The ceremony that took place on Friday, 21 September at Imperial
Royale Hotel, Kampala, was attended by FAWEU members, girl child advocates,
Former FAWEU Beneficiaries and several corporates including: Bank of Uganda,
Stanbic Bank, FINCA, Makerere University Business School (MUBS), DFCU Bank, Red
Cross, National Association of Women with Disabilities (NUWODU), Mehta Group,
Palin Diagnostics, among others.
The Speaker in her address, appealed to the corporates to support
girl-child education if they are to meaningfully contribute to the development
of Uganda, and appealed to them to realign their budgets towards supporting
the cause.
She launched the fundraising by lighting the candle for girl-child
education that is moving around Africa to raise awareness about the continued need
to educate the girl-child. The candle is symbolic of the light that FAWE has
brought into the lives of girls in Africa. It is also a commemoration of twenty
years since five women ministers of education in Africa set-up FAWE as a forum
to remove barriers to girl-child education and bridge the gender gap in
education, in Africa.
The FAWEU Chairperson, Mrs Rose Izizinga, expressed her gratitude to the
Speaker and all those who had supported FAWEU in the struggle to educate
the girl-child and, who continue to support girl -child education and
emphasised that the struggle continues.
She said that FAWE was commemorating twenty years of educating the
girl-child in Africa and had since made major strides in closing the gender gap
in education in Africa, although the barriers to girl-child education in Africa
was still faced with challenges which included among others backward
cultures, poverty and conflicts/ insecurity that orphaned the girl-child.
She added that the fundraising dinner was one of FAWEU's activities to
raise awareness on girl-child education and it was one of the events organized
during the girls' education week held annually. This year the week took place from
17th to 21st September 2012, and included: A press conference held on Monday
17th, girls conferences held at Mengo Senior Secondary School and which hosted
schools from Eastern, Northern and Central, and another girls conference held
in Kyenjojo which hosted schools from western Uganda . The theme of the week was:
FAWEU Executive Director, Ms Christine Semambo Sempebwa, highlighted the
strides made by FAWEU in educating the girl-child. She observed that FAWEU had
educated over 4, 000 girls in secondary education
since 1997, when the organisation was launched , and was now supporting 26
girls at university and in other tertiary institutions. The challenge, however,
she said, was to raise at least Shs 500,000,000 to enable the girls transit
from secondary to higher institutions of learning, and to complete university
and training in tertiary institutions.
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