by Annabs Sanchez

While working at the Constituent Assembly, Ojiambo saw a job advertisement announcing the relocation of Isis-WICCE  headquarters from Switzerland to Uganda and inviting applicants for the information and communication coordinator job.

“I thought this was the kind of job I wanted,” she says.

Several months later, she received a call. It was Millicent Aligawesa, the Isis-WICCE executive director.

“I had got the job and was expected to start immediately.” It was November 1994.

Ojiambo’s intention to leave her job worried her bosses. “One of them wondered why I was throwing away 14 years of valuable experience in the civil service for an NGO that might close tomorrow,” she says. However, she was determined to leave and she did.

From the onset, she worked hard to initiate an outreach programme for women survivors of armed confl ict, ensuring that the organisation goes out more and speaks to the women  in rural, hard-to reach areas.

In 1998, she spearheaded a study to examine the impact of armed confl ict on Women in Luwero district. Following the study, Isis-WICCE, through a consultant Prof. Marlise Frose — received a $40,000 (sh144m) donation from Heinrich Boll Foundation to rehabilitate women abused during the liberation war in Luwero.

This campaign, she says, brought about unique stories of women such as Devota Mbabazi, who fought alongside rebels, was raped by 21 soldiers and developed fistula and contracted HIV; of mothers who provided shelter, food and crucial information to the rebels, but whose voices were left out of the liberation war narrative.

“These women showed us the beds where they nursed injured soldiers, how they used herbs to administer fi rst aid to them. Through them, we understood the role of women as the fighters without guns in this important struggle that brought peace to Uganda,” she says.

The healing campaign was later supported by the Ford Foundation, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst e.V (EED) and the MDG3 fund.

The campaign resulted into a massive rehabilitation programme led by Isis-WICCE in which medical camps were set up in conjunction with medical experts to provide much needed services to affected women. The organisation also set up teams to provide reproductive and mental health services. These services were later extended to Gulu, Katakwi, Soroti and other confl ict affl icted districts of Uganda.

“We took the same services to Liberia, South Sudan and other countries.” Wherever they went, Ojiambo and her team engaged national and local leaders on women’s rights asking them to introduce policies that protect women victims in areas of armed conflict.

In 1999, she became Isis-WICCE executive director. It is a role she was initially sceptical to assume, despite overwhelming support from her bosses, but one she has performed well as many attest.

Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/Ruth_Isis_WICCE