They were not waiting for a donor to fund the work
In Hima, a small Ugandan town, a generation of young activists has quietly revived an ancient practice of communal labor — rebuilding homes for the elderly, clearing plastic from streets, and organizing neighbors without waiting for a government check or a donor's approval. Their work echoes the self-reliant spirit that once carried a liberation movement to power, a spirit that the movement itself later abandoned in favor of foreign dependency. What stirs in Hima is not merely civic volunteerism but a philosophical reclamation: the idea that a people's capacity to shape their own world does not require permission from the outside.
- Uganda has drifted into a deep culture of waiting — for donor funds, NGO grants, and politician-led ribbon-cuttings — while roads crumble and plastic accumulates in neighborhoods that communities could clean themselves.
- The historical irony cuts sharply: the NRM won a liberation war on the strength of citizen sacrifice and self-reliance, then spent four decades dismantling that very spirit once in power.
- Each month, PLU youth drive 350 kilometers from Kampala to Hima, mobilizing over a hundred residents to repair roads, remove waste, and rebuild the collapsed homes of elderly neighbors — entirely without external funding.
- Their work resurrects omuhiigo, a pre-colonial Batooro tradition of collective public labor, proving that the cultural infrastructure for self-organization never fully disappeared — it was only made to wait.
- The unresolved question now is whether this grassroots flame can spread beyond Hima, offering Uganda a path out of structural dependency before the next generation inherits the same passive posture toward its own future.
On a Saturday in early May, a minibus arrived in Hima, Kasese District, carrying young activists from Kampala who had traveled 350 kilometers to do what they do every month: clear plastic, repair roads, and rebuild homes damaged by wind and rain. This time, more than a hundred community members joined them. The homes they reconstructed were modest mud-and-wattle structures belonging to elderly women whose shelters had collapsed. There was no government funding, no NGO grant, no politician present. There was only the decision that the work needed doing.
The activists belong to PLU, a movement inspired by a call to community service. What animated their effort was something older than any political movement — a Batooro practice called omuhiigo, the mobilization of neighbors for collective public works, known as burungi bwensi: the welfare of the community. For decades, this spirit had withered. Ugandans had learned to wait — for state money, for donor projects, for a politician to claim credit. The country had become, in the words of one observer, one continuous garbage dump, not from lack of capacity but from learned helplessness.
The historical irony is profound. When Museveni led the NRM into the bush in the early 1980s, he had no foreign patron, no mineral wealth, no way to pay his fighters. He had only an idea: that Ugandans could liberate themselves. Thousands answered, giving children, emptying granaries, offering sanctuary. The NRM won because it mobilized citizens to shape their own destiny.
Yet in power, the movement abandoned that strategy entirely. Over four decades, the government became dependent on foreign aid, foreign expertise, and foreign investment while Ugandan capital was sidelined. Politicians won elections by delivering external funding rather than organizing local effort. Citizens became passive recipients of international charity.
The Hima youth understood what the state had forgotten: many things Ugandans genuinely cannot do alone — but many others require only organization and the willingness to show up on a Saturday morning. In reviving a practice that predates both the NRM and the colonial state, they raised a question that extends far beyond one small town: whether Uganda might recover, in pockets and then more broadly, the self-reliance that once moved a people to risk everything for their own liberation.
On a Saturday in early May, a minibus pulled into Hima, a small industrial town in Kasese District, carrying young activists who had driven 350 kilometers from Kampala. They had come to do what they do every month on the last Saturday: clear plastic from their neighborhoods, repair roads, and rebuild homes damaged by weather. This time, they had mobilized more than a hundred people from their community to join them. The houses they rebuilt were simple structures of mud and wattle, not architectural statements. What mattered was the work itself—the fact that when an elderly neighbor's home collapsed in wind and rain, these young people organized their neighbors to reconstruct it. They did the same for two other elderly women in similar circumstances. No government funding. No NGO grant. No politician's ribbon-cutting ceremony. Just people deciding their community needed help and providing it.
The activists belong to PLU, a movement that answered a call from General Muhoozi Kainerugaba to engage in community service. What struck the observer who visited Hima that day was not the sophistication of what they were doing but the spirit animating it. The work echoed an old Batooro practice called omuhiigo—a mobilization of community members to undertake public works for the collective good, what they called burungi bwensi, the beauty or welfare of the community. For decades, such practices had withered in Uganda. Roads crumbled without community effort to maintain them. Plastic accumulated in neighborhoods. The expectation had calcified: every problem, no matter how small, should wait for government money or a politician's intervention. The country had become, in effect, one continuous garbage dump, not because Ugandans lacked the capacity to clean it but because they had learned to wait.
This erosion of self-reliance represented a profound historical irony. When Yoweri Museveni led the National Resistance Movement into the bush to fight Milton Obote's government in the early 1980s, he possessed almost nothing that conventional military analysis would consider essential. He had no foreign patron bankrolling his struggle, unlike rebel movements in Angola and Mozambique that received CIA and South African support. He had no access to mineral wealth. He could not pay his fighters. He could not house them or reliably feed them. What he offered instead was an idea—that Ugandans could liberate themselves from political tyranny and economic domination by foreign institutions. Thousands answered. They abandoned education, left families, quit jobs, closed businesses. In the Luwero Triangle, where the struggle was centered, ordinary people gave their children as soldiers, emptied their granaries to feed rebels, provided intelligence on government troop movements, and offered sanctuary in their homes. The NRM won not because it had superior resources but because it mobilized the commitment of Ugandans to shape their own destiny.
Yet when the NRM came to power, it abandoned this strategy entirely. Over four decades, the government transformed itself from an organization dependent on its citizens for liberation into one dependent on foreigners for nearly everything except national defense. Instead of collecting taxes and building a state accountable to its own people, the NRM sought to reconstruct the economy through foreign aid, foreign direct investment, and foreign expertise. Ugandan capital was not merely ignored; it was actively sidelined and sometimes deliberately destroyed. Foreign experts took over policy-making in ministries while Ugandans were pushed to the margins. A culture of dependence metastasized. Today, even in remote areas, people wait for government through donor-funded projects or NGOs dispensing foreign money. Politicians win elections by claiming credit for bringing external funding to their communities. Ugandans became passive recipients of international charity rather than active participants in their own economic emancipation.
What made the Hima youth remarkable was that they were swimming against this current. They understood something the state had forgotten: there are many things Ugandans cannot do alone because the country is poor and therefore genuinely needs foreign assistance. But there are also many things Ugandans can do by and for themselves without waiting for the state or foreigners. These things require only community effort, organization, and the willingness to show up on a Saturday morning. The Hima activists had revived a cultural practice that predated the NRM, that predated the colonial state, that belonged to Uganda itself. They were not waiting for a donor to fund neighborhood cleanup. They were not waiting for a government contract to rebuild an elderly person's home. They were doing the work because it needed doing and because their community was capable of doing it. The question their example raised was whether this spirit could spread—whether Uganda might recover, in pockets and then more broadly, the self-reliance that had once moved thousands to risk everything for a vision of their own liberation.
Citações Notáveis
There are many things Ugandans can do by and for ourselves without the aid of foreigners or even the state. And we can do these through community effort.— Andrew M. Mwenda, columnist
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What struck you most about meeting these young people in Hima?
The ordinariness of it, actually. They weren't waiting for permission or funding. They just decided their neighborhood needed cleaning and their elderly neighbors needed help, and they organized people to do it. No ceremony, no external validation required.
But why does this matter so much that you traveled 350 kilometers to write about it?
Because it's a direct challenge to how Uganda has learned to function. We've built a system where people wait for government or NGOs to solve problems. These youth are saying: we can solve some of our own problems. And they're doing it.
You draw a line back to the NRM's liberation struggle. Isn't that comparison a bit grand for neighborhood cleanup?
Not really. The NRM won because ordinary Ugandans believed they could liberate themselves. They sacrificed enormously. Then the government that came to power abandoned that belief entirely—it started depending on foreigners instead of citizens. The Hima youth are recovering that original faith.
So you're saying the government betrayed its own founding principle?
I'm saying it made a choice. After 1986, instead of building a state accountable to Ugandan taxpayers, it relied on foreign aid and foreign expertise. That created a culture where people stopped believing they could do things for themselves.
Can this Hima model actually scale across the country?
That's the real question. The spirit can spread if people see it working and if leaders promote it instead of hoarding credit for external projects. But it requires something the current system actively discourages: faith in Ugandan capacity.