The banker behind cancer runs

January 12, 2010 could have been a normal day to many, but for Stephen Mwanje, it was a day that reality hit him hard. His friend Martin Kiyaga had succumbed to prostate cancer, an illness he had battled for more than a year. Mwanje could not make it for burial because he was transit enroute to San Diego, US for a Rotary Governorship.
Seven months later, Rotary organised a corporate breakfast at the Kampala Serena Hotel where they hosted the top 100 chief executive officers in Uganda. At the meet, Mwanje and another Rotarian, Prof Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile implored the CEOs to work with Rotary to create programmes that would be impactful to the people. Many of them who attended the meeting then asked Mwanje for a pilot campaign.

Drawing inspiration from pain
“Remembering the late Kiyaga, cancer immediately came to my mind. The idea was to fight against cancer. My research showed that cancer was one of the top killers world over. I discovered that Uganda was one of the countries with top cancer cases especially prostate, breast and cervical cancers,” Mwanje shares.
It is against that backdrop that Mwanje developed an idea of creating cancer awareness because he knew that the reason people were dying of cancer was due to lack of awareness. He had learned that if cancer was detected early, it could be cured.
“I had the idea of building a cancer hospital but I didn’t have the money. I started approaching some of the corporates that had attended the breakfast meeting and requested them to support us financially to open up a cancer centre at Nsambya hospital,” he recalls.

With no money, Mwanje embarked on approaching individual hospitals around Kampala requesting for free space where a cancer centre could be established. Nsambya hospital graciously accepted and offered Mwanje land and Centenary Bank was the first corporate entity to partner with him.
Mwanje’s friends of different professions with whom he shared the vision accepted to offer him free services. Ian Senkatuka was the architect, John Wilson Sendikwanawa was the quantity surveyor while Abel Katahoire and Patrick Batumbya were engineers, among others.

Armed with Shs300m from Centenary Bank to start the structure and carry out countrywide campaigns, Mwanje was re-energised.
“All I did was to constitute a team to work with,” Mwanje says, adding that he got rotarian Sarah Odongo who accepted to be the project manager and led a team of 10 people that constituted “the Uganda rotary cancer programme board.”
The team began working on a countrywide programme and on April 23, 2011, Mwanje and friends had a ground breaking event at Nsambya hospital and immediately commenced construction of the cancer centre.
“The initial plan was to raise money over a period of five years to finish the centre and we were to move around corporate companies to raise money,” he explains.

The Rotary cancer run
By 2012, not much success was recorded because the money had run out yet the structure was far from completion. Not one to give up, Mwanje hatched another idea and that was to start a cancer run. After getting his friends on board, on August 25, 2012, the first cancer run was held. Since then, the cancer run became an annual event taking place every last Sunday of August.
“After three cancer runs, we had raised enough money to finish the building. On July 15 2015, we handed over the building to Nsambya hospital administration. The money that was raised in the 2015 run went towards the blood bank in Mengo hospital because the cancer centre building was complete,” he explains.
He adds: “We all know that in Uganda, we don’t have a radiotherapy machine. Even the one in Mulago hospital collapsed. As rotarians, we could not just sit back and watch. I called on friends to combine efforts and use our networks to equip the cancer centre.” With friends from the US, they got a global grant and acquired some basic equipment for the centre.

The first team of friends came to Uganda in August 2016 with two containers of equipment including hospital beds and trained staff at Nsambya while the second team left Uganda on October 20, 2016.
Early this year, Mwanje’s friends from India offered Nsambya hospital a brand new Linear Accelerator (LINAC). This means that the challenge now at hand is to raise money for the banker to house the LINAC machine.
“Our target is $1m. We appeal to all Ugandans to come together and help raise this money in the shortest time possible. If two million Ugandans contributed Shs1,000 each, we would be done. People and children will stop dying needlessly because of cancer,” Mwanje shares.

Way forward
Because the Nsambya Cancer Centre can only accommodate 36 beds with no provision for children, this, to Mwanje means that there is a need to expand and create a wing for children. There is also need, he says, to create room for outpatients and also extend similar services out of Kampala.
“After equipping the Nsambya cancer centre, our plan is to publicly put up at least five countrywide regional centres. Nsambya will only need to be a referral centre,” he envisions.

Challenges
Attitudes. While some people say they are not government and see no need of raising money for cancer, Mwanje says others say they pay taxes.
“It is only people who are from poor families that are yearning for the cause than those who are well off and have everything they need,”Mwanje shares.
Perceptions. “Other people say they are not cancer patients and cannot contribute to the cause. To convince everyone to share the same passion as I do is the biggest challenge. I cannot think of a better approach because it doesn’t help to shout ‘gavumenti etuyambe’ as is commonly said these days. With more people coming on board, we shall win this war against cancer,” Mwanje concludes.