Author: Angella Nampewo. PHOTO/FILE
When the passing of His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini Aga Khan IV was announced, a deep sadness settled over me. I have lost a benefactor who, from his position at the helm, could not have imagined how he touched a life like mine.
I first came to work at Monitor Publications Limited (MPL), under the Nation Media Group (NMG), in 2004. It was not my debut in journalism—I had already put in more than two years at Sunday Vision. Friends at MPL convinced me to cross over to Monitor, and the rest, as they say, is history.
When I arrived at Daily Monitor as a young reporter, I felt that I had finally arrived home. Here I am two decades later, still as much in love with journalism as the day I joined. I have worked across various sections of print media as a writer and editor, covering both news and lifestyle. Much of what I know about journalism, I have learned at Monitor, from the diverse group of colorful and independent-minded fellows who have mentored me at NMG.
I have been fortunate to head entire sections and can proudly look back on a volume of written works, as well as the blossoming careers of others I have mentored as a way of paying it forward. None of this would have been possible without the visionary leadership of the Aga Khan, who set up all these ventures.
The media is not the only place where the providing hand of His Highness the Aga Khan has been ever-present. When I wanted a change of pace from the newsroom in 2007, fate brought me to the doors of Bujagali Energy Limited. I say it was fate because, as a journalist, what business did I have on the construction project of a hydropower plant?
And yet, in August 2007, I found myself in a beehive of activity at the Bujagali Energy Limited office in the Serena Conference Centre—from where I am writing this column 17 years later—as one of the team preparing for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Bujagali Hydropower Plant. I can proudly say that I was one of the people who put together the seating chart for the dam foundation-laying ceremony on that August day, among other little but important tasks.
From the six years I spent working on the Bujagali Hydropower Project, I learned a lot. I stepped away from the desk of a journalist and into the field, where I worked with farmers, fishermen, and white-water river rafting operators, walking the village paths of the Bujagali community until I knew most people there by name.
As part of the Bujagali Energy Project’s social and environmental programme, we worked on health initiatives, helped restock health centres, trained village health teams, and assisted the weak and vulnerable. We furnished schools with desks and textbooks, helped resettle displaced tourism workers and operators on the River Nile, and even replanted trees on islands along the river. And we did much more. It was the experience of a lifetime.
When the Bujagali project construction was done, I felt the pull to return to journalism. NMG welcomed me with open arms, as it always has. When I returned to the editing desk, I had matured, bringing with me accumulated field experience.
For 20 years, I have worked under the Aga Khan Development Network umbrella, grown my career, raised a family, and established professional connections—for which I will be forever grateful to His Highness the Aga Khan for his entrepreneurial and development endeavours in the media and energy sectors.
Angella Nampewo is a writer and editor.
