For him for her

My name is Raymond, from Uganda. I work in a private university as a teaching fellow. Here in Kampala, we’re on lockdown again. During the first lockdown, I stumbled across the video series entitled “The Adventure of Marriage”. These were introduced to me by a brother of mine. I was glued to the first video and the idea that hit my mind is how can I use these to better myself and my girlfriend for marriage.

When I saw this, I thought about my friends who were also struggling in their relationships or perhaps not even daring to start one. This is something that I thought would help us all get better in this particular area of life. So quickly I came up with a poster entitled “For Him For Her” that I would share with my friends.

What I initially imagined was a platform where good men would meet good women and good women would meet good men… sounds like a match making craze, but this isn’t the intention. What came to be was a series of meetings that would take place online on Friday evenings from 8pm to 9pm. This is a time that is usually filled with activity in an ordinary time, but due to Covid and restrictions on movement with curfew and such like, an online meeting would aptly keep us engaged. The activity started early December 2020 and concluded in February after all 6 sessions were done. On average the activity attracted an average of seven participants on Google Meet from Uganda and from Kenya.

The sessions would start at 8pm with some Friday Jazz music playing in the background as we waited for quorum. The reminders for the meetings are done on Whatsapp and email. We would then watch the video for the day on Sole and Juampi (very inspiring!) after which we would open the floor for discussion on lessons learnt from the video seasoned generously by personal experiences of the attendants. I always find the differences and the empathy among the participants very intriguing. A number of times the discussions would get very exciting and engaging with the different perspectives that men and women have on almost any proposition. Aside from the personal stories some participants would volunteer, another engaging experience concerned the questions and queries about relationships; these provided a lot of fodder for discussion. My interventions were strongly coloured by the Maisha Programme (a 5-month programme on living) offered by Strathmore Business School's Program for Family Development. The deeper friendships, the example of Sole and Juampi, the questions and personal experiences shared we found have nudged us in the direction of being better men and women for our future spouses.

RK