By Valereen Mwahulhwa
Life at the university has not always been easy for Dismas Nuwaine, a recent graduate from the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at Uganda Christian University (UCU). One of the biggest challenges he faced was not having enough money to cater for his needs. Sometimes he found he had to sleep on the couch in the common room at Nsibambi Hall or the floor of a friend’s room – because he couldn’t afford to rent a room on his own. He did whatever he could to make ends meet. His second year was rather tough and sometimes he could not afford a meal.
“I would have Shs5,000 and eat cassava of Shs1,000 and drink tea just to survive and go by every day,” he shares, adding, “I faced challenges related to resources a lot but I didn’t look at them as major challenges because I knew things would get better and I knew where I wanted to be.”
The 22-year-old Nuwaine graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication at the 25th graduation ceremony that was held at the UCU football grounds on the 25th of October. But Nuwaine did not just graduate; he passed with a CGPA of 4.79 which earned him a first class degree with honors.
On top of his already stellar performance Nuwaine was awarded an accolade for being the best overall male student at the graduation ceremony. “It is staggering, it is exciting, it is emotional but then again, it is a challenge because I have to live up to society’s expectations of me. It challenges me now to work harder than ever before but it’s a beautiful experience and I am grateful to God,” he says.
Nuwaine’s journey to becoming an academic giant started way back in high school at Makerere High School Migadde after he got expelled from St. Joseph Secondary School in Mbarara because he had turned into some sort of a rebel leading fights and other kinds of reckless behaviour. His parents then decided to make a drastic change and bring him to central Uganda hoping to turn the tide for their son. Nuwaine says he settled in well and later went on to become born again, something that changed his life tremendously.
Because he was not satisfied being just a church member so he decided to engage in active service in the church while in high school. The desire continued when he joined the university; he joined the wardens’ ministry also popularly known as the ushers department, when he found out they were looking for people to serve on that team. The role of the members is to help people find seats in church, collect offertory and other duties.
He later went on to campaign for a guild position and became the MP of the School of Journalism, Media and Communication and also the Deputy Minister of Information from 2023-2024. Balancing his leadership roles and church service alongside his academics was mostly a product of prioritisation, good time management and sacrifice.
Nuwaine doesn’t remember ever wanting to give up on either his leadership or academics even though he was tried a few times. He remembers one of the tough times when complaints were raised about the accountability of the funds from the Guild Run.
“There came a period where there was inconsistencies with what happened to the guild money. The accountability was lackluster, there was little to no accountability of that money and as a person who was engaging with the public, I faced a lot of people were coming to me.
Nuwaine says people would ask, “Where is our money?” According to him, this was a challenging time because he says, there were people he knew who stole the money and so the question arose as to whether he could support his government yet he knew some people had done something wrong.
“We battled in the course of the government,” he says, adding that there were some who wanted to syphon off resources that were meant to help students but they fought we put up a strong battle.
“We fought on and we never gave up because I knew it was my civic duty. I pioneer effective accountable leadership so to me it was a personal obligation that I had. If I could not go on and do it as a person then who could? God has blessed me and has put me in a position then I should use it to bring order,” he shares.
When it came to his academics, Nuwaine says he knew what he had come to do and the fact that his parents were paying colossal sums of money pushed him further.
“I knew the person I wanted to be, my vision was quite clear so what would make me give up? No challenge is too hard to undertake because God has blessed us with wisdom with resources so there was no day I ever thought of giving up. It was full resolve from day one,” he says.
He attributes his impressive grades to God who guided him on this journey and blessed him immensely. He also thanks his amazing parents for being his driving force to always work hard because he wanted to put a smile on their faces especially his mother’s. Because he wanted to excel, Nuwaine says he sacrificed his social life and often found himself neglecting the company of friends to pursue what most people like to call the “finer things” in life because he was always studying or doing an assignment.
Coming from a family of coffee growers, Nuwaine learned early on that he had to be independent and put in those hours at school because of the struggles his parents overcame to get him an education. One of those times happened when he forgot to cover the coffee beans even after he had been reminded by his mother. Furious at him, his father made a certain statement that stayed with him all his life: “Dismas how come at this time you haven’t covered the coffee? You are grown up. Go and study I don’t want you here!” The tough words, Nuwaine says, reminded him that he had only a few years to of getting support from his parents.
“If there is one thing I always struggled with it’s asking my parents for money because I felt like I was disturbing them and I needed to be independent as a person.”
Realising that he would need to start fending for himself soon, Nuwaine started looking for opportunities and got some journalism related gigs while at university, including being part of the Media Challenge Initiative Fellowship Class of 2024 which he says has opened more doors for him.
Looking back, Nuwaine says his experience of being expelled from St. Joseph Secondary School helped him to avoid doing things out of peer pressure at the university. “It enabled me to have a strong sense of personal motivation, and prioritisation, and it enabled me ultimately to be focused, to make strong independent decisions,” he says.
He relishes his experience at the university and he advises any student who wants to attain such high grades as he did, to know who they are, set goals for themselves, avoid meaningless relationships and friendships that don’t add any value, engage their lecturers every now and then and above all serve the Lord.
