‘’What’s the point of the revolution if we can’t dance?’’ #WAVEII

Patricia Munabi 

Patricia is the Executive Director at the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE). She is a lawyer and identifies as a feminist who is passionate about women’s rights issues particularly in access to health and right to education.  

She began her feminist journey in university where her legal background sparked her thinking around issues that women continue to grapple with. She’s motivated by women who have voice, agency and power to live dignified lives socially, economically and politically. 

Why WAVE exists 

WAVE is a contribution to building a vibrant women’s movement with women in their diversities and the right to voice, agency and power in tackling gender inequality. It looks at decent work, opportunities for participation, access to and control over resources and decision-making.  

Each of the partners in WAVE brings a unique strength to the consortium with the recognition that we are all interconnected and diverse. 

FOWODE’s niche in WAVE 

Since inception, we are renowned for our proven track record in advocacy. We are also part of the history that paved the way for women in Uganda to have an influence in public decision making through legal and policy reforms. In WAVE we have infused this rich knowledge through producing annual SDG shadow reports focused on tracking Uganda’s SDGs implementation and using evidence from the reports for local, regional and global advocacy influencing.  

Addressing the closing civic space by creating safe spaces and opportunities for women to come together 

The current anti-LGBTIQ law has provided a silver lining where women in all their diversities can support each other and keep up the momentum despite the closing civic space. 

The women’s movement in Uganda has made many gains but we still have a long way to go in making gender equality a reality. We continue to face a lot of backlash where patriarchy is ever changing its face keeping us on our toes to continue organising through collective action. 

WAVE has a unique approach in intersectional feminist thinking 

All of us have experienced discrimination differently. At the end of the day, we are all fighting patriarchy and the issues are the same- whether in the women rights movement, LGBTIQ movement, human rights movement or women with disabilities movement. 

It is important to realise that while we work on different issues, our experiences shape our perspectives and are a driving force in achieving the bigger goal of realising gender equality. 

Wellness, selfcare and transformational feminist leadership in WAVE 

‘’What’s the point of the revolution if we can’t dance?’’- a book by Urgent Action Fund 

We need to be well to continue the work that we do in the promotion of gender equality. We should stop making too many compromises that are jeopardizing our health. WAVE has deliberately woven this throughout our interactions. 

On transformative feminist leadership, we are trying to dismantle patriarchy through alternative forms of leadership which are nontraditional and non-hierarchical. We need to be role models so that others can learn and continue to advance women’s rights. And WAVE does this by anchoring feminist leadership and thinking in practice and how we relate with each other. 

The WAVE II consortium is a partnership programme of the following organisations: Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), Mentoring and Empowerment Programme for Young Women (MEMPROW), National Association of Women’s Organisations in Uganda (NAWOU), National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda (NUWODU) and the Women’s International Peace Centre (The Peace Centre).