My name is Emmanuel Gyezaho. I am a 27 year old political journalist based 
in Kampala, Uganda. I work with the only independent daily, The Daily Monitor.
I grew up in uptown Kampala and I am the second of five children. I have two brothers and two sisters.
Growing up in a country where political corruption has stifled human development through bad governance, just as it has across the developing world, I studied journalism at university so that I could expose the excesses of our political class.
I am blogging with the British Council because it offers me and the rest of the Commonwealth people, a platform to interact, share experiences and exchange ideas on how best we as people, individually and collectively, can deal with the problems we face in our lives.
It is a privilege, I must admit, to be part of an ingenious idea to participate in the People’s Space this year, as my country hosts fifty three heads of state and government representing a third of the world’s population.
I am relishing the prospect of interacting with millions of people, in conversation on issues that affect their day to day lives. I hope that in the process, we can all learn from each other and make the best out of our lives by making the world we live in a better place.
In the end, I hope you guys can teach me how to be a better person, by sharing your culture and knowledge, and in turn you can learn from my own experiences.
Those of you not attending the Commonwealth People’s Forum don’t you worry. Expect all the happenings across the event, as it breaks, right here on the People’s Forum Blog.
Sit back, relax, and join the conversation.
Here’s a short piece of audio created by me about my involvement in the event:
Download / open a low bandwidth file here.
Download / open a high bandwidth file here.
(A transcript will be posted shortly)
emmy, im impressed by the level of maturity you have, and the passion that you display for our country..you have come a long way and you are making us proud..like the bible says, the truth shall set you free, keep relentlessly exposing those evils in our society and with time, we as a people will say ENOUGH ALREADY and be shaken to follow in the fight for a better uganda.see you soon.
I have one desire and one passion - I love the human spirit!!! All the human creations we enjoy today are a diect poduct of a FREE HUMAN SPIRIT!!!
Our leaders in Africa in general should realise that mere rhetoric and speaches will not change our future!! What will shape our future are the CHOICES that we make today!! Our choices define our PHILOSOPHY and Shape our ACTIONS - and ultimately define our FUTURE!! Solutions to our problems are just lying with us!! We do not need to look far!!
We need selfless leaders who have a genuine interest in building their nations, not just building their popularity and wealth!!
In my own opinion two things urgently need to be done in this continent, or our country in particular:
1. recognition that the most imporatnt resource that we can ever have is our people!! to treasure life every individual, to ensure evey human has a right to life, to ensure the human spirit is free (within the context of responsible freedom) and to allow every child opportunity to grow up and fully protected are fundamental issues that do not need mere talking, but real action
2. poviding every human spirit with an equal opportunity to exercise and use his/her inherent abilities, entrepreunural skills, talents and achieve ts full potential and fully make his/her contibution to humanity and the developement of their country!! Governments should achieve this by providing basic infrastructure - quality health services, quality roads, quality education, quality leadership, clean water, etc!!!
Without this framework we will remain talking foever!!!
Let all of us take this responsibility to our hearts, especially us the youth!!
For God and my country!!