About Lilian Nalubwama

Lilian Nalubwama was my inspiration to start Peterpol Friends of Jesus Disabled Foundation.

 

Lilian Nalubwana is a girl who inspired Rev. Fr. Peter Kaboggoza to fall in love with empowering the disabled, especially the Deaf to become self-reliant and sustainable. Peter is the son of the late Henry Lutaaya and Teopista Namukwaya Lutaaya. Peter is the ninth of their 11 children, the last born of the five boys. Peter’s love for the deaf is an inspiration from his father who had a passion for the disadvantaged and oppressed.

 

The story starts when Peter’s third-born sister Rosette Lutaaya is introduced (traditional marriage by bridal price) by the man of her dreams. God blessed them with two Children Lilian Nalubwama and Alex Ntege Lubwama. However, the happy marriage fellow apart Lilian is part of the problem. Lilian was born a happy and healthy girl at six months and things fell apart due to her sickness. At six months Lilian developed malaria but due to delayed diagnosis, she developed cerebral malaria which was managed with the intervention of Quinine. Unfortunately, she developed tinnitus and subsequently cinchonize with permanent hearing loss but no one detected it until she was nine months.

 

Our home is 15 minutes from Entebbe International Airport, that happy afternoon the grandchildren were visiting their grandparents and were playing in the courtyard while their grandfather was watching them, being near the airport the army helicopter happened to fly past our home at a low range, all the grandchildren run to the house crying but Lilian remained playing as if nothing happened. This instance caught my father’s attention and asked my sister to take Lilian to a big hospital for a diagnosis. When they took her to Mulago referral hospital the doctors discovered that Lilian was deaf. The good news was that even when she had become deaf the diagnosis did not indicate brain damage. The doctors gave her mother forms to introduce Lilian to Ntinda School of the Deaf the only primary school for the deaf at that time started by President Idi Amin but run by the whites.

 

When they went to Ntinda School of the Deaf, they were advised to bring her back to school when she was three years old. They were admitted and asked to bring Lilian three days a week until she turned five to start kindergarten. The wisdom behind this was to allow the parents to learn Ugandan Sign Language since they had no idea how to communicate with their children since deafness was something new to parents. During that time, we got to know another family in our village with a deaf girl called Ruth Nansubuga daughter of Margate Nalubowa. The two mothers bonded and started to take their daughters to Ntinda School of the Deaf three days a week until they were five and got admitted to the boarding section. They did their primary there from kindergarten to primary seven. The beginning was smooth until their fourth year, when the whites handed the school back to the indigenous Ugandans which caused a huge setback. The students were required to pay tuition which wasn’t the case when the Whites were in charge, everything was free. This became a challenge and Lilian’s mother ended up losing her marriage as well.

 

Mr. Lutaaya’s family took over the responsibility of taking care of Lilian, her brother, and her mother after the divorce. With assistance from the Lutaaya family, she managed to finish her primary level and received a certificate in the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE). After PLE there was no high school for her to continue her studies, the only alternative was to go to Kenya a neighboring country that offered Secondary Level studies. Lilian together with her classmates passed PLE and were admitted to Mumias School of the Deaf in Kenya. Since many of them were of a poor background they never made it to Kenya apart from the six lucky ones who managed to enroll in Mumias School of the Deaf and Lilian was one of the six. The visit to Mr. Lutaaya Henry a board member of Kisubi Catholic Hospital by the Hospital administrator Sr Ann Christine Kizza who eventually became the Mother General of her congregation Immaculate Heart of Mary Reparatrix-Ggogoya for 12 years paved her opportunity to continue with her studies at Mumias in Kenya when she offered to pay for her tuition and the family took care of the other school requirements and transportation to Kenya.

 

Fr. Peter was still a seminarian and was given the responsibility of accompanying the deaf girls to Mumias Kenya to help them cross the border and make sure they reported to school and was in charge of their safe return to Uganda for vacation. This encounter sparked off a deeper love for the Deaf by Fr. Peter and became part of their lives up to date. Experiencing their challenges firsthand prompted Fr. Peter to think outside the box on how to better educate the less privileged, especially the deaf to become self-reliant.

 

The scholarship lasted up to form four, after finishing senior four from Mumias they had nowhere to continue with their education, but because they were bright students YWCA-Vocational Training Institute in Uganda admitted her for a diploma in tailoring and design, but it is an institute for the hearing, the family took on the full responsibility again. After receiving her diploma Lilian got a job teaching tailoring but she was taken advantage of and they never paid her simply because she was deaf and had no one to advocate for her. She returned home and started to make sweaters and tailoring with her mother.

 

When Peter became a deacon in 2010, he gathered the deaf girls at his father’s home and started to organize them to work as a group and they started to teach other deaf girls the skills of knitting and tailoring. In 2011 Peter was ordained a priest, and in 2012 he registered the group as a Community Based Organization (CBO) to empower the disabled in the names of Peterpol Friends of Jesus Disable Foundation which is a non-profit 501(c) Charity dedicated to the education and empowering Persons with Disabilities especially the Deaf.

 

In 2015 he was allowed to go for studies in Education Leadership and Administration in Boston College USA where he did a master’s, and a certificate in Serving persons with disabilities in Catholic Schools. In 2018 he got another opportunity to do his doctorate in Education Leadership and Policy studies. His research topic is, “How the Educators have Served and Supported Deaf Students in Uganda.” He started Peter and Paul Skills Training Centre which equips the disabled with various skills like tailoring, computer skills, knitting, crafting, candle and sweater making to mention but a few.

 

Lilian is part of the teaching staff in charge of knitting. She got married to a deaf husband who is part of the production unit of sweaters, and they have three hearing children. Two girls and one boy. Many deaf people have benefited from this foundation program because of Lilian. More than 50 deaf boys and girls have been empowered to become self-reliant. More are being empowered to make sure that they are empowered to be relevant and self-reliant. A lot of support is still needed for this dream to became true, many persons with disabilities in Uganda have no one to advocate for them. I call upon all the people of goodwill to be part of this noble cause through volunteering, donations, prayers and in any way possible. “Never see a need and do nothing about it.”