From Kampala to Hoima: INUWA International Learns from a mother to Many
INUWA International’s two-day field visit to Hoima became a journey of listening, learning, community connection and witnessing what it means for one woman to become a mother to many
On 4 September 2026, members of the INUWA International Uganda team left Kampala and began a journey of approximately five and a half hours towards Hoima.
On paper, it was simply a road trip from one part of Uganda to another.
But for the team, it became something much more.
It was five and a half hours towards people.
Five and a half hours towards stories.
Five and a half hours towards children whose lives cannot be reduced to statistics.
Five and a half hours towards learning from someone who has spent years responding to the realities around her.
And five and a half hours towards understanding, more deeply, what INUWA International means when we say that sustainable change must begin with communities.
The Hoima visit formed part of the ongoing INUWA Uganda Community & Youth Empowerment Programme 2026, through which the organisation is engaging communities, learning from local leaders, strengthening partnerships and exploring how health, human rights, education, youth empowerment and sustainable livelihoods can be connected in practice. But some lessons cannot be learned from documents.
Some lessons require a journey.
The Road to Hoima: Five and a Half Hours With a Purpose
The team travelled together by bus from Kampala.
During the journey, there was music.
There was laughter.
There were conversations.
There were moments of silence.
And naturally, there was tiredness too.
A video taken during the journey captures the volunteers sitting together on the bus, listening to music and sharing the experience.
It is a small moment, but an important one.
Development work is often presented through formal language: programmes, objectives, implementation plans, indicators, monitoring frameworks and outcomes.
Those things matter.
But behind every programme are human beings.
People travel together.
They become tired together.
They laugh together.
They share food.
They listen to music.
They discover each other.
They disagree sometimes.
They encourage each other.
And somewhere between one destination and another, a group of people begins becoming a team.
The journey to Hoima captured that part of INUWA’s work too.
These volunteers have come from different backgrounds and experiences, but they are being brought together by something larger than themselves: the opportunity to learn, serve, contribute and participate in building something meaningful.
The road was long.
But there was a reason for making it.
They were travelling to Hoima to listen.
To learn.
To meet children and community members.
To spend time with Barbara Kemigisa.
To understand work already happening locally.
And to experience realities that cannot be fully understood through a Zoom meeting, written proposal or programme report.
Five and a half hours may feel like a long journey. But when those hours take you closer to communities and closer to understanding how you can contribute to changing people’s lives, every kilometre carries meaning.
Video: The Journey From Kampala to Hoima
INUWA International volunteers travelling from Kampala to Hoima on 4 September 2026. The approximately five-and-a-half-hour journey included music, conversations, laughter, rest and anticipation as the team travelled towards an important community-learning experience.
More Than Reaching Another City
Arriving in Hoima was not simply about reaching a destination.
It represented something central to how INUWA wants to work.
If we want to understand communities, we must sometimes be willing to go where the communities are.
We cannot always expect people to come to offices.
We cannot understand every problem from a conference room.
We cannot design strong interventions from a distance while assuming that we already know what people need.
Sometimes we need to travel the road.
We need to enter people’s spaces.
We need to sit under the trees.
We need to sit on floors.
We need to enter homes.
We need to speak with local leaders.
We need to listen to young people.
We need to meet children.
And most importantly, we need to understand what communities have already built before deciding what outsiders believe should be built for them.
The INUWA team stayed overnight in Hoima.
This allowed the visit to become more than a brief appearance.
There was time to observe.
Time to talk.
Time to connect.
Time to listen.
Time to see.
And time to understand.
Meeting Barbara Beyond the Conference Table
Barbara Kemigisa was not completely new to the INUWA team.
Earlier in the programme, she had already joined discussions and shared perspectives from her experience working in Hoima.
But hearing about someone’s work and entering the environment in which that work takes place are two very different things.
Hoima allowed the team to meet Barbara differently.
They did not simply listen to her explain what she does.
They saw the environment.
They met children.
They saw the relationships.
They saw evidence of years of advocacy.
They saw old newspaper stories documenting HIV awareness, stigma, relationships, treatment and living positively.
And perhaps most importantly, they saw something that is difficult to capture in a report:
the human relationships behind community work.
Barbara Kemigisa: A Mother to Many
There are many titles we could use to describe Barbara.
Advocate.
Community leader.
Caregiver.
Activist.
Founder.
But after seeing her work closely, one description feels particularly powerful:
Barbara is a mother to many.
Not because every child around her was born to her.
But because motherhood can also be expressed through responsibility.
Through protection.
Through sacrifice.
Through noticing when a child disappears.
Through trying to make sure someone returns to school.
Through finding food when resources are limited.
Through creating somewhere a child can feel safe.
Through advocating when others have stopped listening.
Through believing that a child’s circumstances today do not have to define their future tomorrow.
Barbara’s work has involved children and young people facing different forms of vulnerability, including those affected by HIV, poverty, family instability and difficult social circumstances. She has supported young people in reconnecting with education and helped create an environment of care and belonging.
That work is not easy.
It is not something that happens only during office hours.
When you become deeply involved in people’s lives, you carry some of those lives with you.
You worry.
You search for solutions.
You continue even when resources are limited.
Sometimes you give what you have.
Sometimes you advocate until someone finally listens.
Sometimes your success is not a large grant or an international conference.
Sometimes success is simply seeing a child return to school.
That deserves recognition.
Children Are More Than Their Circumstances
One of the strongest aspects of the Hoima visit was the opportunity for the INUWA team to interact directly with children and young people.
The photographs tell part of that story.
People were not standing behind formal tables.
They were sitting together.
Conversations happened naturally.
There was laughter.
There was curiosity.
There was learning.
There was human connection.
The children were not treated as distant “beneficiaries”.
They were children.
And that distinction matters.
Behind every statistic about HIV, poverty, school dropout, vulnerable households or street-connected children is a person.
A child with a personality.
A child who can laugh.
A child who may be stubborn.
A child who may be intelligent.
A child who may love football.
A child who may want to become a doctor.
A child who may simply want someone to believe in them.
The original Hoima account captured this clearly: children should never be reduced to diagnoses, project numbers or development problems.
A difficult beginning should never automatically determine a difficult future.
HIV Is Not the End of a Child’s Story
HIV was also an important part of what the team encountered in Hoima.
On the walls were newspaper stories reflecting years of public discussion around HIV, stigma, treatment, relationships and positive living.
Among those messages was one that remains profoundly important:
HIV is no longer a death sentence.
Medical science has transformed HIV.
With effective treatment, people living with HIV can live long, healthy lives.
But medicine alone cannot remove every consequence of HIV.
Medication can suppress a virus.
It cannot automatically remove stigma.
It cannot automatically send a child back to school.
It cannot automatically provide food.
It cannot automatically create a safe home.
It cannot automatically eliminate discrimination.
It cannot automatically give someone economic independence.
And it cannot automatically make society understand.
That is why INUWA believes the HIV response must extend beyond medication.
We must also talk about:
dignity,
education,
mental wellbeing,
family support,
community support,
human rights,
economic opportunity,
stigma,
protection,
leadership,
and long-term independence.
As the original Hoima story emphasises, a successful HIV response cannot be measured only by survival; people must also have the opportunity to live fully.
Learning Before Building
The Hoima experience also reinforced an important principle for INUWA International:
We should never enter a community assuming that we already have all the answers.
Uganda already has people who have spent years doing this work.
Community leaders.
Health workers.
Teachers.
Caregivers.
Activists.
Parents.
People living with HIV.
Women’s groups.
Youth leaders.
Local organisations.
People with lived experience.
They understand realities that cannot always be understood from outside.
INUWA therefore does not want its role to be simply bringing programmes into communities.
Our responsibility is also to listen.
To learn.
To identify gaps.
To understand what already works.
And then, where appropriate, to strengthen it together.
The strongest programmes are rarely created entirely from behind a desk. They are developed through conversations with people who live close to the realities the programme is intended to address.
Hoima gave the team an opportunity to ask important questions.
Why do some children leave school?
What happens when family support disappears?
How does HIV-related stigma affect children and families?
What support already exists?
What is working?
What is missing?
What does a caregiver like Barbara struggle with most?
What happens to young people as they grow older?
How do we support a child without creating permanent dependence?
And perhaps the biggest question:
How do we create programmes that do not simply help somebody today, but strengthen their ability to build a different future tomorrow?
From Assistance to Empowerment
Emergency support matters.
Food matters.
Shelter matters.
Treatment matters.
School fees matter.
Sometimes immediate assistance is exactly what someone needs.
But INUWA’s wider vision is not to create permanent dependency.
We want to think further.
If a child returns to school, how do we help create the conditions for that child to remain there?
If a young person completes training, where is the opportunity to use those skills?
If a woman receives assistance today, what could strengthen her economic independence tomorrow?
If a person living with HIV receives medication, what else is necessary for that person to live without stigma and participate fully in society?
If a vulnerable family receives support, how can livelihoods eventually become part of the solution?
This is why INUWA connects several areas of work:
health, human rights, education, youth empowerment, women’s empowerment, entrepreneurship, agriculture, leadership and community development.
These issues are not separate.
A child’s education can be affected by poverty.
Poverty can affect treatment adherence.
Health can affect employment.
Stigma can affect mental wellbeing.
Economic insecurity can increase vulnerability.
Lack of opportunity can push young people into dangerous situations.
Everything connects.
The original programme reflection similarly stresses the need to move beyond one-off assistance towards education, livelihoods, local leadership and measurable long-term progress.
A Different Kind of Field Visit
Some of the most powerful moments in Hoima were not formal.
They happened while sitting together.
Talking outside.
Spending time with children.
Walking around.
Looking at old newspaper stories.
Listening.
Observing.
Being present.
Development work often has complicated terminology.
Beneficiaries.
Indicators.
Outputs.
Outcomes.
Deliverables.
Interventions.
Those things are important.
INUWA will continue taking governance, safeguarding, monitoring, accountability and programme management seriously.
But we must never allow technical language to make us forget who the work is for.
Before there is an indicator, there is a person.
Before there is an outcome, there is a family.
Before there is a beneficiary number, there is a name.
Before there is a programme, there is a community.
Hoima reminded us of that.
Honouring Community Leadership
Community leadership does not always operate from large buildings.
Sometimes there is no large office.
No enormous budget.
No perfect infrastructure.
No big international team.
But there can still be enormous impact.
Barbara’s work demonstrates what can happen when one person refuses to ignore the people around her.
Her commitment is visible not only in the advocacy materials on the walls, but in the relationships surrounding her.
That is why INUWA International wants to recognise her.
Not because community work should depend forever on one person.
But because people like Barbara often become the bridge between vulnerable individuals and the support systems they need.
And behind that strength is also a question for organisations like ours:
How do we strengthen people doing this work so that they do not have to carry everything alone?
That is an important sustainability question.
Because a mother to many also needs support.
A community leader also needs systems.
A caregiver also needs resources.
An advocate also needs partnerships.
And grassroots work becomes stronger when commitment is supported by structure.
Barbara’s long-term commitment, and the description of her as advocate, community leader, caregiver and “a mother”, are central themes in the original account.
What INUWA Takes From Hoima
By the end of the visit, the INUWA team was not returning with only photographs.
They were returning with lessons.
Questions.
Ideas.
New relationships.
Memories.
And a deeper understanding of some of the realities future INUWA initiatives may need to respond to.
The Uganda programme has never been intended simply as a series of activities.
It is also a learning process.
We are learning where INUWA can genuinely add value.
We are identifying potential partnerships.
We are listening to communities.
We are learning from local organisations.
We are examining health and HIV responses.
We are looking at education.
Livelihoods.
Youth opportunities.
Women’s empowerment.
Community leadership.
And sustainability.
Hoima has now become an important part of that learning journey.
Building With Communities, Not Only For Them
One of the strongest lessons from Hoima is that the people closest to a challenge must have a voice in designing the response.
International organisations cannot speak constantly about communities while failing to listen to them.
INUWA wants to build differently.
We want young people involved in decisions affecting young people.
We want women involved in shaping programmes intended for women.
We want people affected by HIV involved in HIV responses.
We want local organisations recognised for the expertise they already possess.
And when good work already exists, our first question should not automatically be:
“What new thing can INUWA create here?”
Sometimes the better question is:
“What is already working, what is missing, and how can we strengthen it together?”
That principle is at the heart of the original Hoima reflection.
The Long Road Back to Kampala
On the evening of 5 September 2026, after completing their time in Hoima, the team began the journey back towards Kampala.
The work was finished for the day.
But the travelling was not.
There were still hours ahead.
The road home stretched into the night.
By this point the team had already spent two days travelling, meeting people, interacting with children, listening, observing and learning.
They were tired.
But they were also carrying something back with them that they had not carried to Hoima.
Experience.
The team travelled through the night and eventually reached Kampala at around 8:00 a.m. on 6 September.
Think about that journey.
Hours on the road going to Hoima.
An overnight stay.
A full community visit.
Then another long journey back.
Community work is not always comfortable.
Sometimes it means travelling when you are tired.
Sometimes it means sleeping away from home.
Sometimes it means changing schedules.
Sometimes it means eating wherever the road allows.
Sometimes it means sitting on the ground.
Sometimes it means entering environments very different from your own.
Sometimes it means sacrificing comfort because understanding people requires getting close enough to listen.
And that is why those five and a half hours became more than travel.
Five and a half hours of travelling.
Five and a half hours of anticipation.
Five and a half hours of teamwork.
Five and a half hours of learning.
Five and a half hours moving closer to a community.
Five and a half hours towards understanding how lives can be changed.
And on the journey back, those same roads carried the team home with new stories, new questions and a new responsibility:
What do we do with what we have now learned?
Because field visits should not become tourism.
Photographs are not enough.
A visit should teach us something.
It should challenge something.
It should influence what we do next.
Sometimes We Have to Go to Them
The children cannot always come to us.
Grassroots organisations cannot always enter international conference rooms.
Community caregivers may never sit at the tables where major funding decisions are made.
Families experiencing vulnerability may never write proposals explaining what they need.
Sometimes we have to go to them.
Sometimes we have to sit beside them.
Sometimes we have to listen without arriving with an immediate answer.
Sometimes we have to admit that communities already know things we still need to learn.
That is what Hoima represented for INUWA.
Not simply a visit.
A lesson.
The Journey Continues
The INUWA Uganda Community & Youth Empowerment Programme continues.
There are still communities to meet.
Partners to engage.
Questions to ask.
Challenges to understand.
And important decisions to make about what comes next.
But Hoima will remain one of the experiences shaping that direction.
Because sometimes a programme becomes real not when the proposal is completed, but when the people implementing it finally sit beside the people whose lives the programme is supposed to serve.
Sometimes leadership means speaking.
Sometimes leadership means organising.
Sometimes it means finding resources.
Sometimes it means creating systems.
And sometimes leadership begins with something much simpler:
Arriving.
Sitting down.
Listening.
To Barbara Kemigisa and everyone who opened their space to the INUWA team in Hoima:
Thank you for allowing us to learn from your work, your community and your experiences.
And to every child our team encountered:
You are more than your circumstances.
You are more than a statistic.
You are more than a diagnosis.
Your story is still being written.
INUWA International’s journey in Uganda continues with deeper listening, stronger community relationships and a commitment to building solutions with people, not simply for them. The original article closes with this same commitment to community-led solutions and continued learning.
Empower. Elevate. Transform.
INUWA InternationalUganda Community & Youth Empowerment Programme 2026 Hoima, Uganda | 4–5 September 2026
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