Uganda LAWA Fellow 1994-1995 L.L.B., Makerere University L.L.M., Georgetown University Law Center Project Coordinator East African Community Legislative Assembly AICC Complex, 5th Floor Ngorongoro Wing P.O. Box 1096 Arusha, Tanzania Work Phone: 225-27-250-4253/8 Work Fax: 225-27-250-4255/2504481 Email: akwi@eachq.org

Affiliations: ACTIONAID ACFODE FIDA-Uganda

Profile:

Ms. Akwi-Ogojo is currently working as an Independent Consultant in Human Rights, Women’s Rights, Gender and the Law, Development, HIV/AIDS and Humanitarian Emergencies in Kampala, Uganda. She is pursuing her LLD degree at the University of South Africa (UNISA, Centre for African Renaissance Studies)

LAWA Experience:

Ms. Akwi-Ogojo completed her graduate thesis entitled, “Protecting the Girl-Child from Sexual Abuse: The Experience of Uganda,” in 1995. For her fellowship placement, she worked with the Center for Development and Population Alternatives.

Ms. Akwi-Ogojo writes about her fellowship experience: “Nothing in my experience prepared me for the USA. Being there, living there and interacting with U.S. citizens was of itself an experience above any that I can describe.”

During her fellowship, she spent time learning about the American Bar Association and attended the African American Bar Association Conference in Washington D.C. and later in Baltimore City. Ms. Akwi-Ogojo found the obvious racial division in the legal fraternity of great import. Ms. Akwi-Ogojo spoke addressing the staff of the U.S. Internal Affairs Secretariat about her experiences in Uganda. She was twice on the same panel with the Director of Interactions, the U.S. Head of USAID, and she spoke regarding international development directly relating to Africa. She noted at this time the different perspectives and little understanding of issues affecting Africans, particularly African women, which were expressed in the plenary.

She gave a presentation to Professor Gostin’s class in Spring of 1995 on HIV/AIDS and Communicable diseases. Her presentation, in collaboration with a student from Nigeria, focused on discrimination against people suffering from HIV/AIDS by health professionals in hospitals. The presentation included film footage of the early documented days of the epidemic in Cameroon and Uganda, particularly the advocacy by the late Philly Lutaaya on this issue in Uganda which led to a subsequent and remarkable openness about HIV/AIDS in the country. Today in Uganda this is thought to have led to better care and the reduction in new infection rates.

In Addis Ababa in 1997, Ms. Akwi-Ogojo attended a UN Conference held in connection with CEDPA, the organization to which she had presented papers on Youths and Children through her internship. There she discussed a paper she had collaborated on regarding “Rights of youth and children in Africa.”

Ms. Akwi-Ogojo writes, “The LAWA program did provide a lot of exposure. Trips to the Supreme Court to listen to arguments there, in house lunches with WLPPFP ex-fellows, and others did provide us with an overwhelming learning experience different from what we knew.”

Additional Experience:

Prior to LAWA, Ms. Akwi-Ogojo contributed articles in Arise Magazine, a publication by Women in Development and coordinated a WID/DANIDA research on inheritance for the Ministry of Women in Development, Youth and Culture.

After completing her graduate law degree, Ms. Akwi-Ogojo worked at the Center for Development and Population Alternatives (CEDPA), where she focused on rape issues. She developed a concept paper focusing on adolescent reproductive rights and health for an international youth conference CEDPA held in Addis Ababa in January 1997.

From 2001 – 2004 she operated as Chairperson of WOPPA (Women as Partners in the Great Lakes Region), a network of activists from eight countries fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From 2001-2002 she was member of the Constitutional Review Commission, and in 2002 she became the Africa Region Director of the British registered charity ActionAid International, working in their regional headquarters in Zimbabwe. She was appointed as the first African and first female Regional Director in ActionAid.

Ms. Akwi-Ogojo has also worked as the first Regional coordinator of the Kampala office of the Africa Women’s Leadership Institute for the Akina Mama wa Afrika, an NGO working for the advancement of rights for African Women. She has dedicated her spare time building leadership capacities of African women and their organizations as a staff member.

Publications:

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi & Algresia Akwi-Ogojo. “Taking the African Women’s Movement into the 21st Century,” Report of the First African Women's Leadership Institute. Regional networking, information and training for African Women. Akina Mama wa Afrika, Uganda and UK, 1997, 199pp.