Clerics, teachers support civic education in Bunyoro
The clergy and educationists in Bunyoro Sub-region have pledged to strengthen their working relationship with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in all civic empowerment programmes conducted.
The cleric promised to participate in community sensitisation efforts to ensure people’s capacity is at the frontline for the protection of their rights in legally recommended mechanisms.
The pledge was made during a religious leaders and education stakeholders’ review meeting organised by Community Driven Network Uganda (CODNET) at Kolping Hotel in Hoima municipality.
The Rev. Francis Barongo from Bunyoro-Kitara Anglican Diocese who is Bunyoro Inter-religious Council (BIREC), General Secretary said religious leaders have every reason to support civic empowerment since it promotes service delivery and resultantly leveling a ground for sustainable development.
However, Barongo called upon CODNET Uganda to timely and adequately facilitate the frontline volunteers to keep their scale up.
“Sometimes our volunteers fail to travel to the field for sensitisation when facilitation is not released as expected,” he observed.
According to Rev. Barongo, such motivation is important in line with the Memorandum of Understanding they signed with CODNET Uganda early this year.
Distribution of the teaching aids to all trained volunteer educators was identified as one of the major requirements for the way forward.
Adolf Kato, the Masindi District Deputy Education Officer cum Focal Person for District Education Officers under the Civic Education Working Groups noted that CODNET has contributed a lot in improving service delivery in the district’s education department through civic empowerment.
“Parents and learners have become active monitors for teachers. They can assertively question when a teacher fails to teach than earlier before when they looked at government workers as bosses than servants. I really appreciate CODNET for this project,” he said.
Bosco Nek, the Programme Officer for CODNET Uganda commended civic educators for their role towards empowering the community. He encouraged them to continue offering voluntary work.
Responding to delayed and limited facilitation, Nek urged the participants to adopt technologically dynamic upcoming fund transfer mechanisms that sometimes cause delays in release of transport refund.
“These days, most funders prefer electronic transfer to individual participants compared to the past when we could move with cash. This is done for transparency and convenience reasons,” Nek said.
The mechanisms include mobile money and Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT).
CODNET Uganda has been working closely with education and religious stakeholders to promote civic education with a central objective of promoting awareness on respect to human rights and appreciating the rights and responsibilities in human rights defence and better public service delivery since the year started.
