In October 2014 I applied for the YALI Washington fellowship and in Jan 2015 I received the much awaited email telling me I had gone through to the second stage and needed to pick a date for my interview among the available dates. Unfortunately I was scheduled to be out of the country during all the available days and they couldn’t make an exception, so I missed the interviews and lost my chance. Then I had a baby to raise and I tried again in October 2016 and early this year I got an email inviting me for interview. It was a brief one and I remember one particular question I was asked, “what do you think of Uganda” to which I responded, “I think of Uganda as a land of untapped potential and full of opportunity everywhere, with a bit of exposure, skill development and support, we could become a middle income country in the next 15 yrs.” and I truly believe this. A couple days/weeks later I got an email congratulating me, I had been accepted as a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow! 😊😊😊😊😊For the next six weeks at this fellowship I look forward to learning more about how to build communities, build sustainable community organizations and build civic leaders all over the country. I want a Uganda where we are self sufficient and are looking at our selves for the change we want to see and not looking at others to deliver that change. One where we are aware of the consequences of our actions or lack of. One where we look put our heads together to create solutions to our challenges and stick to them. I look forward to learning from US organizations doing civic work and bringing that back home. I look forward to building networks and partnerships.

https://publicservice.asu.edu/content/2017-civic-leadership-cohort