Nakapachu gives hope to the helpless

Resty Nanteza, aka Nakapachu, in a thick white jumper, wore headsets as she pulled her chair closer to her microphone. Across the table is Hamidu Muwaya, a six-year-old boy with big eyes, who guided his father into the NBS Radio studios on Nizam Road in Jinja City.  

Putting her tab on the mic, Nanteza calls a benefactor, suggesting that he considers Muwaya among the two he had pledged to give school fees. Muwaya, talk to uncle, she tells the boy in an orange shirt. Ab’Oluganda Yesu yeebazibwe (Praise Jesus),” Muwaya says.

Mwebaze fees, Nanteza prompts him to thank the benefactor for paying tution. Njagalako school fees,” instead, Muwaya asked, with a lisp, because of his missing upper front teeth.

“God will provide,” uncle (sponsor) responded. “Thank him, he has given you,” Nanteza prompts. “And whenever you are addressing a man, call him Ssebo (sir) or Baba (father). Nneeyanziiza inho Baba wange,” Muwaya says. Despite this bright ray of hope, Muwaya’s father Haruna Moga, is sorrowing. Wearing a khaki jacket over a purple kitenge shirt, elbows nailed on the studio chair handles, his three left fingers held something like a National ID, as the other two tapped his lower lip. His right palm held a blue piece of cloth to meet the tears dripping from his blind eyes.

Nanteza wished he stopped crying. “Those tears affect your son,” she told him. God will make a way. This boy is too young.” Soon, Muwaya’s smile is gone. He is crying along with his father. 

Nantenza tries to comfort them. She has seen this for years. But she cannot resist emotion. “Why are you crying? Do you want to see mum?” Muwaya, whose mother left home years ago, says no. “I want water.” Did you have breakfast today? No.

You said dad lacks clothes? Do you have them? “Baba bw’ali bw’ali,”Muwaya says, meaning that is all dad has. So, why have you not been coming to me? “Daddy has been delaying me.”

Nanteza’s pep talk, mixing Lusoga and Luganda, works. As she retells Jesus’s ability to rescue the needy, Moga stops crying. “That night you picked Maureen from our neighbourhood inspired me to meet you,” Moga says.

Maureen had lost her sight amid her university studies. Nanteza took her to Pachu Vocational College to enrol her for a tailoring and secretarial short courses. “But the specialised computer she needs is very expensive,” Nanteza says. 

Moga confesses converting from Islam and sung some gospel verses. “I believe God will intervene.” As the show, Ensi N’ebyayo, breaks, Nanteza plays Joseph Ngoma’s Ye Ggwe Munnange.

Product of fate

Joseph Kaweesa and Florence Nassanga (RIP) wanted their first-born to be a teacher. But Nanteza, a product of Naava Primary School and St Noa Mawaggali SS in Mbikko, preferred a career “to impact lives.”

She joined NBS Radio in Jinja City as an intern in 2007, at the end of her Diploma in Music, Dance and Drama at Makerere University.  Because most of her colleagues such as Eva Namutebi, a presenter on CBS FM, Hannington Bugingo, a renowned comedian, were posted around Kampala, she was hesitant to work in the East.

But Nanteza is grateful to Meddie Dhakaba, the then station manager and Lubowa Kyemba, who ushered her into the radio world.  “They mentored me and gave me an opportunity to learn,” Nanteza recalls starting out as Kyemba’s co-presenter on Tukazane, a programme that aired 10am-2pm.

“Kyemba did not spoon-feed me, but gave me practical lessons.” When Kyemba took sick leave, the inexpert Nanteza did the four-hour show alone. “At first she was nervous, but coped very quickly,” says Kyemba, who has been Nanteza’s producer until 2021.

Kyemba lauds Nanteza for creativity, a taste for music, dedicated with ability to grasp concepts quite easily. “She is also humble, cooperative and kind-hearted. Only that she used to be very emotional, especially on parents who abandon their duties,” Kyemba says.

Delving into her work
These were days when Titi Tabel, aka Lady Titi was the biggest compassion radio show on Beat FM and later NBS TV. Nanteza replicated the concept beyond proportions. 

Nakapachu, a nickname she first rejected, would arbitrate warring spouses; reconcile estranged children with their parents; organise health clinics; raise funds for the needy, among others. 

She became a star; the most popular media personality in Eastern Uganda, replacing Kyemba, who held the title from 2003 to 2012. 
“Such is Nanteza’s dedication that even during her political campaigns, she did not miss a single radio show,” says Kyemba. She lauds her employers for giving her the platform to shine and impact lives. Nanteza, mother of three, also attributes her success to “my very supportive husband.”

Impact
After the music break, a caller pledged a pair of shoes for Muwaya. What do you want to eat? Nanteza asked? Muwaya said rice, fish, posho, spaghetti, fish balls.

Nanteza tells the listeners to do the needful. Tujasula wa? Muwaya asked where they would sleep. Make a choice? Nanteza’s co-presenter asked. “At aunt’s,” Muwaya said. What about daddy? “At the mosque,” Muwaya replied, smiling. You want to abandon daddy? “I was kidding,” he said. “But who guided him when I was not around?” Muwaya wonders. He is only a child. He is no longer crying. He also wants a ball and a bike.

As the show ended, another caller pledged Shs100,000 for Muwaya and another Shs100,000 for the previous day’s cause. That is what gives Nakapachu and her guests a sigh of relief, a slit of a smile.

Six months later, Muwaya, aka Ssuubi, is in middle class at Little Angels Junior School in Lugazi, living with Nanteza. His father lives in a better place, under a distant relative’s care.

By January 2021, Nanteza was receiving over 100 people weekly, in need of help. Projects such as Pachu Beauty Products, could not generate enough revenue to meet the rising need, thus, forming the Nakapachu Foundation——a multitasking initiative that offers vocational skills, arbitration, counselling, legal advice, healthcare, community policing, etc.

David Otabong has been Jinja District Police Commander for only six months, but he knows Nakapachu’s impact. In June, Nakapachu in conjunction with Doctors At Home and Jinja Police conducted a community policing campaign for cleaning streets, sensitising radio talkshows and free medical care. 
“She is doing a good job, I wish she extends it to villages, where the need is highest,” Otabong told us.

Young mother’s academy
Brenda Nahwera and Macklene Acheng hail from opposite ends of Uganda, but their stories are strikingly similar. Both are 17 and mothers. They would not be here if their families gave them guidance or a second chance.

After conceiving while living with her elder sister in Jinja City, Nahwera returned to Kanungu, in Western Uganda to face her mother’s wrath. “My mother threw me out of the house and told me to return to Jinja, but I could not because my boyfriend denied the pregnancy,” Nahwera recalls living on the streets. 

“She had a mental illness, which worsened whenever she got drunk.” Area authorities intervened. “She allowed me into the house but denied me food.” Nahwera survived on unripe jackfruits, mangoes and anything she came across. At some point, Nahwera wished she could die. But after months at the Young Mother’s Academy, an offshoot of the Foundation, the Senior Three dropout has a dream. “I have learnt how to make and pack jelly,” Nahwera says. “I thank Mummy (Nakapachu) for this chance.” She is also good at marketing, Nakapachu says.  Nahwera wants to start her own business, buy land and build a house where she will stay with her son.

Like Nahwera, Acheng was mistreated by her aunt when she lived at her grandmother’s in Tororo District. “My aunt denied me food, rebuked me severally ‘you are not our daughter, go to your mother’” Acheng recalls. Her father, who worked in Kampala, underrated her complaints, reminding her: “We all suffered.” 

By the time she met her mother, she had already made up her mind to marry. But her first attempt backfired, terribly. She conceived the first time she had sex. But like Nahwera’s, Acheng’s boyfriend denounced her.
“I do not want anything to do with boyfriends,” Acheng says as tears rolled down her right cheek. “I also hate my father.”

Acheng now knows how to make books and hopes to start a business to fend for her mother, siblings and her son. “Being busy helps me forget my past.”

Hustlers
Rosemary Basirika, 20, left her mother’s village to pursue her dream of being a motor mechanic. After a few months of training at the vocational school, she is now a driver.

When Nanteza found her vending tomatoes, onions and silver fish, she thought she was vulnerable to opportunists and wanted her to go back to the village. Instead, Basirika brought her younger siblings, aged nine and five, to help her sell her stuff. 

They rented a room in Mafubira, a Jinja suburb. Out of her savings, she bought a second-hand bicycle, which she calls a prado, to ease their movement. Her sister also joined Little Angels JS, where Muwaya is.

At the Foundation, Basirika also learnt photocopying, which earns her Shs10,000 daily. “That is to reward her hard work and enterprising spirit,” says Dr Anthony Wekesa, the Foundation’s consultant.

Politics
On her political debut in 2016, Nanteza effortlessly won the race to become Njeru Town Council chairperson, which opened her multiple doors and widened her network. “I got more contacts, exposure by meeting big shots and travelled abroad, which made my charity work easier.”

In 2021, Nanteza vied for the Buikwe District Woman Member of Parliament seat, under the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Officially, she finished second with 41,561 votes, but claims the results were altered in favour of the NRM’s Diana Mutasingwa Nakunda. Nanteza quit politics, citing witch-hunt, among other challenges.

Bridging the gap
“Empowering women to reduce domestic violence,” reads the message on the Foundation’s black T-shirts. Nanteza wants to train women and girls to become boda-boda riders and truck drivers, “to counter men’s lies about money and bridge the income gap, which is the main cause of gender-based violence.”

We need a home
A few metres along Gabula Road, a white tent outside the gate to the Foundation, shelters men and women, whose looks tell their destitution. Some are ex-prisoners. Some are sick, lame, wounded and frail. 

Some need food. Some have babies to tend to. But many are homeless. And as night falls, they beg to stay here or wander anywhere to sleep and return the following day.

“It hurts,” Nanteza says. “But we are constrained. We badly need a home.” And she is pulling all the strings to stage a massive concert on December 10, at Kakindu Stadium to raise funds for the Nakapachu Foundation Home, where they will grow their own food, sconstruct dormitories and reduce on the costs of commuting to and fro work.  “God willing, the Foundation will be a big deal in five years to come,” Nanteza says. 

Challenges...Nanteza’s worries

An 11-year old orphan was brought from Iganga, battling cancer eating away his genitals. His siblings were hapless. Nakapachu, as usual, led the fundraising. After about two years of treatment, the boy got fine and returned to Iganga. A year later, he passed on.

“That boy broke my heart,” Nanteza says in a mourning voice. “It almost forced me to stop.”  

Even when she goes home every evening, Nanteza’s work follows her. She worries about that child who was abandoned by her parents; that couple that cannot reconcile; that epileptic woman who would rather sleep outside, with her three-year-old son, than returning to her mother, who called her mad and kicked her out.