Seeks to raise billions toward girls education
A Makerere University lecturer is seeking to raise over four billion shillings to invest in education of disadvantaged girls in her own district of Kabaale through selling some of her highly acclaimed art pieces.
Tumusiime is also putting on display her prized abstract painting that took her 13 years to make. Tumusiime has put a US$1.2 (Approx. Ushs4bn) on the painting. She told a news conference that the painting was done in the United States and is inspired by American scenaries.
“Accompanying the US$1.2 million master piece, I will be exhibiting more than 25 pieces that I made between 2015 and 2016 in USA mainly representing American scenaries. Proceeds of the exhibition will help me raise funds and meet my dream of supporting girls education in Kahaaro Kabale, ” said Tumusiime.
If she succeeds in selling the piece as she values it, it will be Uganda’s most expensive art piece in history.
Themed on empowering girl Child Education, Dr Tumusiime who hails from Kabaale district at Kahaaro village, says she is the only woman who owns a PHD and she believes girls at her her her village of birth have failed to rise from the shackles of poverty due to lack of Education.
Dr Tumusiime told The Sunrise that most of the girls are drop out of school because stake-holders have ignored the fact that girls get many challenges especially when they walk long distance to go to schools. Dr Tumusiime says that her exhibition is also targeting to build a girls hostel at Kahaaro Secondary School where she happens to be the only old girl who has succeeded.
Talking Girl Child, Dr Tumusiime has investigated the tendency in Ugandan art to define and construct men and women in such a way as to match them with patriarchal confines.
“In the complex Ugandan society the character of women is described on the basis of two categories, the good woman and the bad woman. This categorisation defines the good woman as the one who stays at home and resides in the countryside and the bad woman as the one who stays in an urban environment and works in a public space.” Dr Tumusiime notes
Tumusiime is no stranger to humanitarian works. In a 2005 exhibition that was held at Sheraton Hotel under the theme “Hidden Treasures” Tumusiime raised money for villages which had been affected by hunger in Kitgum district in Nothern Uganda.
Tumusiime’s exhibition will be held at Emin Pasha Hotel in Kampala and it is expected to attract artists from different parts of the world.
