by Dr. Gregory Bartha
May 23, 2022
Eriakim Mulekwa is currently the program director of the Ugandan ministry I am assisting. He was born and raised in a small village fairly near the Cross Clinic. He attended government schools that were reasonably good at the time when he was a student. The teachers were dedicated and interested in the students which is not the case at the present.
Eriakim used to wake up around 4 AM and worked with his family in their small agricultural plot then fetched water from the nearest water well. Then he proceeded to run barefoot to his school. After he completed his secondary school, his father managed to raise tuition for him to attend the highly regarded Makerere University in Kampala. He lived several miles from the school with an uncle. Most of the time he had little breakfast, usually no lunch, and most of the time the evening meal was in doubt. I asked him how he was able to keep going with all the difficulties. He answered, “You have to know what you want.”
He graduated with a degree in Adult and Community Education and returned to his village working in training programs for youth. He received a scholarship and got a Master’s Degree in Project and Development. For a time he worked on an HIV project for Technoserve, an international NGO, and then went to Swaziland where he was involved with another HIV program.
In 2016 he met Pastor Simon Peter and has been monitoring the various activities of the ministry. He also directs a program to train unemployed youth to acquire skills in plumbing and carpentry. His latest venture is to develop projects in shoemaking and soap manufacturing.
Eriakim is committed to developing programs that will help people rise out of poverty.
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