Before the white man’s footprints darkened our soil, before land was fenced and ownership written on paper, our people lived in a democracy of trust, a circle of life where every hand fed the other and every decision served the whole community.

I come from western Uganda, those days, the women care groups were the beating heart of the homestead. They didn’t hold titles or offices, yet they ruled the rhythm of the seasons.

They knew which seeds would call the rain, which herbs would heal hunger, and which trees would guard the wells. Their wisdom was our wealth.

 

We never spoke of food insecurity because food was shared, not sold.

We didn’t fear drought because we protected the trees, the springs, and the sacred rhythm between work and rest. We didn’t know inequality because every woman’s hands shaped the home, and every man’s strength served the family. In those days, democracy wasn’t written in books; it lived in our hearts. Elders met under the great local tree not to rule, but to reason. Families decided together about planting, marriage, and birth guided by values that put life before wealth.

The Family before Destruction

Our families were nuclear in structure but extended in spirit.
A man, a woman, their children yet the village raised them all.
A child belonged not just to the womb, but to the clan.

What outsiders now call family planning was once part of our wisdom. The elders taught that a home should grow only as far as the land and love could sustain. Women gathered under banana groves, grandmothers, mothers, and daughters to share herbs, stories, and counsel on how to care for both body and earth.

 

Then came the colonial shadow.

Foreign rulers broke our granaries, fenced our wells, and called our rivers “property.”
They mocked our ways, dismissed the voices of women, and tore apart the balance that held us together. They brought hunger not of the stomach alone, but of spirit. A hunger for land, power, and things that could never fill the soul.

 Reclaiming the Roots

Today, our women care groups are rising again.
They are planting kitchen gardens, restoring indigenous seeds, and teaching young girls their worth. They are rebuilding what was broken the bond between people and land, family and democracy, nature and justice.

 

We say again:

“Culture is not backward, it is the foundation of freedom.”

True development is not when a few grow rich, but when every family eats, drinks, and decides together.

Our ancestors taught that water, food, and justice breathe as one. Without them, no democracy can survive, no woman can lead, and no child can dream.

If we heal the land, we heal our people.
If we honor our women, we restore the home.
If we return to our culture, we will be free again from food insecurity, drought, inequality, and water scarcity.