Inspired Individuals

David was born and raised in a clergy family, his father being a key Christian leader of the region. David grew up in a family where he experienced people coming with different problems, spiritual and practical. David always felt a desire, or ‘calling’, to use his life to serve the needy of the world.

David was privileged to study economics at University in Uganda, and enjoy studying as it always brings new challenges that he was keen to tackle. For years David felt that God had helped him look at challenges as opportunities, and for this reason working closely with people and helping them transform their has been something he has immensely enjoyed.

David got involved in Kitega Centre, a community project outside of Kampala, Uganda in early 2006 after he completed my High School where he was a member of a project called “HOPE” (Help our Poor and Elderly). HOPE project involved holistic support to families living in extreme poverty. During this experience David’s desire to get involved as a social entrepreneur grew. David believes that working closely with people and helping them achieve their dreams is something he has been ‘called’ to do.

David’s hope is to impact as many people as he can, helping them achieve their dreams and bringing hope to the less fortunate. David is a youth activist and desires to be part of a youth movement all over the world to become agents of change in their communities.

Disability is not inability. In Uganda, many children with mental disabilities are rejected by their own families, and others hide them from their communities due to discrimination and stigma. In many cases disabilities are linked with ancestral curses and evil spirits.

The need to change the face of children living with disabilities in the community is very important. These are children who also deserve the love and materials other children receive, and indeed they can be able to learn and even engage in income generating activities.

These children are often characterised by extreme poverty and disease. Many have lost their parents due to HIV/AIDS, and many are illiterate. All this combined in a community continues to reinforce the marginalisation, discrimination and stigmatisation of people living with disabilities.

During David’s first visit to Kitega he met seven mentally disabled children, who had suffered severe levels of rejection and marginalisation, yet these were human beings as well created in the ‘image of God’, and above all children who did not choose their destiny. David got involved with the Kitega Centre with his first task to survey the families of these children and determine the underlying causes of the marginalization and rejection.

Concentrating on only the disabled children and not tackling the root causes would not help, i.e improving the lives of the disabled children and sending them back to a community bombarded with problems would not at all make their lives secure. After the needs assessment and discovering the numerous problems behind the marginalisation, David decided to work on developing people oriented programs, these are very simple and in the long run teach the people to own their problems and work closely to solve them.

Since most mental disabilities are a result of inaccessibility to health services, due to poverty and the high level of illiteracy, Likewise most of the children lost their guardian/parents due to HIV/AIDS, it was the right time to use the centre for the disabled as a channel to help improve the standard of living in the community.

Most of the mental disabilities at the centre are due to cerebral malaria which goes on to attack the brain, because most guardians are poor to access health services and many are naive about the illnesses because they are illiterate and above all some have little faith in God and that's why they quickly link the issue to evil spirits.

Today, the Centre continues to support the children with disabilities and the number has increased, and they are able to receive primary education, and vocational training, thus developing their talents and changing their image in the community. Something to prove that disability is not inability. Many of the children have changed tremendously, and are now becoming independent with various tasks. They tend to be slow, but all they need is love and care.

David has also created a Village community banking system, VICOBA for development , which is more less a Bank but at a typical African village level. This involves bringing together community members, (initially women, but now both men and women) who undergo business training for twelve weeks and later initiate a bank using their own resources through buying shares. The VICOBA initiative caters for all groups of people and this has also helped the community centre support a number of people rather than individuals. Through the VICOBA initiative, people have been able to start up businesses, build houses etc, this all seemed impossible previously but now becoming a reality. This program has also facilitated adult literacy, bible studies and crafts making among others.