Uganda Bikers offer aid to Kasese flood victims
Spreading Happiness. Deputy Speaker Oulanyah (L) and other UBA partners display some of the mattresses that will be delivered to victims on Friday.
PHOTO BY SWAIB RAUL KANYIKE
What you need to know:
- The Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) has been working tirelessly to offer a helping hand to the victims.
On Friday, they received a boost from the Uganda Bikers Association (UBA), who donated in the excess of 100 mattresses to help in the Red Cross Society’s relief efforts.
Uganda is facing challenging times, with the coronavirus pandemic topping the charts.
Whereas much of the effort has been channelled into fighting and containing the global pandemic, the Pearl of Africa has been attacked from all corners by other natural disasters. Lakes and rivers bursting their banks is one of those.
In Kasese District, close to 25,000 people have been displaced by floods from rivers; Mubuku and Nyamwamba, which burst their banks recently and led to loss of lives.
The Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) has been working tirelessly to offer a helping hand to the victims.
On Friday, they received a boost from the Uganda Bikers Association (UBA), who donated in the excess of 100 mattresses to help in the Red Cross Society’s relief efforts.
Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, himself a biker, led the team in delivering the mattresses to the Red Cross, at their offices in Rubaga. “Humanity is under attack from so many angles.
In Uganda, we have been engulfed in the fight against Covid-19, the desert locusts, and now, the floods. But every time humanity is under attack, human beings must come out to extend a helping hand. Thats why, as bikers, we are here,” he said. Oulanyah, atop his BMW GS1200 monster machine, will lead a group of bikers to Kasese to see the situation first-hand. MP Jimmy Akena, a seasoned biker, will also make the trip.
Happy people
Angella Ssemukutu, the UBA vice president, stressed the need for individuals and organisations to engage in charity.
“Bikers are known as happy people. But you can’t be happy when others are suffering. It’s in situations like these that we must stand up and help each other. And in the end, we hope that the little we give shall bring a ray of hope to the displaced and distressed,” she said.
UBA is loose group of bike aficionados, boasts of over 40 members from different walks of life. In its ranks are Ugandans, expatriates and women.
The group prides itself in charity, road safety awareness plus the fights against HIV and cancer.
Every year, the group organises tours across different countries to sensitize the masses on different calamities, especially the cancer scourge.
In 2018, three members of the UBA: Ibrahim Vuni, Isaac Ssebunya Kaluusimann and Walter Claude Mugambwa endured a 14,000km journey to South Africa on a cancer awareness mission. Later this year, the mission is to ride to Egypt.
