Rotary Club of Kiwatule Recognizes Mrs Allen Balagade Ssekadde for Vocational Service Excellence

The Vocational Service Excellence Award is one of the earliest Rotary programs inaugurated by the Rotary Club of Kiwatule.  For more than a decade now, the Club has identified and recognized individuals within our community who have shown exceptional qualities in their work.  People who have gone out of their way to do more whilst performing their duties and who have contributed to significant advancement of their professions.  The award is meant to inspire further enthusiasm and recognize exceptional achievers.  It is also meant to set an example to others, particularly young people of the need to strive for vocational excellence.
 
This year (2016) the club selected Ms Allen Balagadde Sekadde, the patron of Wamukisa Youth Centre for recognition.  Ms Ssekadde was considered deserving for the award due to her tremendous contribution in rehabilitating teenage girls that find themselves in early pregnancies.  Working together with a few other people, Allen set up Wamukisa Youth Centre, which takes care of pregnant young girls that have been abandoned by their relatives, and re-integrates them into ordinary life where they live normally without stigmatization.  The centre started with 12 girls in 2005 and has since passed out a total of over 500 girls.  The average age of the girls at the centre is 16/17 years although occasionally they get those as young as 11 years old.  The centre partners with Kisubi Hospital to provide antenatal and postnatal services to the girls.  During their stay at the centre (before giving birth) the girls are trained in some basic life economic skills that should enable them take care of their babies.  A number of girls have successfully completed their training at the centre and gone on to live a normal life and support themselves and their families from the skills they attained at the centre.  Each year those who graduate are given basic start up materials like sewing machines, hair weaves among other requirements to set them off.  ‘Allen is a person who has dedicated her career with faithfulness to serve and ensure the survival of other people.  She has exhibited exceptional professional ability; personal initiative, and loyal devotion, which reflects great sacrifice and is in line with Rotary’s founding tenet of ‘Service Above Self’  said President Anne Begumisa.  The Guest of Honour who handed over the plaque and 12 Sewing Machines to Mrs Ssekadde was the District Governor Nominee (D9211) Ken Mugisha from the Rotary Club of Muyenga.