A FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN IN MEMORY OF SILVERBACK RUHONDEZA
On 26th/June/2022 UWA- Bwindi in partnership with “GORILLAS our friends FOREVER”, Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-Evan), and local communities of Bwindi launched a fundraising campaign in memoriam of 10 years anniversary of Silverback gorilla RUHONDEZA who was laid to rest on 27/June/2012. RUHONDEZA is the pioneer Silverback gorilla to allow to be habituated for tourism in Uganda, thus creating a legacy that has earned Uganda millions dollars in terms of tourism revenue and spurred socioeconomic transformation of the citizenry.
The function was held at UWA Bwindi Visitor Information Centre and was blessed by Mr. Dieter Beller from Germany – who was the chief coordinator of the campaign.
Mr. Dieter appreciated the commendable work done by Uganda Wildlife Authority in protecting the gorillas and the Bwindi forest, and briefed the audience about the campaign that aimed at mobilizing funds to enhance local community livelihoods and induce associated further support for gorilla conservation.
Dieter reiterated that the initial stages of the campaign had already raised funds that supported construction of two water tanks of 50,000 litres each in Ruhija and Kyogo areas where school girls had resorted to fetching water from quite long distances and eventually missing school and causing high a high school dropout rate and early pregnancies.
Dieter also informed the audience that another aspect of the campaign is “Planting a million (1,000,000) trees” through distributing fast growing softwood tree seedlings to the local communities for both fruits and firewood thus protecting the National Park against illegal plant harvesting.
Joseph Arineitwe, Warden Ecological Monitoring and Research, who represented the Chief Warden, said that mountain gorillas were initially perceived to be very hostile until Silverback RUHONDEZA, the leader of the first gorilla family to be habituated in Uganda (Mubare family) demystified the perceptions by calmly accepting that his family be habituated for tourism in a short period of time lasting for about two years. RUHONDEZA is believed to have lived for approximately 50 years and seen more than 50,000 people before his went to rest.
Moses Basheija, the Mayor of Buhoma Town Council, appreciated the great initiative (campaign) aimed at uplifting the livelihoods of communities neighboring the gorilla forest. He reiterated a fact while the local communities in Buhoma zone had some of the best primary schools in the district, the area lacks even a single government aided secondary school within more than 20km radius area which leads to many youth dropout of school before secondary level and this a danger to nature arising from the pressure for natural resource by the dropouts.
The mayor appealed for possible support to Mukono secondary school which is coming up in the town council as a means of enabling continuous youth education and saving the gorillas and Bwindi. The school, according to the mayor, lacks incentives such as food/meals, teachers’ salaries, and scholastic materials.
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, the CEO and Founder of CTPH, in her speech read by Anaclet (CTPH’s Laboratory Technician) reminded the community about the importance of protecting wild animals, and she was very glad that Ruhondeza died of a natural death and not human disturbance. She was proud to be part of the campaign to help the community and keep protecting the legacy RUHONDEZA. She extended her heartfelt appreciation to all participants in the campaign.
Additional reporting by T. Mwajuma Twaha Adams
Communications Officer Kanungu District Local government (DLG
