Occupation: Grants Development and Management/community volunteering
Biography: Personal profile

My name is Jessica Batsemaghe, 34, married with two children. I live and work in Kampala but my home sub county is Kyarumba located in Kasese district in western Uganda. I have joined the wonderful neighbours at Nabuur as a local representative for Kyarumba Community.

Kasese district, where I come from still has low literacy rates in education. Girl child education is even worse as Parents have for long encouraged their girl children to get married at an early age to earn bride wealth thus affecting the number of women who have accessed education in the district.

In my sub county for example we are only eleven girls out of a population of 22,000 who have accessed university education, with only two undergraduate students. I was the second to graduate in 1998, ten years after the first Woman Mrs Naume Nzyabake (currently headmistress Mutanyana secondary school -Kyarumba) graduated from university. Given the magnitude of the problem Naume decided to teach at the local and only secondary school in the sub county to ensure her education benefited the vulnerable poor children especially girls.

I personally went through Naume’s hands during my high school and managed to get a good grade to join university on private sponsorship. Even with this opportunity, my father expressed inability to pay for my university tuition because he had nine other children in lower classes to pay for (3 of whom were HIV/AIDS orphans). Shocked and worried, I shared my need with Mrs Eleanore wismer, a neighbor from switzerland by then carrying out humanitarian charity work in kasese district. Whole-heartedly, she accepted to link me to schweizerischer Katholischer Frauenbund SKF in Switzerland, who honoured her request and provided for my university education at Makerere University.

I graduated in 1998 with a Bachelors degree in social sciences majoring in political science and social Administration. Since then I have worked with ActionAid Uganda and Christian Children’s Fund in different capacities in programme development and local fundraising. My work with these organisations has contributed to the welfare of the poor women, men, boys and girls in Uganda. I personally owe gratitude to my parents, Mrs Naume Nzyabake,Mrs Eleanore wismer and the Swiss catholic women who contributed to my socio economic and professional empowerment, and are happy they made the right decision and investment ten years ago.

I have a strong conviction and belief that more girls in Kyarumba community can be pulled to my level and beyond and I am committed to making this happen. But I realised I needed more neighbours like you to join me to build a strong movement for promoting girl child education in Kyarumba and I believe you and me can bring smiles to the Kyarumba community by contributing ideas for helping more girls realise their education dreams.

Dear Friend, Join Kyarumba neighbours today!!... Tomorrow you will be proud you made the right decision!!!