A Leader amongst 23,000 Grandmothers!

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I'm Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, your host of Wisdom at Work.

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Older women, elder women and grandmothers on the move, the podcast that kicks old stereotypes to the curb.

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Come meet these creative, outrageous, authentic, adventurous, irreverent and powerful disruptors and influencers older women and grandmothers, from the living room to the courtroom, making powerful contributions in every walk of life.

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Welcome back everyone to Wisdom at Work.

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It's wonderful to have you here, and today I have the great pleasure of speaking to someone who has been a deep source of inspiration to me for many, many years.

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Pata Jolly is from Niaka in Uganda.

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You've heard me talk about Niaka before.

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It's a community-based organization that has two elementary schools and a high school.

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It started in Niaka, uganda.

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The school is mostly populated by children who were orphaned by AIDS in the nadir of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, and Niaka has an extraordinary community that has been built up around it.

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I'm going to let Kakajali tell you all of that.

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Kakajali herself is a teacher, and was a teacher for many years, and is a grandmother with five biological children.

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There are five adopted children.

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At the height of the AIDS pandemic there were many other children in your care, also grandchildren to you and 30 grandchildren with more on the way, I understand.

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Yes, yeah.

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And is that?

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Did I have the numbers right?

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Is that right?

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30 grandchildren?

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Yes, you're like the grandmother, extraordinary.

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You're the grandmother not just to your own grandchildren, but to many, many more children at Niaka, but to many, many more children at Niaka, and Kakajali is one of the leaders in Niaka of this, really this whole community of grandmothers that has been born at Niaka and nurtured a movement of grandmothers, over 23,000 grandmothers, 92,000 or more children.

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And so, kakajali, welcome to Wisdom at Work podcast.

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It is a joy to have you here with me.

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It's a pleasure.

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I know that you are a leader and a role model and a matriarch, a maternal figure to so, so many people.

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Where did your journey start?

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Oh, my journey started a long way back, when I first lost my relatives, my brothers and sisters, through HIV AIDS and I'm lucky to have survived.

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So I stood up to take care of these children that were vulnerable, didn't have parents and actually some of them didn't even have grandmothers take care of them.

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So actually I didn't take in only five children, I took in 10 children.

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So I had my five biological children and 10 adopted children.

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So at one time I had 15 children in my house, taking care of them, feeding them, taking them to school, mentoring them, parenting them.

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Don't ask me how I raised that resources.

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That was another miracle.

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But I had the great support of my husband and I want to say thank you to the Lord because all these children have grown, have finished university, have married, they are responsible citizens and they have given me grandchildren and they are still giving me more Now.

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Right now I have about 30 grandchildren, but I'm expecting more grandchildren.

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Wow, now, because I've put my children to school, they've been able to take care of their own children.

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So I'm a privileged grandmother in that I don't have children that I stay with.

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They only come home to visit and go back.

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But when I looked back in the village, I realized there were so many grandmothers struggling with grandchildren, and I once found out that I was a privileged grandmother and so I had to take up the heart of taking care of these grandmothers.

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I had to take up the heart of taking care of these grandmothers, and that is how the story started with me and Jackson in the year 2007, when we started the grandmothers in Nyaka.

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Yeah, and that's when I first had the great gift of meeting all of you.

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And one of the things that has been so hard to imagine and so important about the work that you do and that niyaka does is how did you survive the grief?

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What I've always been amazed at with the grandmothers so many grandmothers is that it isn't like you.

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You lost your children and then you had time to grieve because the next day you had five, ten, fifteen children under a roof, suddenly taking care of these children, when they had never expected to have to raise another whole generation of children.

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How did you and the grandmothers manage through that grief and at the same time, you know, look after all of these children and figure out how to move forward?

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Well, at that time it was very difficult to say you go through different stages of grief because you have these children who are grieving and you're saying you're grieving your relatives, and then you go take up these children.

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It was hard.

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It was hard and I cannot really tell you what happened.

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I just don't know.

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It was a miracle.

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I don't know how, because I kept on taking in more children.

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The 10 children are the ones that I had under my roof, but I had other children that I was supporting outside my roof and what I did had to be, I think, to be more of a support than grieving, because I had these children grieving and I had to give them comfort.

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I had to provide the mother figure to them and I want to thank God that my husband was there to provide the father figure to these children.

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And you know the African setting the children are raised by the village.

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So we had the support system from the relatives.

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At least some of the relatives would come in to say hello, to support and take them for holidays and give them comfort.

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But the big source of aspiration was my husband, that he really stood with me and helped me to support these children.

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We put aside our own grieving because of our own relatives, but then we had the challenge of these children that were grieving, that needed their parental care.

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They needed their love and also mentoring.

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And you know, when you bring in children that are not your own, that you've not bonded with right from the beginning, you've got to struggle.

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So one other thing I had to struggle was try to bond with them, to be their real mother, and it was not easy.

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It was not easy, but the good thing is that in Africa children are raised by the village, so I was not alone.

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So we had the support.

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I even had the support from the church that came in to support me, and so some of the children were going to church and going for youth camps and being mentored by other members.

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And I have a group of mothers union that also came in to support me in parenting skills and all other issues.

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So it wasn't easy.

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It wasn't easy, but God did it for me, yeah.

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And so tell me then, how did it grow from just that you know small group of children and grandmothers to what it is today?

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I mean, the truth is that I think very often when people think about the AIDS pandemic, they're not thinking about grandmothers, right?

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We know that very often the story of the grandmothers is not told.

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So how was it that you came to understand, ewan Jackson and the others, that this was happening everywhere and that there were thousands of grandmothers that needed to come together?

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Yeah, we needed to bring these grandmothers together.

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To start with, we had these grandmothers who were grieving, didn't know what to do with their grandchildren.

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Some of the grandchildren were not going to school, so we thank God that Tiniaka was able to take a few of them.

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One of the things is, in Africa grandmothers do take care of grandchildren but you know, they are not really recognized by the community.

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They are unsung heroes, you know, and sometimes they are not really considered to be all that valuable and yet they have the burden of taking care of the grandchildren.

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So I want to thank God that Stephen Lewis Foundation came in to be able to support us to start that groups and we started in the fewer groups and gathering the grandmothers together, taking them into training.

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Remember, there's a generation gap between the grandmother and the grandchildren.

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So we gave them parenting skills and some of the grandmothers have picked on grandchildren who are HIV positive that were infected by the parents.

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So we had to talk about HIV AIDS to the grandmothers.

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We could talk about ARVs and home-based care and the kind of nutrition that is right for the grandchildren.

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But one other thing is we had to talk about leadership to the grandmothers and this really was an inspiration.

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When they learned about leadership skills, they were able to go back and have an impact in the community they themselves.

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We had a few grandmothers that were able to train, but were able to send these grandmothers back into the community to train not only the grandmothers but all other women, especially in the issues of nutrition, agricultural skills.

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And you know one of the best things that we did we trained them to be change agents.

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And they really went back into the community to be role models, to be opinion leaders, and they've taken up leadership and now the work of grandmothers is now recognized in the community.

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But one of the things that we really was was to give them hope.

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Most of them had lost hope.

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You know like raise the stigma back to them.

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You know having the stigma of losing your child, your children, and now you have grandchildren, and some of them are HIV positive.

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But now they know that ARVs can sustain these grandchildren.

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The only challenge is sometimes they walk at distance to the nearest health center to pick their drugs.

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But that one we have also advocated through the government.

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One of the things is that I'm an advocate of grandmothers, so one of the things we have asked the government to make sure that they stock the drugs in the nearest health centers for these grandmothers, not only for HIV, aids, but all other issues and also non-communicable diseases for the grandmothers.

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But the most inspiring thing is bringing these grandmothers together.

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They sit together, they share their joys and they share their challenges.

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Those who want to cry cry, but those who want to laugh, and one of the things I have told them is try to laugh about eight times a day.

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So when they come together they really sit down and crack jokes and laugh.

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Amazing.

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And why do you think it's important to laugh eight times a day?

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Oh, one of them is to make them keep looking young, get rid of the wrinkles and also take away the stress.

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Take away the stress from them, yeah.

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And I want to hear about that a little bit because I don't think people can even imagine the stress for a lot of these grandmothers.

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They lost their adult children to AIDS and I hear you that now the grandmothers have stepped into roles of leadership and change agents.

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But of course it's still stressful and I wonder you know how are you talking about that?

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What are the kinds of stresses that the grandmothers are dealing with and how does the leadership training help them move to a different place?

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Of course the kind of stress that grandmothers are going through is getting school fees for the children, supporting them at home.

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You know, food, shelter, as you can remember that some of the grandmothers didn't have a proper shelter.

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They didn't have homes, kitchen and petri-trims, and so when Stephen Lewis came in to support and putting up houses for the grandmothers, kitchen and petri-trims, I think that removed a bit of the stress on them.

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And when we also provided agricultural implements like holes, they were able to grow food.

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And also through training, when we trained them into agricultural skills, they now have improved and now also again with a revolving fund that has come into their lives.

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We have a village bank and so the grandmothers are able to borrow money at 1%.

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They are able to do some small business, because one of the things that the grandmothers were actually economically dependent on the children.

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Now the children they were depending on are gone.

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So they really had lost hope, but now we've trained them to be economically independent by doing small businesses, by growing food and into leadership skills and doing crafts, so they're able to earn something that has taken a bit of economic stress on them.

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So I think the grandmother slowly by slowly not all, because poverty is still in there.

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They cannot really meet each and everything that they need, but at least there's something that is in their lives that has changed their mind, their lifestyle.

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And also, when we are training, we are training them to give them life skills, to know what to do and not what to do, and also to know their rights, Because one other thing that was bringing stress in their lives was grabbing of their property.

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You know their grandmothers because she's very old.

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People come and grab the property, come and take away the land and sometimes you find the grandmother is homeless.

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So those are some of the few challenges that we're going through and we're bringing stress.

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But now that we train them about their rights, they're able to stand and be firm on their rights.

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We have even trained them how to write a will, Because some of them were worried that if she dies, what is going to happen to the grandchildren.

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So they're able to write wills and they know that once the grandmother is not there, still their children are secure in their homes.

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So I think those are basically a few things that we try to do to help them to relieve the stress.

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To do are telling them to relieve the stress.

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How many places in the world can you think of where you have so many older women who are stepping into positions of head of household, parent, matriarch, leader in the community?

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Does it change the culture around leadership, around women's leadership?

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For the girls, what do you think is different?

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Kakajole?

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What I know in Uganda, the government at least, is giving in women more opportunity to leadership.

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Now we have the vice president is a woman, the prime minister is a woman we have so many women and then we have the local level leaders that are women.

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But what I know is the grandmothers now worry about the rights of the girls, particularly being, you know, being mentored, being put to school, and I'm glad the grandmothers have grasped this and they are really fighting for it.

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And one of the things that we are fighting is early pregnancies and early marriages, and we have the grandmothers that are really fighting.

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There's a clear awareness about the early marriages and early pregnancies.

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So we have the grandmothers that are really in fighting for the rights of these young girls so they're able to grow, go through school and be able to fight for their own rights.

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I'm glad that at least two or three girls that have gone through Nyaka and finished university and one of them is a lawyer who is fighting for the girls' rights, and I think this is now taking back to Nyaka and to the community.

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It doesn't surprise me that some of the young women who are growing up through Nyaka that they're becoming human rights lawyers and advocates and teachers because they see the grandmothers in these positions of leadership.

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It must make them proud of their grandmothers and I wonder how do you see grandmothers as different leaders than other leaders in the community?

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Well, the unfortunate thing, most of the grandmothers are not educated.

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But what we did, one of the things, was to train them so that they're able to gain self-esteem and self-confidence, and because they have that, it has helped them to go into leadership.

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But the only challenge is that they're not able to read and write, and those who are able to read and write cannot speak English.

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They cannot use the local language, so the leadership is only limited within the communities.

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They cannot go outside the communities to influence other grandmothers.

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But the good thing is that over 23,000 grandmothers are in three districts Kanunguru, konjiri and Rwanda and so we are spreading.

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We are just praying Me and Jackson.

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We are just dreaming.

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We said we wish we could have groups of grandmothers in every other district.

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I'm glad because I am a member of the Grandmothers Consortium, the chairperson, and we are also coordinating the other five groups that are still in the foundation support to advocate for grandmothers' rights and in the process, when you advocate for grandmothers' rights, we're able to reach out to grandmothers.

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It's still in them that self-confidence and self-esteem and personal development they're able to stand firm and be able to speak within their communities and impact kind of leadership in them.

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One of the things is that they mobilize their grandmothers and do their training, the training we give to them.

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They take it back and train the grandmothers, those who are not able to have the opportunity to come for that training.

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Then one other thing is that there are government programs that are going on.

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We have what we call NADs that one gives out, like seeds for planting and other agricultural skills and so forth.

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So these grandmother leaders do mobilize fellow grandmothers to go into these government programs.

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One other thing is, of course they mobilize them like when we had the COVID pandemic, they had to mobilize them to go for vaccination and, of course, keep on talking about HIV, aids and the other things and one of the things they do is train their fellow grandmothers into proper feeding and home-based care.

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So that is the kind of thing they are doing within.

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So they actually are role models within the community, opinion leaders and trainers within the community, much as they may not be able to speak English, but because they are within the community they're able to speak the same language.

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So they have that impact on them.

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Yes, I know in the early days of the pandemic it was so important when the grandmothers were able to start speaking about HIV and AIDS and speaking about protection and prevention and good health and I know that you had a lot to do with that for grandmothers to be talking about this and to be raising awareness.

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Well, at the beginning some of them didn't believe it was HIV and AIDS.

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It's a kind of thing that was killing the children.

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They didn't believe it was HIV AIDS.

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It's a kind of thing that was killing the children.

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They couldn't believe seeing a son dying and then their wife dying Everybody, so they believed it was witchcraft.

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Until we came into training and creating awareness about this HIV AIDS and the causes and the symptoms that they are now aware.

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So that myth has gone.

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Actually, one of the things that we are doing in the training was domestic violence.

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Now we came into gender violence and there is a big problem with gender violence and they have really open rooms for counseling.

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Actually, last year we had a walk, so one of the towns create awareness about gender-based violence and many people turned up.

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They are aware we have people who follow up people who are perpetrators in the case of violence and they are taken to court or the police.

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But what is important is that we have these counseling rooms with trained counselors that if you are going through gender-based violence issues, you're able to walk into this room and you're going for counselling negates.

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So they have opened about three spaces for them, which is a really great work that I appreciate about Nyaka.

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And do you find that there's been a change in attitudes amongst the grandmothers, just in terms of having these conversations between themselves, not just with the younger generation, but also the grandmothers themselves?

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yeah, it has changed the attitude one, some of them actually but we are still struggling with young women who are still staying in abusive relationships because of economic dependence on the husbands.

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So those are the challenges that we have at the moment.

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We have a few of them.

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They cannot come out, they cannot report to the police because they are surviving and depending on the husbands, especially economic dependence, because they have nowhere to go.

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But we are creating that awareness and we are trying to instill that confidence in them that they need to report.

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But on top of that, even half of men also are being abused.

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For them they are very quiet, they are not talking.

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But all in all, I think that that program in Nyaka is really doing great, not only within the Nyaka setting but also within the community.

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There aren't so many places to hear about this and learn about this, but can you tell me how did the grandmothers manage through COVID?

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What were the challenges for the grandmothers and how did they overcome them as a community?

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Because then you have two intersecting pandemics you have HIV and you have COVID, and you have the grandmothers who you know.

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Part of the strength of Niaca and for the children and for the grandmothers, was the ability to come together in communities.

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So how did everybody manage through the pandemic?

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Now, one good thing is the government was very fast on trying to cover the pandemic by stopping people's movements and of course the biggest pandemic was within the cities and towns.

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So they stopped people from moving from cities and towns to their villages.

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The pandemic did affect them, but one good thing is that we were able to train them, talk to the grandmothers about the pandemic and about the use of masks.

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Actually, we had to make masks for the grandmothers and also talk to them about not gathering.

00:23:23.769 --> 00:23:25.795
So we stopped the grandmothers gatherings.

00:23:25.795 --> 00:23:32.013
That time we were not meeting as groups and also limiting the movements.

00:23:32.895 --> 00:23:39.554
And when the vaccination came into place, we quickly mobilized the grandmothers to go for vaccination.

00:23:39.554 --> 00:23:52.615
But the good thing is we didn't have serious issues of pandemic in the villages because the government was quick to stop the movements of people from the city where the pandemic had started.

00:23:52.615 --> 00:24:05.674
There were no movements, no buses, no transport, nothing, so people could not mix up but also creating awareness within the groups, within the community and within the church setting.

00:24:05.674 --> 00:24:09.114
And of course we stopped the church meetings as well.

00:24:09.114 --> 00:24:18.356
There were no Sunday services, there were no other meetings, but we praise God that we didn't lose a grandmother through COVID.

00:24:19.365 --> 00:24:22.214
Wow, that's remarkable Not one grandmother how amazing.

00:24:22.214 --> 00:24:24.452
I want to ask you what you see for the future.

00:24:24.452 --> 00:24:29.974
I know that you have big plans and big dreams to reach many, many, many more grandmothers across Uganda.

00:24:29.974 --> 00:24:33.792
What is the struggle now, and what is it that needs to happen next?

00:24:34.165 --> 00:24:46.790
One of the good things I see about the future is that most grandmothers have been trained, much as we have lost also a lot of grandmothers because of old age, but we have young grandmothers coming in and they are being trained.

00:24:46.790 --> 00:25:02.895
We have grandchildren that are going to school and there is hope for the grandchildren we now have children that are not going to school and the fact that we have opened the village bank an opportunity for economic independence for these grandmothers.

00:25:02.895 --> 00:25:07.496
You know, in Uganda, in Africa, you can be a grandmother at age 30.

00:25:07.496 --> 00:25:14.044
If you had a baby at 16 and your child also gets a baby at around 16, you're a grandmother at age 32.

00:25:14.547 --> 00:25:30.676
The good thing is we have a lot of young grandmothers in the program that look at the pricing and, I think, are very self-reliant when it comes to economic independence and they are very focused about sending children to school, grandchildren to school.

00:25:30.676 --> 00:25:43.451
So I can see there is a future, a bright future, but the issue is probably the funding that is reducing and therefore less programs for the grandmothers and the grandchildren.

00:25:43.451 --> 00:26:07.435
But otherwise I can see there's a big change compared to how we started and where we are now A drastic change, a drastic change the grandmothers are now able to do something on their own Better homes built for them, and those who don't have better homes are now beginning to add something they can also put on their own homes, put up their own homes.

00:26:07.435 --> 00:26:15.494
But what is important is now more children going to school and I think I can see a brighter generation to come.

00:26:16.017 --> 00:26:16.417
Beautiful.

00:26:30.191 --> 00:26:34.092
And, in terms of that brighter future, what lies ahead for Nyaka?

00:26:34.092 --> 00:26:34.673
What's next?

00:26:34.673 --> 00:26:38.673
That is because we have so many grandmothers out there.

00:26:38.673 --> 00:26:49.638
When you remember the gathering we had in Entebbe 2015, with all about 500 grandmothers they didn't belong to Nyaka alone or other groups.

00:26:49.638 --> 00:27:00.223
We had gathered them from different groups, different districts, and they went back home hoping that we are going to reach them out again and we have not reached them out again.

00:27:00.223 --> 00:27:02.962
Some of them are even calling me saying what happened.

00:27:02.962 --> 00:27:08.348
We have our groups here and we need training, we need revolving fun and so forth.

00:27:08.348 --> 00:27:20.349
So the future is if we could reach out to a grandmother in Uganda, then there will be a proper future for the grandchildren, because most of the grandchildren are in the hands of grandmothers.

00:27:20.349 --> 00:27:25.102
We don't have only the ones who are orphans, but we also have who are vulnerable.

00:27:25.102 --> 00:27:35.607
So that is one of the challenges that we have, but if we had really proper funding and support, I would see a bright future for the grandmothers, and that is my prayer.

00:27:35.607 --> 00:27:36.307
Yes, that's a beautiful vision.

00:27:36.307 --> 00:27:37.028
That is my prayer.

00:27:37.048 --> 00:27:39.111
Yes, that's a beautiful vision.

00:27:39.111 --> 00:27:46.439
If you reach all the grandmothers in Uganda, then for sure we know that the quality of life for the children will improve.

00:27:46.439 --> 00:27:47.779
And for the grandmothers?

00:27:47.779 --> 00:27:53.631
What is it that changes for them If all of them get reached by the kind of programs that you do?

00:27:53.631 --> 00:27:56.060
With 23,000 grandmothers at Nyaka, what does that do in the community?

00:27:56.726 --> 00:28:26.190
So if we really reach every grandmother throughout the country, we'll see a brighter future for the whole country, with grandchildren going to school, turning up to be responsible citizens, Even if they don't finish university, but if they finished like a tertiary institute and they're able to gain the skills and they're able to manage to gain something and something on their own where the skills they learn, Because not every child that goes into university that will really survive.

00:28:26.190 --> 00:28:37.471
We have those that are going into tailoring schools, into plumbing and so forth, that they can do something on their own to earn a living.

00:28:37.471 --> 00:28:44.974
If we could reach out to grandmothers, then we'll reach out to our grandchildren and we'll get a better future and responsible citizens in the country.

00:28:45.325 --> 00:28:45.747
Beautiful.

00:28:45.747 --> 00:28:46.832
I love that vision.

00:28:46.832 --> 00:28:48.510
I hope that it comes true one day.

00:28:48.510 --> 00:28:57.249
But also, you know, I feel like if it's in your hands and Jackson's hands and the hands of the children and the grandmothers in Niaka, it has a better chance of coming true.

00:28:57.249 --> 00:29:01.877
You must have built so much knowledge about how do you build a whole movement of grandmothers.

00:29:01.877 --> 00:29:05.227
It's really extraordinary.

00:29:05.227 --> 00:29:08.470
We have to make sure that the story of your life is written in a book.

00:29:08.849 --> 00:29:10.432
Yes, I'm writing a book.

00:29:10.432 --> 00:29:14.935
Yes, I'm not sure when it will come out, but soon I think.

00:29:14.935 --> 00:29:16.857
Maybe this year that book will come out.

00:29:17.238 --> 00:29:18.500
Beautiful, beautiful.

00:29:18.500 --> 00:29:19.279
I can't wait.

00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:26.032
I cannot wait Because there are so many lessons to learn from you, kakajoli, and it's always such a pleasure to speak to you.

00:29:26.032 --> 00:29:27.678
I thank you so much for your time.

00:29:27.678 --> 00:29:29.711
When your book comes out, I want to speak to you again.

00:29:29.924 --> 00:29:31.872
Okay, it will be a pleasure.

00:29:31.872 --> 00:29:41.578
Thank you, ilana, for considering to talk to me and, please, special greetings to the Stimulus Foundation family and, on behalf of the grandmothers, we say thank you.

00:29:42.067 --> 00:29:50.869
God bless you and to you too, kakajoli, I'm Ilana Lansford-Lewis, your host of Wisdom at Work, older women, elder women and grandmothers on the move.

00:29:50.869 --> 00:30:02.366
To find out more about me or the podcast, you can go to wisdomatworkpodcastcom, formerly grandmothers on the move, and you can find the podcast at all your favorite places to listen to them.

00:30:02.366 --> 00:30:03.589
Tune in next week.

00:30:03.589 --> 00:30:04.692
Thanks and bye.

00:30:04.692 --> 00:30:05.192
Bye for now.