Passionate about West Nile tourism potential

Passion blooms
The love for nature began with her maiden visit to Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) where guides taught them about animals and plants. Subsequently, they participated in an essay writing competition about birds and won themselves a trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park. From then on, her love for nature and wildlife kept on growing.

Her mother was by her side as she engaged in the two passions. Her mother loves dancing agwara, having traditional food at home, using winnowers (ugwethe), so Ondongkara was brought up in a traditional way.

Little did she know that the experiences and exposures were shaping her for a bigger dream that has led her to represent her home town, Zombo as Miss West Nile.

The journey
She went through auditions with eight other contenders for the crown. They reported for boot camp.

“There, we were taken through an intensive training regime which covered various aspects to do with movement (catwalk), poise, more tourism knowledge about our region and we were also given challenges such as marketing the sponsors and we also had a market outreach,” she recalls.

On the final day, they were required to showcase creative attire, talents and tourism knowledge on their respective regions, and the country at large. She had taken the decision to contest because she felt like she wanted to be part of a platform that was promoting tourism in West Nile.

Part of her other motivation was during her study in India, she observed the keenness of Indians on their cultural values in all aspects; their food, dressing and language, which is barely the case in Uganda.

Uganda stands for more than Idi Amin.
“We are a rich country in terms of culture wildlife and nature so this inspired me. I have always felt like we need to love and deliberately promote our country, beautiful nature, our culture, our food, our dressing like kitenge and this will sell us worldwide,” she argues.

So winning the crown was a platform that came as an opportunity through which she could advocate for the above.

Tourism potential of West Nile
“West Nile has got too much tourism potential. First, the known discovered tourism sites are about 41, which include mountains, waterfalls and heritage sites, such as Salia Musala the tripartite point where you get to be in three countries at the same time. We have historical sites such as Wanglei where Gipiir and Labong, our ancestors, separated,” she spells out.

She beams adding, “West Nile has good roads, clean and peaceful sites and we have been exposed due to the success of our strong football team Onduparaka which flew our flag high up to finals at the recently concluded Uganda Cup.”

She argues that tourism is everyone’s business, detailing that it should not be limited to animals and nature. “If we got 1,000 visitors per month and each of them spends $100(Shs3.3m), that would be $100, 000 pumped into the economy of West Nile per month, that can significantly change the economic landscape of the communities,” she observes.

How she promotes West Nile
Odongkara is not paying lip service to promoting tourism, she is using available means to play a part. She is using her Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms and the print platforms to promote tourism.

A story about her winning was published in Daily Monitor. “The fact that the crowning was mentioned and in the West Nile specifically as a region draws attention to West Nile. I have also had interviews on local TV stations where I keep on emphasising the potential tourism opportunities in the #WESTNILE #LETTHEPEARLSHINE,” she adds.

Her plan/wish
To catalyse and generate tourist traffic flow to West Nile to partake of the different touristic opportunities in the region. She would also like to catalyse community tourism through actively engaging the community in harnessing the latent opportunities in the West Nile.

Quick take
Ondongkara is a fresh graduate from Bangalore University where she pursued a bachelor’s degree in Commerce. This fulfilled her childhood aspiration. She had always wanted to do work and business that would enable her travel a lot.

Her hobbies: Riding motorbikes, biking and swimming. As a little girl, Odongkara always admired her late father who used to go on frequent safaris. He would occasionally take along the family.

However, the expedition opportunities were short-lived because he died when Odongkara was young. She took it upon herself to work hard and try to be like him.

In her other life, the beauty queen is an entrepreneur. She manages a kindergarten, Passion For early Childhood Learning in Konge, Bunga. She is one of three girls in her family. She has five brothers.