Couple helping Buhoma women rise above gender violence

If you have been to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, south western Uganda in Kanungu District, you may probably be aware of the group of women that do routine cultural dances for tourists in the mornings.

Besides dancing though, they work as menial bike mechanics, while others weave baskets and sew.
The women are under Ride 4 A Woman, a non-government organisation that has brought together women living and affected by the HIV/Aids as well as those affected by Gender Based Violence (GBV).

The organisation empowers 300 women by providing them with skills of sewing, bicycle mechanics, basket weaving, microfinance, safe water, agriculture and adult education programme.

Evelyn Habasa alongside husband Dennis Rubalema set up the organisation for reasons that were almost written in the sky. For instance, Habasa hails from Buhoma near the Bwindi forests and after studies, her mum implored her to start and steer an organisation that would empower women.

The dream
At their home, many women used to confide in Lillian Katarihwa, her mother since she was a traditional birth attendant. Many would stay around that Habasa grew used to having different women at their home.

Katarihwa’s hope was to pass the mantle to her daughter who would further find productive ventures to skill the women.

Habasa was born in Buhoma, in fact, she only left the village in 1992 when an opportunity to go to Kampala to stay with her sister and get a better education was available.

She was in Primary Five and could hardly speak English. To her recollection, at Kanyashande Primary School, in Buhoma, they were taught in Rukiga, a local dialect.

When her older sister enrolled her at Kitante Primary School, she had to repeat a class to catch up with fellow pupils given the higher standards at the city-based school.

She was a fast learner that she later managed to measure up to their academic standards. She attained good grades and continued to Kizoba Girls Secondary School, then St. Noa Secondary School and later Makerere University where she attained a bachelor’s degree in travel and tourism.

Meeting Buhoma
Rubalema on the other hand had visited Buhoma with a cousin in 1994, they slept at one of the posh lodges and since his cousin knew the manager, he was booked into the presidential suit.
“They treated me so well that I felt I needed to come back,” he recollects adding that he even got to see the mountain gorillas.

When he returned to the family country home in Kihihi, Rubalema told his father he didn’t want to go back to Kampala and wanted to stay in the countryside.

The old man didn’t seem impressed with the young man’s juvenile plans. The idea was shelved but Rubalema did not forget about it.

How they met
He pursued a degree in development studies, after graduation, he met Habasa during a trip to Kalangala.

They became friends and eventually started dating. One day, she invited him to her home village. When they got to Buhoma, he was taken aback, surprised at the fact that it was the village he had promised to visit again.

Habasa and her mother shared their vision of helping the women in Buhoma, an idea he had been nurturing too.

“It has always been my passion to give back to society,” he says.

But the organisation’s beginings are not as flowery, for instance, Habasa was not sure she would easily fit in with the women in Buhoma and live up to the expectations of her mother.

“I didn’t have confidence in myself. My father was friends with one Dr Scot Kelman, the founder of Bwindi Community Hospital and every time they talked about me, they talked about how the doctor could help in finding me a job,” she recalls.

One day, Dr. Kelman suggested Habasa used her creativity to help the Batwa pygmies find a market for their basket and other crafts.

“All I needed to do was to start something that would empower women socially and economically so as much as I was working with pygmies, I was looking for an opportunity to help women.”

Riding for women
And the idea for Ride 4 a Woman was born.

The organisation’s sewing programme teaches women how to make creative tourist related hand craft products out of kitenge fabric. “We have treadle and electric sewing machines and make over 40 different products including iPad covers, placemats and so on. Every day at the centre there are 54 women,” Habasa one explains.

There are eight professional bicycle mechanics who have gone on to set up shop at their door steps around the community. Rubalema adds, “We recently received donations for water purifiers with the aim of providing safe to drink water and to conserve the environment and improve on the health of all the community members. The women and the community will now be able to use less fuel while preparing their food without worrying about boiling water. We have given out over 500 10-litre jerrycans to the community and these come down to fetch water to drink from the centre.”

Domestic violence
While growing up, Habasa had crossed paths with different women that had been violated by their spouses. Some of their husbands were uncouth drunkards that used every penny in the house, including their partners’ to buy alcohol.

In reverse, these husbands return home to ask for food whose absence triggers wife beating sessions.

Domestic violence and abuse is a huge problem in the entire country standing at 56 per cent.

According to the Uganda Police Force’s annual crime report, gender-based violence cases that were reported and investigated increased by 4 per cent (from 38,651 to 40,258 cases) between 2015 and 2016.

The 2016 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey revealed that up to 22 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 in the country had experienced some form of sexual violence. The report also revealed that annually, 13 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 report experiencing sexual violence. This translates to more than 1 million women exposed to sexual violence every year in Uganda.

A house for forgetting
The organisation has constructed a women’s temporary refugee hostel- Mwebesa House and Noel cottage, where the women are sheltered temporarily as they sort out their social problems with family.

Mwebesa loosely means the house that helps you forget your worries while Noel’s cottage was named after Noel Ferris former president of International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

The organisation has since started giving out low interest loans to the women to go out and start small businesses. This programme has seen 106 women receiving loans of up to $200 (about Shs720, 000) at a two percent reducing interest rate.

“What is unique for us is that we have cut out all of the red tape and our application forms are in the local dialect so that you clearly understand what you’re signing up for,” the couple explains.

Aspirations
Being in a tourist area, they however, wish they could be able to communicate with the foreigners who only speak English and the organisation has embarked on teaching them.

To Habasa, engaging women in Buhoma gives them a chance to earn a living and share experience instead of staying home, worrying and suffering from the effects of having Aids.

However, when women earn, some men feel threatened.

“Some men have come to organisation premises and demanded to meet us seeking to know what their wives are doing,” Rubalema says, adding that they explain to them that their wives are being productive.

In some cases though, men demanded to return home with their wives. Frustrated, some women will pack their belongings and leave marital homes, owing to loss of an opportunity to earn a living.

After a while, some men opt to invite their partners to a table and women are keen on returning to work. “We have co-wives working together. The competition is in their homes. While in the house, all they want you to see is their achievement,” Rubalema adds, in a somewhat conclusion.

What they say
Janet Suber, GroundUp Africa

In the fall of 2017, I travelled to Uganda, walked the villages, and met the beautiful local people and children in Bwindi, Buhoma.

I saw daily life in Uganda and knew that I wanted to do everything in my power to help provide opportunities for the Ugandan people, primarily in this area. Meeting Evelyn and Denis of Ride 4 a Woman, I was moved and inspired.

Since beginning this partnership, Ride 4 a Woman and GroundUp Africa have acquired 16 acres of land close to Bwindi. Over the next few years, we will build a sustainable and substantive farm, a pre and primary school and a woman’s facility to teach coffee growing enterprise.

Rosemary B, from Melbourne, Australia
I learnt about this place before doing the gorilla walk and so glad we did. We went to visit as I wanted to support abused women.

Got talking to Patricia, the Australian lady who helped with its start up by teaching women to sew, and heard about how it developed over time with people’s support.

We ended up sponsoring a child to get a better education and had the wonderful experience of meeting the child and her mum. This was an amazing experience and definitely worthwhile. It is good to be able to see where your monetary support goes, no middle person.

Gender based violence in the Constitution
Uganda’s 1995 constitution and broader normative and policy frameworks reflect global standards, are strongly supportive of gender equality (GE) and, within recent policy documents, address gender-based violence (GBV) explicitly. Uganda is a state party to nearly all international human rights conventions as well as relevant regional protocols.

Uganda was active in the post 2015 development process; it was one of first countries to integrate the principles and goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into its National Development Plan (NDP) even before the global documents had been finalised.

Both GE and GBV are featured in Uganda’s second NDP and evident in diverse sectoral plans. The National Health Sector Plan reflects a rights-based approach and acknowledges international conventions.

The National Action Plan on Elimination of Gender Based Violence in Uganda (2016-2020) frames the issue of GBV as an urgent development priority and factor to address in achieving Uganda’s development goals for 2020.