Today, I was humbled and extremely honored to go back to the school that made me who I am, to give back the heart that nurtured me. As a proud woman standing with a significant other on such a day to celebrate the women, I was reminded of the road ahead.
I joined Kings College Budo in 2007 until 2012. It was a journey less treaded by people of my kind. I was a simple girl from a less privileged family, where most people I knew attended UPE schools down in Rukungiri district, Western Uganda. I attended a developing school with a resemblance of a missionary organization at the time. I remember my father, a Kampala resident, visiting me one time at school and asking what my choice for high school would be. All I had known were schools like Bweranyangi, Mary Hill, Immaculate Heart and a few more from my local area. However, he later suggested that I was a Budo-material because I had an excellent academic record up until my primary seven. This was a pivotal moment for me, reshaping my notion of what was possible. Later as I filled in my choices, my headmaster asked why Budo, and all I could think of was why not. He said it’s a boys’ school, highly segregative in terms of tribe, class, gender, and the list went on. But I persisted terming that ambiguous.
My first year experience involved a lot of learning, unlearning and re-learning just about everything without forgetting where I had come from. It was at this time that I started to clearly understand what it meant for me to be WOMAN. I realized the boys in my class had a certain shed of confidence you could not compare to. They courageously stood along stone walks and escorted us with hisses, disses, unsolicited comments, insults and other sorts of abusiveness whenever we by passed them making us shrink on several occasions. I could relate this primitive behavior to that of the stage boda boda men. A single girl dreaded these moments, especially if you thought you weren’t as pretty yet the habit had become normal. This made the lioness in us hunger for more.
As time went on, I began to realize how privileged I was to be in a school like Budo where possibilities and potential were unlimited. I dreamt of the world beyond, which later landed me in one of the best private schools in America, Brooks School, for an exchange program representing this prestigious school. From this experience, I learnt how small the world was, with similar experiences and yet diverse. Girls in America were experiencing an almost equal amount of discrimination but with efforts to dismantle the norm. As these energies sparked within my soul, I immediately felt the need to do more. I remember coming back home with my mind all made up, unlike my face, to contest for head prefect but each time I confessed my desires, I was told that I was just a girl. Trolling through the girl population(1/3 ) which then resonated to potential, I coiled into the next place as deputy head prefect.
The trajectory of my life began then as a feminist; I began to realize that equal treatment should not be a privilege but a right. Girls/ women all over the world are facing some of these stereotypes as though being female comes with a cost attachment.
Today on international women’s day, I want to thank all those who went before us in ensuring that the world is a safer space for raising and educating a girl child. Let us honor them by shifting our language and consciousness away from gender and towards opportunity. Let’s honor our parents’ sacrifices by putting away barriers to education and affording us a place at the high table; a place where a young woman will unapologetically stand to express her opinions that shunning these shall be only on account of quality and not just because she is a girl; a place for learning, changing, making mistakes, laughing, deciding, questioning and also growing into whomever we want without fear of what the next person thinks.
I remember our home economic classes full of girls and just a handful of boys. Majority of the boys opted for subjects like electricity and electronics, additional math and the likes, subconsciously terming women chivalry. Persisting barriers to women’s full equality and empowerment redefine and stigmatize men’s role in the domestic perspective. To liberate women, we need to liberate men and for this I thank all the male feminists out there.
Overtime, we have become global citizens with the internet penetrating borders. If we live in a world where men occupy the majority of the positions of power, we need men to believe in the necessity of change. How will we be more tomorrow than we are today if women who are the majority in the world signifying their potential, are left behind in quality decision making, economic sectors, education systems, and political leadership. Beyond the differences of men and women, we need each other to grow our familes, communities, nations and to grow globally. There is cause for hope. Bringing up change cannot solely be the responsibility of those who need it most, we must have the support of those in the highest positions of power in order to achieve parity.
We all need to be loud speakers to the voices less heard, making dents, changing the paradigms and not afraid of being the first where necessary. Changing the trajectory of how girls see themselves in the world, beyond what our cultures have labelled us is now our mandate. I encourage us to live from our hearts and give from what you have been given. The reward is in the lives we will be able to meet, touch, influence and impact.
Happy womens day,
Gakyali Mabaga
