That the necklaces are beautiful is simply unquestionable. From the bright colours of the beads which are stringed together to make a lace (dazzling yellows and reds and greens) to the different shapes in which the beads come (oval, triangle, mango, name it), there is a lot to buoy the eye or the mind that can recognise beauty.

Yet still, nothing observable about those beautiful, bright-coloured necklaces serves to prepare a beholder for the incredible story behind those handicrafts. A story of necklaces some have called magical for the way they have been able to turn around the lives of everyone connected to them.

We are talking about the necklaces made by the women of Meeting Point International (MPI), an NGO in Nakawa division, which works to improve the lives of poor women living with HIV –particularly around Kireka and Naguru areas in Kampala.

MPI was founded 22 years ago by Rose Busingye, a woman who, upon returning to Uganda from a 10-year sojourn in Italy, just couldn’t watch passively as positive women living with HIV in her neighbourhood of Kireka were dehumanised and destroyed by the disease.

Busingye says: “I saw that the women were very poor and had problems finding food, shelter and other provisions, not only for themselves but their families too. Being HIV positive in tough conditions had made their life hell, and they needed help to begin living meaningful and fairly dignified lives.”

Busingye got some of her own money and added to it what she was able to raise from her friends overseas, then began seeking out the suffering women and trying to help them live better lives. She registered the NGO Meeting Point in order to have her initiative working in an organized manner.

“She would help us with medication as well as food to eat,” says 68-year old Janet Nabirye, who was one of the first to join Meeting Point Kireka in 2000. “She also would find sponsors to pay our children’s school fees.”

Starting to make Necklaces
Busingye recalls that as the number of women she was helping increased, it became very challenging to meet the bills, and she had to figure out a way the women could also help themselves.

Since most of them had formerly been working in the stone quarry, breaking stones, she only had to find something that would both bring in some more money and also not wear them out since most were living with HIV. “I had seen a few of them making crafts, and since I knew that crafts had a market in Europe, I settled on introducing craft making as a business for Meeting Point,” Busingye says.

The women shared their craft-making skills among themselves, and a few volunteers from Europe also came and offered them some training. Tina Kabakunirwa, who has been with Meeting Point since 2004, recalls that the necklaces were just part of several other handcrafts that the women made, others including sweaters, mats among others. She says the ladies in fact still make other crafts alongside the necklaces, only that the necklaces sell most and have eventually become the flagbearer of all crafts they make.

The process of making the necklaces

The necklaces are made primarily from waste paper – all sorts including newspapers and magazines, among others. The process starts with making of beads, and here magazine pages are marked off and cut into long, thin triangles.
The triangles are then rolled around a needle and sealed with glue, creating an egg-shaped bead. The beads are then threaded onto a string and vanished to give them a glossy shine –the varnish taking two to three days to dry.

The women make their necklaces as individuals, mostly at home, each making her own unique and creative designs.
Then each presents their product to Meeting Point, which puts all the products together and looks for market for everything –most going overseas. However, each woman receives payment for her particular products as they sold.

How the necklaces have changed the women’s lives

Josephine Atimango, a member, says, “Necklace and bead-making has been a wonder for us. Many of us never used to have food at home, we used to toil for long hours in the quarries of Kireka to get something to survive on, but now we no longer need to do that.” SRC: Monitor

On Friday last week, the High Court in Kampala quashed all the proceedings held in camera by Buganda Road Court in a case where a police officer Ronald Poteri, is accused of leaking Gen Kale Kayihura’s confidential information to the public.
The court ruled on grounds that Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Lillina Bucyana should have heard from the side of journalists in order to balance the competing rights of access to information and guarding against the threat of exposing the secrets of national security.
The run-ins of the court reporters under their umbrella body, the Uganda Court Reporters Association (UCRA), and the State begun on June 25 when Mr Lino Anguzu, the Resident State Attorney at Buganda Road Court, without prior warning to the defence, successfully applied orally and briefly to have the trial of officer Poteri heard in camera.
In support of his application, the State submitted that Mr Poteri was charged with disclosure of official secrets and that the evidence would include classified information, secrets of police investigative tactics and calling informants whose identity should not be revealed, hence need to bar journalists.
Additionally, the State submitted that if the evidence is published, it may cause friction between police and the Executive.

Judicial review
But being dissatisfied with the decision of the magistrate to bar them from covering the Poteri hearings, the reporters, through their lawyer Isaac Semakadde, ran to court to challenge the same by way of judicial review.
Judicial review is the process by which the High Court exercises its supervisory jurisdiction and evaluates proceedings and decisions of inferior courts, tribunals of whether they were properly taken or not.
To that effect, on August 1, the application came for hearing before High Court judge Mugambe, with the State being represented by Mr Oburu Odoi.
Mr Oburu majorly relied on the sworn in statements of Mr Anguzu, and those of Geoffrey Wangolo Madete, a State attorney from the Attorney General’s chambers, to oppose the journalists’ application to review magistrate Bucyana’s decision.
The State argued that this was not a good case for judicial review and the court reporters should have instead appealed against Buganda Road Court decision of barring them from covering the proceedings.
The State also insisted that the decision taken by the magistrate was legal and she committed no error.
The State further submitted that the journalists had other options such as applying for revision of the decision of the court or should have gone to the Constitutional Court to seek for a constitutional interpretation.

Court’s take
But justice Mugambe disagreed with the State’s submission that the journalists should have appealed Buganda Road Court’s decision before citing Section 204 (1) (a) and (7) of the Magistrates Court Act that she said reserves the right of appeal in criminal cases only to the convicted persons.
“So appeal is not an available remedy for the applicants (court reporters) before me who were not party to the proceedings before the trial court,” held Justice Mugambe.
Adding: “I also do not see any serious question warranting constitutional interpretation as suggested by the respondent (State).”
The judge went on to say the court reporters had one remedy of revision of the decision of Buganda Road Court and that they had not exploited the same.
However, she was quick to say she was mindful of the delays that are associated with revisions cases which could delay of justice for the journalists.
Taking the circumstances into account, the judge exceptionally allowed to hear the journalists complaint by way of judicial review.

How Mugambe faulted Bucyana’s decision
Justice Mugambe in her ruling concentrated on evaluating the procedure that Buganda Road Court Magistrate Bucyana used to bar the journalists from attending the Poteri proceedings.
The judge noted that Magistrate Bucyana was confronted with two competing rights of proceedings in camera by excluding the press and the public not to expose the secrets of national security and on the other hand, the right of access to information by the press and the public.
Justice Mugambe went on to explain that both sets of rights/interests are legally protected in the law and she should have weighed both carefully before coming up with a decision of locking out journalists.
In further faulting Buganda Road Chief Magistrate, Justice Mugambe observed that she was duty bound to evaluate whether the limitation to ban the press, being sought by the State, was sufficient in a free and democratic society and also whether the State had evidence to back the same, but she did not.
“The trial magistrate in reaching her decision was duty bound to inquire into the evidence concerning the alleged secrecy of the audio recordings and communications that were the subject of the application, in order to satisfy herself that indeed the limitation requested by the State was objectively verified, justified and necessary.” ruled Justice Mugambe
She added: “The State attorney should have assisted the trial magistrate by providing this evidence but he did not. This, however, does not excuse the trial magistrate; she had a duty to ask for this evidence in order to make an informed and evidence-based analysis in determining the application to proceed in-camera, but she did not.”
Further, Justice Mugambe observed that the journalists were condemned unheard despite being present in court when the magistrate was pronouncing her decision to exclude them from the proceedings.
“Without the said balancing and weighing of the competing rights/interests in her ruling, it is not demonstrably clear to me if the trial magistrate properly took the public interest into account when making her decision as required by Article 43 (1) of the Constitution,” she held.
She added: “Moreover, by giving such a blanket cover of in-camera proceedings for the entire trial, the trial magistrate sucked in the defence case proceedings. Such in-camera proceedings for the defence case should have been only at the request of the defence if they felt it necessary….This, in my view, also keeps the trial magistrate’s decision/ruling marred in procedural impropriety.”
While signing off, the judge quashed all the proceedings held in camera before directing magistrate Bucyana to first weigh and balance the competing rights and interests in issue by hearing all the parties concerned and also have a critical analysis of relevant evidence of the State.
The journalists were awarded costs to that effect for having successfully challenged the media ban.

About the tapes

The State alleges that in March 2014 at the Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Directorate (CIID) headquarters in Kampala, Mr Ronald Poteri, being in possession of an official secret entrusted to him as a person holding an office of the government, passed on the confidential information to persons not authorised to receive it.
The recordings are part of the 87 tapes of different persons interviewed in various investigations, including an alleged plot to assassinate Gen Kayihura.
Police say detective Poteri handed the recordings to Ms Jacqueline Mbabazi, the wife of former Prime Minister, Mr Amama Mbabazi.
Ms Mbabazi, who addressed a couple of press conferences in the months after the leaked tapes, said she had recordings of Gen Kayihura coaching youths to pin her husband Mr Mbabazi on nurturing presidential ambitions to contest against President Museveni in 2016.
In one of the tapes, Kayihura, after hearing from a National Resistance Movement member from Kayunga District (Alex Kasirivu) how Mbabazi’s group had allegedly mobilised against Museveni, asks his informer which advice he had for Museveni. SRC: Monitor