizations registration act, CAP.113

office.littlelight@gmail.com