PROJECT SUCCESS: An ‘average girl’ headed for a PhD

With her PhD and masters programme having run back-to-back, Ms Kiwanuka says her children have paid some of the price for her academic pursuits – in spite of her best efforts to strike a balance between the two equally demanding aspects of her life.

That faith eventually emboldened Ms Kiwanuka to strive for the best. By the time she sat for her senior six, Ms Kiwanuka says she had found her calling in life.

“I was motivated by my own self that I needed to pass because my aim was to do a job that would enable me make a contribution, even if it was one per cent, and I really wanted to be a social worker. It was my main motivation,” she said.

At Makerere University, Ms Kiwanuka did a Bachelor of Social Work and Social Administration, which she passed after three years with a second class lower degree.

Helping refugees
She graduated in January 1997 and sought do voluntary work for six months. Thereafter, she got a job with the Red Cross in Mbarara District as Community Services and Education Coordinator. While in Mbarara, she returned to school and earned a diploma in counselling and guidance.

“We were implementing programmes for humanitarian assistance for refugees in Nakivale, Orukinga and Kyaka refugee camps; about 40,000 refugees,” she said.

In November 2004, Ms Kiwanuka joined the International Medical Corps, where she was involved in gender based violence work at the same refugee camps in western Uganda.

Picking a niche
“I thought I needed to specialise and I was mainly overseeing implementation of the programme, assisting in designing training manuals, and participating in training of service providers,” she said.

Between May and July 2004, Ms Kiwanuka went for short, migration-related courses at the United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan and at Oxford University in the UK. It was while there that she made a professor from Wits University, who encouraged her to apply for a masters programme.

At the end of her one year contract in September 2005, Ms Kiwanuka joined the American Refugee Committee as Gender Based Violence and HIV Advisor. During her one year tenure, Ms Kiwanuka was based in Moyo District and sometimes in Southern Sudan. In late 2006, Ms Kiwanuka received a message that Wits University had secured for her sponsorship for the masters in the Forced Migration Studies programme that she had applied for in 2005.

“I didn’t even sleep that night. I was so happy,” she said. “I loved my job; I really liked to assist in the repatriation programme but I had to resign in January and then early February is when I went back to study. I specialised in urban migrant women and gender. I was looking at how migration impacts on domestic violence.”

Good performance
When she finished the one year programme, and buoyed by the merit award that Wits University awarded her for good performance, Ms Kiwanuka was encouraged by her family to aim higher. She applied for the PhD programme and received more funding from the University.

Currently, Ms Kiwanuka is in the first of her three-year PhD programme and says she hopes to return home “to be a proper mother.”

Asked if she has ever told her children of her feat at A-Level, Ms Kiwanuka says she prefers to lead by example.

“I have not always considered myself a top student because it does not mean much when you have nothing to show for it,” she said.

Patriotic goals
Ms Kiwanuka says her academic efforts will only mean much to her when she eventually makes a contribution in her area of expertise that she will be proud of.
“I would like, really, to do something with my PhD in my country if there is an opportunity for me to find where I will use my skills,” she said.