WOMEN SMILES UGANDA: GENDER, VERTICAL FARMING, AND FOOD SECURITY.

• Author: Nakigozi, Lilian

Lilian Nakigozi is Founder &. CEO of Women Smiles Uganda, an organization in Kampala, Uganda dedicated to empowering women through sustainable agricultural solutions for urban spaces. The Journal spoke with Lillian to learn more about the organization and its incorporation of vertical farming technologies, the impact COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine are having on the health and well-being of women and children across Uganda, and the challenges and triumphs of giving back to your community.

Journal of International Affairs (JIA): Tell us about where you grew up, where you went to school, and some of your formative experiences in your younger years.

Lilian Nakigozi (LN): I'm Lilian Nakigozi, and I'm from Uganda. I was born in a small town. However, when my parents separated, my mother and my siblings moved to Kampala, to the city. In the city, we settled in one of the urban slums, Katanga. Because my mother didn't have money, and to get us a decent home in a different area, she decided to put us in a small house. That's where we lived most of our time, in my childhood. I remember, at the age of 8, that's when we moved there with my other eight siblings. We had already lost a baby sister. Of course, I should say that life wasn't really easy on us. Life was really hard. My mother, being a single mother, struggled, working day and night to care for us, pay school fees for us, and of course feed us, because we had this huge family. So, it was really a struggle.

Being a single mother, and her not having any stable source of income, and not having any access to land for us to grow crops, the time came when we hardly had dinner. We could just have one meal a day, and we usually had it at 5 pm. As time went on, the situation even became that we hardly had any meals, and we slept on empty stomachs. Of course, it was the same situation with the rest of the neighborhood, especially for families which are headed by single mothers. Losing a baby sister due to hunger, that's when I realized that things could keeping getting worse. It hit us so hard, even the entire neighborhood noticed. We tried to ask for help, but of course no one could help, because all the households were experiencing the same situation that we experienced.

When I was 11 years old, I got so lucky. I was bright in school. I used to get good grades, so my school decided to give me half payment, and of course my mother paid the other half. I performed so well in my primary, and we have these different schools that give sponsorship to children who perform better, so when I got a first grade, I was supported in school. For my entire high school, I studied for free. My mother only bought school requirements, which wasn't a lot of money. I got an opportunity to go to a good school, still in high school, because I knew my background. I knew where I was coming from. I focused on my studies, and I still got good grades. I got a first grade, so that's how we upgrade it. If you perform well, you get a first grade. In Uganda, their education system is the same as that of the UK. In high school, you have to study six years before you go to the university. After my high school, I performed better and had to join the advanced-level high school, which is for two years. I was still lucky. I've always considered myself as a lucky child, I should say in the family.

I performed well, and I got a government sponsorship and joined Makerere University. That was in August 2014. I did a bachelor's degree of Business Administration, and 1 specialized in accounting. At school, I remember in 2016 we had community outreach. Taking you back, by the time I joined my primary, we moved out of the urban slum and went to another small town where my mom and I and my siblings lived. So of course, I remember during my university this community outreach--it's more of giving back to the community, and we had to collect foodstuffs and clothing--and going there, because I grew up there and lived most of my time there. I saw the situation hadn't changed. It was still the same; just how we lived, that's how that situation was. It was really a very distinct experience for me, I should say, because I remembered how we lived, and seeing these people being in the same situation like we were was really disturbing for me. I remember shedding tears and crying, and my friends were asking me, "Lilian, why are you crying?" and I had to tell them that I had lived here, and I knew what these people were really experiencing, having grown up with such an experience firsthand.

When I finished my university and graduated in 2018, I decided to do something and make sure that I changed the experience of women, the experience of children, especially those who struggle so hard to put food on the table for their families. That's how Women Smiles Uganda was born, out of my personal experiences. I do what I do out of passion.

JIA: What was it like to start your organization, Women Smiles? Why did you choose to a found a new organization, as opposed to joining one that was already...