Getting more children in school to fight early marriages

When Hafusa Nandudu clocked 15 years of age, like her elders sisters, she was old enough to get married. And so, in 1986, she was forced out of school and bartered into marriage without her consent. “I was not happy, but I had no option,” says 50-year-old Nandudu, with a stern smile.

When the marriage failed after 10 years, Nandudu, a Primary Six school dropout, says she developed a sense of moral responsibility to champion a fight against forced and early marriages in her own clan.

“I talked to whoever cared to listen in my area including clan leaders about the dangers of early marriages and how it had affected the girl child,” she says.

Born in Bukoba parish, Bufumbo Sub County in Mbale District, a third born in the family of 28 siblings, Nandudu says the elders started regarding her as spoilt child who was creating excuses after a failed marriage. “But I harboured a strong desire that one day my people will value education and consent of a girl child in matters of marriage so I pressed on, boldly speaking out against the matter,” she recounts.

Along with two colleagues, in 1998, Nandudu initiated the idea of teaching children below 10 at a mosque free of charge. “We wanted to give the children a foundation. Most children here start formal education when they are 10 years old, which was affecting their performance,” she explains.
Her initiative attracted mixed reactions and reproach from the community and clan leaders, but was the least of her concerns.

“My only worry was how to sustain the initiative,” she says. Not one to wait around for solutions, she went about finding a way out of this problem too. So she decided to move to Kenya in search of job, leaving the teaching in the hands of her colleagues. “I believed that if with a job, I could support my mission back home with my salary,” says Nandudu, who is also a mother of three. She got a job as a waitress in one of the hotels in Nairobi and worked her hardest, amidst challenges that included language barrier since she could not even speak fluent English. Unknown to her, this job would give her more than she had come seeking.

A turning point
Nandudu met a man from Germany at her workplace, who would become her future husband, who would later be more supportive in her work back home. “I believe it was God’s plan,” is all she can say about the incident today.

Nandudu started up an organisation called Step Development Uganda, through which she upgraded her nursery school initiative into a free Primary School. “We offer them free education, so that they can have a future better than mine,” she says.

Albdulhim Booto, the headmaster of the school, says the school, which currently has classes’ up to Primary Five, has more than 500 pupils, a number which is ever growing. “The other school nearest to this location is four kilometers from here. This makes this school strategically located hence the numbers,” he says.

In Mbale Town, about 200 students and adults are given shelter in addition to the free education. Muniru Masaba, the caretaker of the home, says; “Whenever I look at the students and adults whose shelter is this home, I realise how important we should work hard to support others while on earth.”

Winning over the elders
Over time, Nandudu seems to have won her community over. “It is unfortunate that she was never taken seriously. We have realised that she was on a good mission, which, of course, we did not see at first. We are now happy,” says Safiyi Mugoya, a clan leader.
“Providing accessible education is the best service anyone is ever given our children in this community especially since children under 10 cannot climb the hills to make it to school four kilometres away.”