Research has clearly shown that all individuals will benefit from regular physical activity. Unfortunately, young adults including college and university students are not physically active on a regular basis worldwide. In the developing world particularly in Sub- Saharan Africa, physical inactivity along with tobacco use, poor diet and nutrition are increasingly parts of today&rsquo / s lifestyle. Physical activity declines with age and the most important decline appear to be during the transition period from high school to university and during university years. The aim of this study was to assess the level of physical activity, to investigate the perceived constraints to physical activity and to determine whether socio-demographic characteristic have an influence on participation in physical activity and perceived constraints to physical activity among paramedical institutions students in Uganda. A cross-sectional study with descriptive quantitative design was conducted. Four hundred (400) paramedical institution students were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. A self-administered questionnaire adopted from the literature was used to collect the data. A response rate of 90% was obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics using the statistical package for social sciences were used to analyze the data. The relationships and associations between different variables were determined by carrying out significant tests using chi-square tests. Alpha level was set at 0.05. The mean age of the sample was 22.44 years (SD = 2.03). Males constituted 73.9% and females constituted 26.1% of the sample. Students from eight (8) health professional courses participated in the study. Over half (59%) of participants were classified as physically active and 41% were classified as inactive or sedentary. For male participants, lack of the right equipment to exercise and wanting to do other things in their free time were perceived as the major constraints to physical activity. For female participants, lack of motivation and tiredness after exercise were perceived as the major constraints to physical activity. The findings of this study demonstrate that there is an influence of socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, year of the study and different departments/schools on participation in physical activity and perceived constraints to physical activity. They also indicate the need of health promotion intervention aiming at promoting physical activity among paramedical institution students in Uganda.

Maternal and child-health and health education are three major concerns of public health organisations and researchers throughout the world. Health education for mothers is a strategy many countries have adopted to improve maternal and child-health. The present study was carried out in Uganda with the objective of exploring the factors influencing the utilisation of postnatal services at Mulago and Mengo hospitals, a government and private hospital. Both hospitals are located in Kampala district in Uganda. The survey, was completed by 330 women who responded to a structured questionnaire that was given to them six to eight weeks after delivery. Questions that were asked generated demographic information about the mothers / mothers&rsquo / knowledge about postnatal services / mothers&rsquo / socio-economic status and barriers to utilisation of the postnatal services. The participants included all women who delivered in Mulago and Mengo hospitals in November 2003 except for those who had had a neonatal death. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Some of the key findings of the study were that most women lacked awareness about postnatal services and those who knew about these services only knew about immunisation and family planning services. The majority of the mothers did not know about other services, such as physiotherapy, counselling, growth monitoring, and physical examination. Lack of money for transport or service costs, distance from the health care facility, not being aware of the services, lack of somebody to take care of the child at home were some of the main barriers to utilisation of postnatal services. Others included, lack of education, lack of employment, lack of decision-making powers, and lack of time to go back for the service. The ministry of health should educate women and communities about the importance of postnatal care, its availability, and the importance of women having decision-making power over their own health. The health service organization should improve on the quality of care by ensuring that services are provided at convenient hours with privacy, confidentiality and respect and it should evaluate the services periodically from the users perspective to maintain the quality of service.

The study explores the intricate relationship between Acoli song performance, gender identity construction and gender power relations. The investigation is guided by the understanding that gender identity construction does not only influence gender power relations but it is also part and parcel of the contextual performance of power relations. The study involves a contextual socio-cultural discussion of the gender situation in Acoli society, and with it the role of the performing arts in the gender identity construction and power relations. Gender performativity theory is revisited in light of the genre-based performance of one’s gender, as manifested in the Acoli song performances. The analysis is guided by the argument that to understand gender one needs to pay attention to the genres through which it is expressed. Despite over a century of gender theorisation, gender theorists are still not agreed on what constitutes power, neither has any offered an irreproachable and convincing conception of power. Given current debates in gender theorisation, the study attempts to make fresh empirical investigation to make valid and concrete entry into gender debates by deriving a situated gender concept of “power” based on field research evidence. By analysing Acoli song performances, the major sites of power in the society are elucidated and the positions of the two genders vis-àvis these sites of power are examined to determine the nature of the gender power relations matrix. Song performance does not only act as a catalyst in gender performativity but it is an integral part of it, as the study reveals; and through song performance the Acoli females have particularly invested in the differential gender notions to make themselves visible and achieve their aspirations as ‘women’.

Thesis advisor: O. Ernesto Valiente / Thesis advisor: M. Shawn Copeland / The process of peace and reconciliation after conflict is based on developing a spiritual disposition of compassion that is informed by God’s grace and expressed through virtues of faith, hope and charity. Empowered by God’s grace individuals and communities can be transformed and enabled to work in solidarity with victims of violence in ways that seek to change social structures of sin and suffering. Compassionate understanding can shape and inform individuals and communities toward practices of truth-telling, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation. Solidarity and compassion underlie a Christian discipleship that nurtures healing of memories, rehabilitation of victim and perpetrators in order to reintegrate them in society. This encounter has a transformative potential for participants as they begin to share a common story and envision a reconciled future. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Master of Arts - International Relations / Research has consistently demonstrated that due to stratified socio-economic inequalities and gender-based disadvantages women from low-income countries and Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) specifically, experience extreme impacts from poverty. Such feminization of poverty has been accentuated, especially in Africa, by the spiraling debt crisis and high levels of absolute poverty, which intersect and interact with gender-biases and macro and micro dimensions of international development assistance. In particular, the negative impacts and limited success of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) have contributed to women’s further disempowerment and marginalisation, through the cutbacks they conditionally prescribe for budgetary allocations in the social sectors. To address these shortcomings, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) launched the HIPC Debt Relief Initiative in 1996 which was subsequently enhanced in 1999. The HIPC Debt Relief Initiative has been introduced as a coherent strategy for assisting the economic development of poor countries linking debt relief funds to the reduction of extreme levels of poverty. A key element of the HIPC initiative is the required participation of all social groups and stakeholders in the activities and processes of national development and poverty eradication strategies. By undertaking a gender analysis of the Uganda PRSP/PEAP, this dissertation examines the extent to which participatory processes have included women and gender concerns within the PRSP framework of intervention. Such examination and analysis has involved the application of a comprehensive Gender and Development (GAD) analytical framework, focused on the empowerment approach. The initial findings indicate that although specific gender concerns continue to be neglected within the Uganda PRSP document, nevertheless the participatory process allowed the space for voices, especially women’s voices, previously silent and invisible, to be heard within the corridors of power. The study concludes that there exists within the PRSP framework, spaces for more effective gender integration due to the inbuilt flexibility of the process, and the broadening of the consultative process through the ongoing revision of PEAP/PRSP policy. Additionally, there is the continuous monitoring, assessment and evaluation of the impacts generated by the country’s poverty reduction plan and associated budgetary allocations. The analysis of the extent to which gender has been mainstreamed in the PRSP process has yielded outcomes and lessons that can be built upon for the attainment of equitable and sustainable development in HIPCs in Africa.

As the Catholic Church continues to expand in Uganda, this thesis offers an ethnographic study of engagement with Catholicism among the laity in a relatively new, rural parish in the Teso Region of eastern Uganda. Founded in the late 1990s, the creation of a new parish in the Sub-County of Buluya has brought people into closer proximity to the Catholic Church, its priests, and its doctrines, throwing into sharp relief some of the tensions between Catholic and local moral and spiritual frameworks. Based on 17 months of ethnographic and archival fieldwork, I examine the way in which people negotiate the challenges posed by this change, as they seek to balance the need to use the tools Catholicism offers for getting on in post-colonial Uganda with desires to protect older ways of seeing the world and acting in it. My central argument is that people respond to the Church’s attempts to embed itself as an all-encompassing presence and influence in the lives of its members, by engaging in processes of limiting this presence and influence. By remoulding and realigning some of its central concepts, by resisting wholeheartedly committing to its claims to spiritual knowledge and healing potential, and by isolating its moral and behavioural directives from certain aspects of their lives, the laity in Buluya rein in the Catholic Church’s attempts to permeate and dominate all aspects of their lives. I suggest that these limits go hand in hand with the pervasive religious uncertainty that underpins people’s engagement with the Church, arguing that these limiting practices serve to maintain their religious uncertainty as doors are left open to alternative ways of engaging with their social and spiritual surroundings. In turn, the productive potential of this religious uncertainty encourages these limits to be enacted and maintained. Limiting Catholicism, in essence, enables people in Buluya to commit to it.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka och beskriva hur verkligheten ser ut i Uganda utifrån FN:s millenniemål nummer 7- säkra en hållbar utveckling. Syftet är också att ta reda på om det skett några klimatförändringar och hur dessa i så fall påverkar landets hållbara utveckling. Med millenniemål nummer 7 avgränsas uppsatsen till några utvalda indikatorer. Begreppet hållbar utveckling förklaras ur ett holistiskt perspektiv. Konsekvenser av klimatförändringar riktar sig mot nederbörd och temperatur kopplat till jordbruk.   För att uppnå syftet genomfördes en enkätundersökning samt intervjuer under en resa till Uganda i februari 2012. Med ytterligare teoretiska studier inhämtades kunskaper för att beskriva och förstå hur verkligheten ser ut i Uganda utifrån olika parametrar och perspektiv.   Resultatet visar att många trender i Uganda går mot det bättre. Det gäller speciellt frågor om dricksvatten. Andra trender går åt det motsatta hållet där andelen skog kontinuerligt minskar. Koldioxidutsläppen ökar vilket utifrån helhetsbegreppet hållbar utveckling med sitt generationsperspektiv är en dålig trend, även då ökningen i Uganda sker från en låg nivå.   Med FN:s millenniemål sker ett övergripande internationellt arbete för att världens fattiga ska få det bättre. Utifrån åtta mål, varav ett av dem gäller att säkra en hållbar utveckling görs insatser både på global och lokal nivå. Detta för att försöka uppnå en generell hållbar utveckling som leder till att människor får det bättre. En av uppgifterna är att försöka reducera de antropogena utsläppen av koldioxid. Målet gäller utsläppsminskningar, samt en anpassning till de rådande klimatförändringarna. Med förändringar i klimatet följer åtskilliga utmaningar varav försvårad matproduktion är en. I Uganda har undersökningspopulationen upplevt ett förändrat klimat sett till både nederbörd och temperatur. Majoriteten tycker att förändringarna lett till sämre möjligheter för landets jordbrukare och samhället i stort. Med hjälporganisationer som VI-skogen kan utvecklingen snabbare gå åt rätt håll. Finansieringen av VI-skogen sker via Sida och ideella insatser. Genom olika insatser har människor möjlighet att både på ett globalt och nationellt, men även lokalt plan göra skillnad.

Människan är en kreativ och artistisk varelse och konsten och musiken spelar en betydelsefull roll i många kulturella sammanhang. Konst kan uttryckas i oändliga variationer och former vilket gör den kontextbunden och svårgripbar. Om man vill studera och tolka kulturella processer är konsten och musiken dock av stor betydelse och är därför viktiga att studera.   I min uppsats kommer jag att jämföra och undersöka varför Uganda till skillnad från Sydafrika har lyckats minska spridningen av AIDS i landet. Jag kommer att undersöka vilka nationella ansträngningar som har utförts i kampen mot AIDS hur människorna i Sydafrika och Uganda handskas med epidemin på lokal nivå. I båda dessa länder används många olika strategier för att handskas med HIV/AIDS-epidemin men jag kommer framförallt att fokusera på musikens och konstens betydelse i kampen mot AIDS. Att använda konstnärliga medel för att sprida kunskap och information om AIDS är bara en av många strategier. Genom att fokusera på musik och konst i AIDS-förhindrande insatser ämnar jag belysa kulturella och sociala omständigheter som möjligtvis påverkar huruvida de konstnärliga strategierna är framgångsrika eller ej.

Market information services established in 1999 were aimed at the promotion of market efficiency through provision of information across the nation. While the responsible bodies have improved the knowledge of prices, information exchange and flow, as a result of competition between markets, is not known and questions of market effectiveness still stand. This study examines market efficiency based upon response to price signals across Ugandan markets. We focus on information exchange for maize and beans among 16 key markets. We study weekly price data from the first week of 2000 to the last week of 2003 from each of the sixteen markets. Each commodity is studied separately using Vector Autoregessions (VARs) and Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). The two techniques are widely used to show market risk and causal relations in time series data. While results are presented individually for each commodity, the markets are comparable. In determining market efficiency, we test for stationarity of the data, explore the magnitude of forecast error decompositions over time across markets, and observe the patterns of communication based on DAGs. We find that markets are more efficient in exchanging information on maize than beans. Communication of data is mostly between markets in eastern, western, and central parts of Uganda. Overall, markets are very slow in reacting to information in the short run.Information from the Mbale and Iganga markets, which are located in areas of high production, is very valuable in the maize trade. However, of the two markets, it is data from the Mbale market, located near the border with Kenya, which is of paramount importance. Specifically, price is discovered in Mbale in the maize trade. Our results also show the Gulu market, which is situated in an insecure zone, to be very responsive to price signals over the long run. In the case of beans, it is the price signals from Tororo and Jinja that cause more disruption in most of the markets. Price is discovered in these two markets. A majority of the markets is more affected by data from Jinja than Tororo. This segmentation in market price discovery suggests an existing market failure. Arua and Gulu are found to be the least responding markets in regards to price signals for beans. We do not find information from the Kampala market to be important in either the maize or beans trade.

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