{UAH} A New Approach to Attaining UNAA’s Objectives

A New Approach to Attaining UNAA's Objectives

By:          Moses R. Wilson, PE

Disclaimer:          The following commentary presents the opinions and thoughts of one individual and is not representative of any position proposed or adopted by any official body of the UNAA leadership.

The community of Ugandan's in North America is too large and diverse for UNAA to sincerely reach most of its members.  This is particularly evident in simple statistics – approximately 100,000 Ugandans resident in North America versus average convention attendance of about 1,000.  At the same time, there has and continues to be a rise in the number of tribal or region-specific organizations.

As such, I would like to suggest a fundamental change in UNAA's primary operational policy of being a totally independent and separate entity and instead base its future on collaboration with other Ugandan organizations.  UNAA can literally become a focal point that unites all the other organizations under the banner "we are all Ugandans."  To some degree, this was done in 2010 when other organizations were invited to hold mini-conventions within and as part of the bigger UNAA convention in Washington DC.

So how would this happen?

I believe that UNAA should make a strong proactive effort to identify and establish an association with every major local, regional, tribal and religious Ugandan organization in North America.  In so doing, UNAA can achieve many of its objectives as a partner with these organizations.  As a particular effort, I suggest that the organization's annual conventions be tailored to include input from these organizations and a reasonable portion of any positive financial returns from the conventions be equitably distributed back to the organizations.  This can be done for all affiliated organizations at the same time (which would significantly dilute the funds raised), or while still proactively promoting the interests of all organizations, UNAA could select a different organization each year whose goals it would promote above the others and towards which it would concentrate its fund raising efforts.  As a specific example, the Basoga Twegaite organization is actively engaged in raising funds for a cancer hospital in Jinja.  UNAA leadership has already espoused this objective and will actively help Twegaite in any and every manner possible during the Dallas convention.  Next year, the same could be done for ICOB, maybe ACNA the following years, and so on.

On a local level, UNAA could say set aside $2,000 annually for contributions to various Uganda Martyr celebrations around North America and say another $2,000 towards Independence Day celebrations and another $2,000 towards the general activities of local organizations and so on.  It is imperative that such contributions be made in a manner that is equitable to all associate communities. 

Obviously, this all hinges on UNAA being able to finally financial climb out of the red and actually operate in the black – which I believe is eminently achievable.

Tomorrow I will begin to present my thoughts on the planning and administration of a UNAA Convention

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Moses Wilson has been an active member of UNAA for over 20 years and held a variety of leadership positions in the organization including member of the Board of Trustees, UNAA President, Convention Director and Senior Advisor.  Moses has attended each and every UNAA convention since 1992 – 21 conventions in total.