TRANSPARENCY: CoST Uganda Commissions 2nd Infrastructure Transparency Index
Shift Media News 
BY PATRICK JARAMOGI
KAMPALA, UGANDA| SHIFT MEDIA NEWS| The first time he came into the limelight was way back in 1992 when he became the first religious person in African to declare that he is HIV positive.
Rev. Canon Prof. Gideon Byamugisha has so far lived with HIV for the last 27 years having lost his wife to AIDS.
Along the way, Gideon founded the Friends of Canon Gideon Foundation (FOCAGIFO) a nonprofit charity organisation that is helping vulnerable youth access skills, lead proper healthy lives and serve the community with no discrimination.
Walking 53 kms for shs500 Million
This time around, the 60-year-old clergy, who was diagnosed with cancer of the colon in 2015 is back into yet another limelight. This time Byamugisha is in dire need of raising shs500 million in the next 12 days to beat the target deadline (Of December 31 2019) to pay for the land adjacent to (FOCAGIFO) in Katoke, Jinja Karoli, in Nabweru Division, Nansana Municipality in Wakiso district that is being sold for shs300 million. the purpose of the land according to Canon Byamugisha is to set up a Youth Skilling Business Center where young people can earn as they training to meet their education bills. The business center is estimated to cost about shs200 million.
Byamugisha explained during an interview that he has been shouldering the burden alone over the years to support FOCAGIFO. “The Hope Institute has so far trained over 3,000 youths in various vocational skills ranging from catering, carpentry, Motor Vehicle Mechanics, Electrical installation, Fashion and Design among others,” he said.
He said as years trickle down, the numbers have been rising with students shooting to 300 annually in the institute’s three intakes (Feb- May, and August).
This according to the clergy calls for increased space in terms of land. On December 10, 2019, he led a team of well-wishers in a 10 km charity walk in Kampala. The proceeds from the walk weren’t so good due to the bad weather of late.
Now he is doing it all alone. Byamugisha who goes for cancer treatment in India once a year will walk the 53kms from Entebbe to Kampala, then to the FOCAGIFO Headquarters in Katoke, Wakiso.
“The person selling the land next to FOCAGIFO needs shs300 million by December 31, 2019. I have 12 days campaign to raise this amount, and I am sure with God all is possible,” he said with a beaming smile. out of the 500 million being raised, shs300 million will be for land purchase and the remaining shs200 million will be for improving on the existing infrastructure to create business skilling center.
He said that his 12 days campaign starts on Thursday, December 19, 2019, with a 53km walk from Entebbe to Kampala.
“On the 19th December 2019, I am going to do what I did (walk) in 1978-79 when I walked from Entebbe to my school, Makerere College School. That time I walked because my father didn’t have money to cater for my transport, this time I am walking because I want to leave a legacy, to make FOCAGIFO sustainable even after I am gone to be with the Lord,” he said.
He told this website that wellwishers can sponsor his walks that he broke down in Kilometers. “To walk the first 4 km, sponsors can part with Ugx 5, 000-20,000 (US$2-7), while the next other 4km will go for between UGX 20,000- 50,000 (USD$7-12),” He said.
He said those sponsoring him to walk between 4- 12 km will part with UGX 50,000- 100,000 (USD$12- 15). Any additional walk from 16km and above will part with UGX 100,000- 240,000, and UGX250,000- 500,000.
“Sponsorship for 24km will be between shs500,000- 1 million, while 30kms plus will be between shs1 million to shs2.4m and 40km to 50kms will shs24m to shs50m,” he said.
All money can be channeled through the FOCAGIFO MTN No 0781449508 and AIRTEL No. 0706820161
Or through the Diamond Trust Bank: Ac/No 0102393007
“I call upon all faithful, H.E the President, religious leaders, Ministers, politicians, Members of Parliament, Educationists, traders, business personalities, Judges, the youth, and all well-wishers to support me in this initiative,” he said.
Who is Rev. Prof. Canon Gideon Byamugisha?
Reverend Canon Gideon Byamugisha (born 1959) is an Anglican priest in Uganda who in 1992 became the first religious leader in Africa to publicly announce that he was HIV positive.
In 2009, Byamugisha received the 26th annual Niwano Peace Prize “in recognition of his work to uphold the dignity and human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.”
Byamugisha co-founded the African Network of Religious Leaders Living with and Personally Affected HIV and Aids (ANERELA+) in February 2002, and in 2006 started a shelter for orphans of AIDS victims. He lives with his wife and three HIV negative children.
Byamugisha is from Kigezi, near the Ugandan border with Rwanda, the eldest of fourteen children. He was a history and geography teacher, as well as a deputy headmaster, before beginning his theology studies in his twenties. He was most interested in the philosophy of religion.
In 1990, Byamugisha’s first wife Kellen gave birth to his daughter, Patience, and both parents had been accepted to study at graduate programs in Britain. These plans changed when Kellen developed chest pains in April 1991, dying a week later. Six months later, Byamugisha learned that his wife had died of AIDS.
Byamugisha does not know where he contracted the virus. He and his wife were not tested before their marriage, and in 1988 he had been in a serious bicycling accident which required injections and a blood transfusion at a time when medical supplies and blood were not routinely screened for HIV.
Although there was a possibility that he would lose his job because of the stigma associated with AIDS, Byamugisha decided to tell the principal of the college he worked at and other staff members about his condition. Although they were supportive of him, they asked him not to tell others. He began telling his students, and then other members of his church. He considers this to have been a risky choice, as community members often worried that this would harm the image of the church.
Byamugisha claims that he never felt guilty about his status. “The only regret I have is that I lacked information. I have all this education—three degrees, one first-class—but I failed an HIV test.” However, in 1996 he fell ill and lost 40 pounds because he had no access to antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). Told that he would only live 6 months without ARVs, the bishop of Kampala used the church network to find two donors (an American and a Singaporean) who began sending him the drugs in 1997.
Founding ANERELA
As he started to travel and speak about his condition, Byamugisha began encountering other religious leaders who were HIV infected, or personally affected by the death and illness of family members but were not ready to publicly discuss their conditions. At the time, there was much misinformation about AIDS and HIV in Africa, and because of the promises and edicts from Christian, Muslim and Hindu groups on the continent, to have a religious leader infected or even affected personally was unthinkable
In 1998, Byamugisha began to feel the need to organise the religious community with personal ties to HIV/AIDS. In 2002, he secured funds to host a meeting of the religious leaders who had come to him privately in the past, and 42 leaders met with him in the Collins Hotel, in Zimbabwe, some 300 km outside the capital Harare. Eight of the participants were HIV+, and this group later became the African Network of Religious Leaders Living with and Personally Affected HIV and Aids (ANERELA+) and grew to more than 2000 members in 39 countries by the end of 2006. Byamugisha said the members have since shot up to over 13, 000.
Other HIV/AIDS advocacy
Byamugisha has become prominent in the international HIV/AIDS community. He has worked as an advisor to World Vision and has traveled internationally to speak about HIV/AIDS, including a conference at the US White House in December 2002.
Byamugisha advocates the view that HIV related issues reveal problems in other areas of society, such as poverty, literacy rates, social inequality, gender relations, trade, and government policy. Fixing these issues, he claims, will have a significant effect on the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Major issues Byamugisha sees in charity organisations include their insistence on policies that match the domestic agendas of donor agencies rather than accept the realities of society in Africa. While the Catholic Church and other religious communities had softened their stance on condom usage and AIDS education in Africa, organisations such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the biggest donor in Uganda, continued to insist on education about abstinence or delay of sexual debut for young people, and on fidelity or partner reduction for most adults, two interventions Byamugisha has been critical of as “stigmatizing” to those who cannot or will not abstain or be faithful to one partner. He also criticized PEPFAR’s use of non-generic HIV drugs. In the first year of operation, PEPFAR insisted that only brand-name HIV drugs be used, though they are five times more expensive than the generic brands, and, Byamugisha pointed out, can only be used to treat five times fewer people. Byamugisha blamed the private agendas of the US pharmaceutical industry and the US evangelical Christian lobby for such policies that do not resonate with the realities of Africa.
Byamugisha also collaborated in 2003 with photographer Gideon Mendel on the book A Broken Landscape: HIV & AIDS in Africa.
Family History
Byamugisha lives with his HIV positive wife Pamela (who runs a hardware store),
with one HIV negative daughter from his previous marriage, Patience, and two HIV negative daughters, Love and Gift, whom he had with Pamela. The couple decided to have Love and Gift after drugs to prevent transmission of the virus from mother to child became available in 2000.
