Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) celebrated 10 years of empowering women and women organizations through the use of ICTs on 1^st and 2^nd June 2010 at Hotel Africana in Kampala, Uganda. Among the activities to mark the celebrations, was a one week SMS awareness campaign which took place from 24^th to 29^th May 2010, a two day exhibition and a one day symposium.           

In attendance was Mr. Ambrose Ruyoka, Commissioner, Ministry of ICT, who represented the Honorable State Minister of ICT Hon. Alintuma Nsambu during the celebration. He congratulated WOUGNET for the 10 years achievements and pledged to support her in her future work.

The SMS Campaign:

The SMS awareness campaign which was one of the key activities to mark the 10^th anniversary took place from 24^th to 29^th May 2010. Its purpose was to inform the members, partners and general public about WOUGNET’s activities and programs. A summary of the SMSes sent out was posted online.

The Exhibition:

This took place for two days during the celebrations. A number of WOUGNET members and partners exhibited and these were ACFODE, EASSI, NAWOU, Isis-WICCE, EACOSS, NVIWODA, Gabula Atudde, Radio Apac Ltd, Uganda Stove Manufacturer Ltd, Uganda Communications Commission, Slum Aid Project , FAWE, Kubere Information Center(KIC), Text to Change among others.

Just before the presentations, WOUGNET had a press conference with participants asking a number of questions about WOUGNET. The day’s session was moderated by Mr. Danny Gotto, WOUGNET’s fundraising manager. During the exhibition we had presentations from Ms. Ednah Karamagi of BROSDI who shared on the “Role of ICTs for Development”, another presentation came in from Mr. Joseph Kizito of Uganda Communications Commission who talked about “Consumer rights and protection in Uganda" in regard to Information and communication. We also had a presentations from Mr. Willlem from Text to Change on what they do with mobile technology. Mr. Sean Blaschke from UNICEF who presented on what UNICEF does in relation to mobile health. Another from Liaton Namutebi, from the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (FCIT), Makerere University shared about OpenXData project, also a mobile technology project. And finally, we had our very own Javie Ssozi, Maureen Agena and Milton Aineruhanga talking about the different ICTs used at WOUGNET for Information sharing, Networking and Advocacy Purposes. Some of the tools included the websites, SMS campaigns, Facebook and Tweeter accounts, dgroups and the various mailing lists among others.  Mr. Sean does in relation to

The Symposium:

The three WOUGNET program heads (Ms. Janet C. Achora, Mr. Milton Aineruhanga and Ms. Goretti Amuriat) made brief presentations about the WOUGNET programs of “Information sharing and Networking", "Technical Support" and "Gender & ICT Policy Advocacy”. This was followed by a video on “10 Tactics for information sharing", a film by Tactical Tech”. There were presentations from  Ms. Hope Turyasingura from CEDOVIP/Raising Voices and Mr Aramanzani Madanda from the Department of Women and Gender studies, Makerere University. They talked about violence against women (VAW) and how ICTs can perpetuate of fight VAW respectively.

Reactions from Members:

A number of WOUGNET members gave us feedback about the anniversary activities. They used some of the platforms like facebook and the mailing lists. Please see reactions from members.

We are  very  thankful to  all the individuals and organizations for honoring our invitation and contributing to making WOUGNET's 10th anniversary celebrations a success.  

To all WOUGNET staff, the Coordinator, Senior Program Officers, officers, volunteers and interns your input and commitment made our celebration a success.

By Maureen Agena, WOUGNET Information Officer