BUHWEJU DISTRICT WOMAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT HON. JOY KARIISA ARINAITWE EMBARKED ON HOUSEHOLD INCOME IMPROVEMENT Dear Friends, I post to pay tribute to Hon. Joy Kariisa Arinaitwe. “Some members of Parliament are only known when they are swearing in and when they die!” Those were the words of NBS TV journalist Simon Kangwanjala on his program The MorningBreeze commenting about the death of Hon. Joy Kariisa arinaitwe. It’s so traditional that when a person passes on, a hip of nice things is piled onto the deceased. I had brief working relationship with the late and, I think, I qualify to defend her soul. Whereas Hon. Joy was one of the “silent” MPs, she was productively active, especially on the ground. Buhweju District is one of the districts that were curved out of former Bushenyi District. Buhweju has a population of 100403 people and 20881 households. Each house hold has got 7 acres of land. As a Woman Member of Parliament in coordination with the District Leadership the late embarked on improving household incomes by zoning the district into production areas. She has been engaged in promoting the need for each family to at least have 02 acres of tea, 02 acres of coffee, 01 acre of eucalyptus trees, 01 acre of banana plantation, and 02 diary cattle as a minimum requirement specifically targeting income generation. With the above available, each household was expected to get 600,000/= on monthly basis to support education for their children and the day to day expenditure. In line with the implementation of the above, His Excellency the President had already given the district 400m for tea seedlings. Hon. Joy distributed 100,000 coffee seedlings and 50,000 tree seedlings in the year 2012. At the moment, she had also established a eucalyptus bed of over 500,000 seedlings. The late was very grateful of National Forestry Authority and Coffee Development Authority that were supporting her in that noble cause of improving income generation and conserving environment in Buhweju District. Embracing of that Agriculture Strategy in Buhweju in addition to cereal production capacity, like millet, maize, wheat, barley among others, Buhweju was bound to transform in a long run. She urged all people of Buhweju to embrace this household income improvement strategy. Infrastructure development especially roads had remained a challenge to rural areas of Buhweju district as the cost of transport to the market had also remained high thus affecting the farmers. The late brought this to the attention of Uganda National Road Authority and the line ministry, anticipating an improvement in a short term. To Hon. Joy, household income improvement was the only vaccine to poverty and illiteracy eradication in Uganda and the importance of environment could not be emphasized. Prof. Biti wrote that in Africa, there is no death without a cause. Dying at 27years of age, Hon. Joy certainly has left immense darkness in the path of those she was leading! William Shakespeare in his play "MEASURE TO MEASURE" says "If I Must Die, I Will Encounter Darkness as a Bride and Hug It in Mine Arms. But To Die And Go We Know Not Where; To Lie In Cold Obstruction And Rot Is All Pains Me." May Joy’s soul Rest with Eternal mercy.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 07:43:12 +0000