Nyendo, Central Region, Uganda

NYENDO, CENTRAL REGION, UGANDA: International City of Peace

We welcome Gloria Florence Nabalema, who with her colleagues has established Nyendo, in the Masaka District, Central Region, Uganda as an International City of Peace. Gloria, who is CEO of the Upcountry Outreach For Development, says, “Peace in our community has been hindered by many various factors which start slowly and later turn into habits.” Yet a positive outlook and a focus on solutions will have the desired effect: “We strongly believe that children’s mindset can be changed when they are still young so that they can have positive perception on peace as they grow.”

Note: Introduction page with information primarily at the time of joining International Cities of Peace. For updates, please contact the liaison.

Our Principles;

Integrity: In every activity we perform, we ensure to act in the best interest of all parties involved and we exercise integrity with our community work.

Ethical: In our community work, we do to others what we would love to be done to us and we spread it to the rest of the community.

Community rule: annually, we review our service to the community so that we keep on track. We make efforts to meet new people from different backgrounds and learn from everyone we come into contact with.

Social Rule: We focus on finding and cultivating deep friendships with people who have similar values and right intentions.

Being givers: We give what we can because we believe that hands that give are more blessed than those that receive as its preached in Acts 20:32-35.

Vision: To have an upright generation free from violence.
Mission: Promote and teach peace among the youth in the community and schools.
Our goals: To make values of peace better understood among the people and make peace to be part of them.
To change people’s attitude positively in a way that they are able to prevent the occurence of conflicts and resolve conflicts peacefully.

Our general statement regards peace:

Two months ago we had a short project that lasted for approximately three weeks but it was so sucessful with support from Uganda Muslim Youth Development Forum and three other Community Based Orgarnizations. Our goal was to set up peace clubs from different secondary schools and the project ended. I chose to keep working with two of the schools i.e Bwala secondary school and tarbuk senior secondary school.
I keep visiting them and spreading peace among the students and create bonds between the students and the school administrators.
We chose to do this because of the continued strikes in Masaka City.
Together we work with village chairpersons to help the ghetto kids be optimistic about life, so that they can stop the violence and conflicts that they always create.

Our challenges are:

• Ever since the project that was promoting peace ended we are carrying on but, we have some challenges regarding funding our teachings.
• For the ghetto kids who are always causing commotion in the community, the best option would be taking them to vocational schools so that their minds can get occupied and lack the time to disorganise people but we lack support for them.

LETTER OF INTENT

ABOUT THE LIAISON

Gloria Florence Nabalema

I am Gloria Florence Nabalema. I am a Ugandan. I completed my university in 2019 from Uganda Martyrs University in Masaka. I did Business Administration and Management. I work in a charity organization called Upcountry Outreach For Development and I am the company CEO.

I chose to serve the community out of passion. I do counseling to fellow youth, those under stigmatization for example those living with HIV, fellow women and disabled to ensure they live peaceful. My goal is to eliminate segregation and help those who have lost hope to be optimistic about life
I love working different organizations and individuals with similar goals with me.

KIND HEARTS WIN

PEACE STATEMENT

Peace in our community has been hindered by many various factors which start slowly and later turn into habits.

Like its said on matters of morals that “charity begins at home”

In different homes, there is a lot of domestic violence in that children keep seeing it home taking place and eventually, they get used and think its normal behavior.

2. When these children are taken to schools, they mix up with children from different backgrounds and behavior. They act in response to the way the perceive life towards their friends, they will look weird according their friends but later their friends will get used to their behavior and start also to normalize the weird behavior.

3.If the students in their schools are not guided on the right way to behave, they will get to their respective communities and be violent.

Its discovered that due to lack of guidance, commotion in the community comes from those youths,and cause injustice to the innocent.

My proposed solutions and their benefits are as follows;

Sensitization on peace in schools, women groups and village meetings:
We strongly believe that children’s mindset can be changed when they are still young so that they can have positive perception on peace as they grow.
If women are sensitized too, since they normally take sensitive issues seriously, they can calmly speak to their husbands and they listen to them. On the other hand , they softly speak to their to their children to ensure they are always peaceful and do not copy violent behavior from their peers. Children are always more open to their mothers than fathers.

Funding for the small activities to maintain peace.

For the facilitations in the different schools to spread peace, we can be able to do our very best if transportation is eased on our side and some emergency fund while we are on our work. We have very organized notes on promoting peace to even more schools in case we are given a financial hand.
Likewise, for the village youths and also meeting up in the women groups,
Just as its said, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop” Normally the youths that are causing commotion in the community are those that lack what to do. If they are financially supported to start up simple economic activities that will keep their brains useful, this would be of great help to destruct them from violence.

Therefore, the issue of violence normally starts right from home, it spreads to schools where the youth are taken to, they mix up from different backgrounds. Later, they get to the community where they behave the way they do because they have grown up seeing violence and they think its normal yet it has so many disadvantages and the only way we can promote peace is through sensitizations and supporting the unemployed youth

Yours in service,

CEO,

Upcountry Outreach For Development

GLORIA FLORENCE NABALEMA