Coming full circle: a journey to passion and purpose
By Dr Nik Kotecha OBE DL
This summer marked the one-year anniversary of the opening of a major social enterprise in Uganda which has already started to significantly improve the lives of up to 50,000 girls and women each year.
It also marked 52 years since the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians under the ruthless dictator Idi Amin, which I personally experienced as a child refugee with my family in 1972.
Both of the above mean a great deal to me, and I was immensely honoured to travel to Uganda last year to officially open the Keep a Girl in School (KAGIS) Manufacturing Plant, which is already making great progress towards its goal of manufacturing 100,000 re-usable sanitary pads annually.
From a personal note, my visit to Uganda brought back memories of those tumultuous beginnings and the real hardship faced by my parents as they sought to rebuild a life in the UK for our family.
Back then, it was thanks to humanitarian organisations including the Red Cross that so many families were able to escape to safety, many of which settled in the UK. But there’s no forgetting the impact this had on our whole family, and the almost insurmountable challenges it presented.
So you could say that my family foundation’s partnership with the Uganda Red Cross Society to support communities, create opportunities and to grow the local economy; has helped me reflect on my own family’s experiences of being forcibly displaced.
At the time our worlds as we knew them ended. Everything we knew had gone. What we had was each other – and the knowledge that we were safe from the real threat of harm, once we arrived in the UK and for that, we were – and we remain – so very grateful.
My hope is that the new manufacturing plant helps open doors and creates opportunities for the women and girls benefitting from skilled work, and of course, having access to essential sanitary pads – perhaps for the first time in their lives. A small, but game-changing intervention for each of those women and girls.
The factory we’ve helped to establish is providing work and secure incomes for the families of the women who take the textile jobs, marketing and logistics jobs – and roles with transferrable skills in a full range of business administration. Together, they’re making sanitary pads for the tens of thousands of girls and women in the region, who currently have no access to these products. This means they miss out on their education and, using inappropriate substitutes, take great risks with their health and ultimately, their lives. Our project is making thousands of products available free of charge, removing financial barriers to accessing this most essential resource for women. And, at a low cost, thousands more will be sold every year – ensuring the sustainability of the factory for years ahead.
It’s a privilege to be part of such a transformational partnership project with the Red Cross, helping to strengthen a local community, and revitalise paths to good health and education for thousands of young girls, who are today missing school because of unsafe or no sanitary pad provision. It’ll mean those girls can stay in school, complete their education, take their place as more equal citizens in society – and be more able to make their own choices for their futures.
For me personally, I’ve always felt that my experiences as a child have been one of the core sources of my tenacity to succeed and to give back to communities. It’s been formative in my own values, shaped my socially focussed businesses which, even as we grew, felt like a close-knit family firm. And it’s driven my desire, compelled me in fact, to help others – something which is in sharp focus now, alongside my desire to give back.
Stepping back onto Ugandan soil last summer, I was alert to how little I remember of the beautiful country in which I spent my early years. Perhaps the trauma of that time created a block in the mind of six-year-old me. But I do recall how fondly my parents spoke, and still speak, of our good lives in Uganda, and I remember the fragrant, sweet mangoes, and the warm, warm rain.
And it’s hard to describe too, the feeling of this being somehow part of a full circle, especially revisiting back where I began.
As a refugee, displaced to the UK, my path could have taken many turns and it is due to the kindness or others who have offered me opportunities and believed in me, which has shaped my values; led directly, I believe, to my passion to help others, and from that came my purpose.
The Randal Charitable Foundation – A firmly founded social purpose, which is now an accelerating trajectory, and one which I’m looking forward to continuing to explore in the years ahead.
