Habitat for Humanity Uganda awards outstanding journalists reporting on informal settlements.

Habitat for Humanity Uganda, an organization working to address housing inequities, focuses on empowering communities, enhancing access to essential services, and improving land tenure security, on Friday, February 7th, 2025, recognized journalists who excelled in reporting on housing issues of the informal settlements in Uganda and aimed to celebrate the efforts of the media towards improving attention by policymakers, leaders, and the public to issues in informal settlements.

Other categories awarded included academia, the community champions among others.

Among the journalists awarded working in print, television, radio, and online media include Samir Hussein from the Print category working with Daily Monitor Newspaper, Drake Nyamugabwa from Online Media with Jori Press, Fred Kayongo Male from the Radio category, Sekiwungu Hassif from TV, Arajab Wampura from Print among others.

The winners walked away with a plague and cash prizes ranging from UGX 1 million to UGX 500,000 depending on the category.

From the Academia, Ronald Musinguzi from Makerere University CEDAT department was awarded for best affordable housing design, while the community Land Tenure System award went to Lokongoro Area Land Community.

According to Habitat for Humanity Uganda, the media awards are part of the global Home Equals campaign, which seeks to address housing inequities by highlighting the challenges faced by communities living in informal settlements.

While presenting a cheque dummy to the winners at the award night, Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Judith Nabakooba applauded the working collaboration between the Lands Ministry and Habitat for Humanity for improving the quality of life of Ugandans to access decent homes.

“This is a great opportunity to celebrate the combined efforts in improving the quality of life for our people. The collaboration between the lands ministry and Habitat for Humanity gives a good example of partnerships and service to Uganda and what civil society and government can achieve” she said

She called for more partnerships to strengthen the already existing strides in land, urban, and housing sub-sectors including new policies geared towards decent homes, and funding to the sector to ensure affordability among others.

Owek. Robert Waggwa Nsibirwa

The Chairperson Board of Director Habitat or Humanity Owekitibwa Robert Waggwa Nsibirwa said "Am glad to represent the Board of Directors of Habitat for Humanity Uganda at the Home Equals Campaign National Awards, recognizing champions of affordable Housing from academia, media, & community.

He said that together with Makerere University, Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban, Crest tanks, Cornerstone Engineering Uganda, and UN-Habitat are continuing to push for a future where everyone has a place to call home.

The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Housing Hon Rolland Ndyomugenyi called for collecting planning of the different stakeholders in the housing sub-sector to ensure proper and sustainable housing settlement especially adhering to building plans

Habitat for Humanity Uganda over time has worked through the Home Equals campaign seeking for policy changes at the local, national and global levels to increase access to adequate housing in informal settlements through building, rehabilitating and repaying houses, capacity building among communities, equitable basic services, and items among others.

Drake Nyamugabwa after receiving the award on Friday