National Union of Women with Disability Celebrates 20 Years

Wednesday 9th March 2022 marked exactly 20 years since the National Union of Women with Disability Uganda (NUWODU) was formed to elevate the voices of Women with disabilities. Celebrations to mark the date were held at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala where Women with disabilities were advised to always concentrate on their potentials at the expense of their various disabilities.

Founded in 1999, NUWODU is a membership organisation bringing together women and girls with disabilities to have a stronger and unified voice to advocate for their rights and equal opportunities as well as fight injustice and violence against Women and girls with disabilities.

Speaking during the event, Rose Achayo Obol, chairperson National Union of Women with Disability (NUWODU) said that the 20th anniversary celebrations come at a remarkable time when several Women with disabilities at taking up several leadership roles.

“We have been progressing slowly but surely and when we reach 20 years now, we have the joy to celebrate especially when we see a number of ladies with disabilities taking up leadership positions,” she said.
“We see a minister of state with disability, let me recognise her contribution to NUWODU in absentia because she is a founder member of this association. We are very grateful to her for laying a strong foundation. We have seen her walk through with some of the Women,” said Achayo.

Achayo also commended the government for providing avenues to Women With disabilities to explore their potential especially in various leadership spaces.she gave an example of Honourable Sophia Nalule Juuko who chairs the equal opportunities Commission. She also challenged Women with disabilities to believe in themselves and open up for the available opportunities and spaces to fill. She advised them to cease from fronting their disabilities instead of their potentials.

“Don’t look at your disability, look at your potentiality in whatever contribution that you will be able to make to the citizens, that you will be able to make to the state, that everybody around you should be able to appreciate you as a woman not as a woman with disability,” Achayo said.

The minister of state for disability was the guest of honour, represented by Miss Emily Ajambo the assistant commissioner of NUWODU. Ajambo told the congregation at Grand Imperial Royal hotel that the choosing of female district councilors for people with disabilities was deliberate because men had dominated elsewhere.she urged women with disabilities to followup with government programs at district level in order to benefit from government’s special grant for persons with disability.

“We have a government program, a grant to persons with disability called ‘special grant for persons with disability. This program is aimed at providing startup capital to organised groups for people with disabilities.
According to Ajambo, ‘the special grant for people with disabilities’ program has been running since 2009, only that it was enhanced in 2019 which saw the mode in which money was supplied change.

“The modalities changed. We nolonger give money to the districts instead we give it to the groups directly,” Ajambo explained.

“We are developing a website called,’the disability management information system’ which can help you to get an overview of the grant but for now what we need are the guidelines on how to access the grant.
We need to improve our communication so that people are able to understand what we are doing,” she advised.

Among the achievements registered by NUWODU in their twenty years of advocacy is the empowerment of Women with disabilities to compete for different spaces in society. Eunice Among, a programs director at NUWODU said that this has seen the number of women running for different political offices rise at least each year that passes. She also noted that there has been a tremendous growth in membership, representation and sponsoring.

However, the Organization has registered some challenges among which is the unpopular COVID-19 pandemic disruptions in the last two years. Rose Achayo said that the issue of gender inequality remains unresolved as well as Society stigmatisation of women with disabilities. She called upon all women with disabilities to embrace organisations like NUWODU for support.