The First Lady and Minister of Karamoja Affairs Hon. Mrs. Janet Museveni has urged parents to provide effective parental care and guidance for their children and fight hard to counter the adverse foreign influences that the children are absorbing at a very tender and impressionable age through such media as television and the internet.

She said children and young adults have been mostly influenced by the advent of foreign cultures and lifestyles because the families have failed to instilled in them the traditional culture and behavioral norms as it used to be in the past.

Mrs. Janet Museveni was speaking during the closing ceremony of the 9th ‘Ekisaakaate kya Nnabagereka’ at St. Lawrence Citizen High School-Crown City Campus in Mpigi District
She pointed out the dangerous trend propping up in the country where young girls get sexually active and end up getting pregnant.

“Indeed, we are beginning to witness the danger of letting our young people grow up in complete ignorance of the good that is contained in their traditions and cultures. For example, there is a disturbing trend in Uganda today of very young girls becoming sexually active at a very early age and becoming prematurely pregnant,” Janet Museveni said.

“This trend can be directly linked to a careless home upbringing of our children who do not receive timely instruction and caution about the dangers and taboos of illicit sexual activities. Such instruction must be given by the family while the pre-puberty child is still entirely in the hands of her parents”, she said.

The First Lady appealed to Ugandans to resist the foreign dominance that is detriment to our children.

She commended Sylvia Naginda, also the founder of Nnabagereka Development Foundation (NDF), for bridging the gap by teaching traditional values and culture to the children through the Ekisaakaate which innovation she described as a value- addition to the development of the nation’s children.

“I want to take this opportunity to urge all other regions of Uganda to borrow a leaf from what the Nnabagereka has done for the Buganda region and take the trouble to supplement the school curriculum with their own efforts at instructing the young in the virtues and positive values of their own culture and languages,” she stated.

“This is an effort which cannot be undertaken by the government but must rather spring from a personal and voluntary concern about filling the gap that is so evident in the upbringing and nurturing of the children of this nation.”

Mrs. Museveni encouraged Ugandans of all walks of life to embrace the Children’s camp because the future well-being of this nation depends on giving our children this good foundation.

The Ekisaakaate, a brain child of the Nnabagereka of Buganda Kingdom Sylvia Naginda, is a children skills training camp which brings together children of the Buganda region and others from cultures whose parents are interested in them learning primarily the kiganda culture and other inclusive good human ethical behaviours.

Nnabagereka Naginda emphasized the importance of character development in early childhood saying that through the Ekisaakaate they instill values and help to build well-behaved children with strong characters.

She encouraged parents to always talk to their children and work with the Ekisaakaate facilitators to support their children embrace what they are taught during the two weeks holiday training.

She said that Ekisaakaate programme is now being implemented in some schools and also for children in the diaspora with one already done in Canada and others planned for the United States of America, United Kingdom, Sweden and South Africa.

She also informed people of the plan to start construction of the Ekisaakaate Headquarters in Ssisa Wakiso District this year, which will be called “The Royal Enclosure Youth Center of Excellence” (Ekisaakate Kya Nnabagereka), and called for their support.

Other people who spoke during the ceremony were the Speaker of Buganda’s Lukiiko Nelson Kawalya who represented the Kattikiro of Buganda, the Chairperson of Ekisaakaate kya Nnabagereka Board Kabuuza Mukasa, the Chief Executive Officer Nnabagereka Development Foundation Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and the Principal St Lawrence Schools and Colleges Professor Lawrence Mukiibi

The First Lady and other guests were entertained by the children who displayed traditional values they had been taught during the two weeks camp.