Eunice Lubega is why we should be ashamed by how little we know about ourselves

I didn’t know about Eunice until my wife talked about her a while back. We talked about her again, about a week ago, in a conversation with a friend, Awel Uwihanganye. Awel is widely respected for his public-spirited work in the leadership development and mentorship spheres. We were congratulating him on having successfully led the team which delivered an elaborate and befitting celebration for Makerere University’s 100-year celebration. And that’s how Eunice came up.

In recent times, Makerere University has done a commendable job of immortalising some key historical figures associated with it. Yet it still feels like such a travesty that there is no monument or programme at the Makerere University, named after its first female graduate.

Granted, they can’t name every road, building and centre after the hundreds of thousands of illustrious alumni that have walked through their gates. There is simply not enough room to go around. But there has got to be room for her, at the very least, in its folklore.

The feat is not her only claim to fame. She went on to Oxford, returned and taught at Gayaza High school and Lubiri Secondary School; was appointed Director of Women’s Education, became the first African President of the Uganda Association of University Women, and founded a pioneer women’s rights organization. She also set up a scholarship fund for brilliant girls who went through her Alma mater.

The fact that her story feels like a footnote in the history of Makerere University, and in that of the women’s movement is telling of what is wrong with our formal and informal education systems. Your average American can tell you their lineage going back four or five generations, and how they came to settle in whatever state it is that they now call home.

It is common practice for them to tell you how old a building is, who designed it, which famous tenants have lived or been hosted there, and how many times it has changed ownership – all this sometimes going as far back as 200 years ago. Harvard gives tours of its campus, resplendent with stories about every building. You can also tell who their first graduand was, even if that was close to 400 years ago.

Government buildings give you tours and the guides will know details of who designed the furniture, what bill was the first to be debated or passed by council, or what dessert was served on the night before the order to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki was issued. And this is before you get into school.

It is commonplace in public debate to hear complaints about Uganda’s curriculum and how it is laden with “foreign content that is (apparently) irrelevant.” But where is our own history and what are we doing to keep it alive? You can’t visit State House unless you have a deal. Can’t take a photo of a government building unless you want to get arrested. How many of us are talking to and/or about our grandparents and their grandparents and working to preserve their memories? Many of our schools wouldn’t even tell you who the first student to enroll was or bother with legacy tours as part of their public service and relations offering.

Your average parent wouldn’t know and tell their children how their forefathers came to settle in the places that they now call home. We have got to look at the stories of Sarah Ntiro and Eunice Lubega and Frank Kalimuzo and Joseph Mubiru and wonder how they can prompt us to immortalize people in our families, our businesses and communities. If we build a critical mass around this, it should then be easy to formalize and take it into our schools and curriculum.

Benjamin Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless Minds. [email protected]