About me
I am a Ugandan multimedia journalist working on peace and conflict issues in the Eastern Africa region. Currently I am the Editor and Rights in Crisis Digital Campaigner at Channel16 I also work in communications with at Isis-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE) documenting stories of women in conflict and post conflict settings mostly in Africa.
Passionate about new media and internet freedom, I am an Internet Freedom Fellow with U.S Department of State Human rights program designed to promote the work of online activists and journalists to enhance human rights coverage.
I hold a Masters in Media, Peace and Conflict Studies from the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. I have also studied Non-Violent Conflict at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
I have written for different Ugandan media including Daily Monitor, The Independent news magazine, and I reported for NTV Uganda . My work has featured at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). My reporting on peace and security was recognised at the 2008 Ugandan Investigative Journalism Awards hosted by Makerere University Department of Mass Communication. From time to time I write for Inter Press Service (IPSAfrica) on different development issues.
I am a Global Voices author and i do commentary on conflict issues. My blog won the Waxal - Blogging Africa Awards, first African journalist blogging awards hosted by Panos Institute of West Africa in 2009.
Rosebel,
I am happy to note that you are studying. I have been following your articles and very professional, informing and intelligent. I wish you all the best in your professional development, but remember Uganda and Africa. Africa needs you in the media field you are specialising in. Ali Mazrui, still comes back to Africa.
Regards,
Mathew Langol@köln
Thanks Mathew for your kind words. I will be back.
Hi, I have liked your blog and it contents. is it possible to contact me.
i also visited this site and found it interesting do visit it.
http://www.africafrique.com
bless you.
Rose,
Great that you have arrived Costa Rica for your studies. Have enjoyed bour blog and I admire your courage in being able to write and think the way you do. Though our meeting in SA during FAIR 2008 workshop was brief, I certainly have come to realise your guts and the stuff you are made off. Keep the African flag flying over ther.
Cheers
Rose,
Great that you have arrived Costa Rica for your studies. Have enjoyed bour blog and I admire your courage in being able to write and think the way you do. Though our meeting in SA during FAIR 2008 workshop was brief, I certainly have come to realise your guts and the stuff you are made off. Keep the African flag flying over there.
Cheers
Rosebell,
I consider the UPEACE program among the top best in the world. While you are already an accomplished brilliant reporter, the program will enhance your conceptual and analytical skills to take your reporting to another level – questioning established national and international policies as well as paradigms with respect to conflict management. Make sure to use your time at UPEACE to widen your understanding of the geographical scope of the existing conflicts and the solutions used to handle each of them. What can Africa learn from South America’s handling of the intractable conflicts in that part of the world? What needs to be changed within media and communication to promote peace-oriented thinking and practice? How is Africa uniquely impacted by the geopolitics of global conflicts e.g. the war on terror? How equipped are we in media and communication to wiggle through all that? Best of luck and enjoy your program!!
William Tayeebwa,
PhD Candidate and Trudeau Foundation Scholar in Media for Peace at http://cjournal.concordia.ca/archives/20080612/trudeau_scholar_studies_global_media.php
Many thanks master Tayebwa, and ur still my master because what you have just added to my reading list is a must read indeed. i will look it up and I am sure to use this time to gather all that I can to be a better reporter and a better person.
I stumbled upon your website as I was doing a search for the terms “Costa Rica” and “presidential term limits.” I have been interested in reading about the past decade’s changes to laws on presidential term limits, and I was glad to see that you had mentioned recent news concerning this in Costa Rica.
After looking at your blog, I’d be very interested in hearing how you’re finding your master’s program in UPEACE, as well as in reading anything you’re working on there. I applaud your website, as much for the thoughtful content of your blogs as for its form — very informative and navigable. I really ought to get one up myself.
I’m also in Costa Rica due to my graduate studies. I am currently a graduate student in the anthropology department at the University of California, San Diego. This visit to Ciudad Quesada is my fourth for the purposes of laying the groundwork for my dissertation field work. My interests include Costa Rican politics and political economy, the spread of evangelical Christianity in Costa Rica, and issues pertaining to gender and the family.
Because of these interests, then, that I was also happy to see that you have blogged about religious matters. Have you been to any local churches in Costa Rica? Since my first visit in 2003, I have been attending three churches for a comparative study in the kinds of Christianity available to members of Ciudad Quesada, and to understand the way that religious belief/practice is related to changes in gender and the family in Costa Rica, and the way in which both might be related to Costa Rica’s political economy.
Finally, on the issue to term limits, I was also interested to see that you were from Uganda. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on the Costa Rican situation. Maybe we can exchange recommended readings. Like lots of people, I’m very underinformed about the African examples in lots of these readings, and I could use recommendations on good analysis of the African situation. BTW, one of the professors in the department at UCSD is Jonathan Friedman. Have you ever read any of his work on identity and tribalism in the DRC?
I look forward to reading your blog, and I welcome any inquiries or more information about your studies.
Best wishes,
William Dawley
good to read from you. i will in touch.
Hello Rosebell,
I just joined up with Vox so i could write to you there, but then saw your comment about wordpress! So here i am.
I don’t know if you remember, but I met you on the Peace & Collaborative Development Network and nearly met you in Uganda when we were over this summer, but sadly our dates didn’t coincide.
I actually came across you by chance again, via one of your blogs on Vox which really impressed me, without realising who the author was, and then realised it was you!
So i just had to reconnect with you
I’m delighted to say that our Uganda chapter is in the process of registering.
Our experience in Uganda was incredible, and a long story in itself, but left us feeling very passionate about Uganda.
Would love to be in touch again, especially having read more of your writing.
We are currently in the middle of setting up a campaign for the elimination of violence against women. Which looks set now to be an ongoing campaign. You can see more at http://www.asafeworldforwomen.org
With very warmest wishes
Chris.
Rose you surely a good writer. God bless you. Keep up.
ROSE+BELL=
I was tempted to search and learn more on Costarica after the skype KB a little while ago.
Goodaplace it looks.
Cheers gal
Dear Rose
It is refresing to see you put your God given skills to work. May almighty God guide and protect you in your life endevours. Please help those at home who can’t help themselves. All Africans are one people. Ali Mazrui has been my Hero ever since the program the Aricans.I love you too my sister. I am an Engineer living in west for a long time, and I unable to go home. Everybody that i know is gone. So keep your stories coming.It gives me hope to go on.
Ali Barewa
Thanks for you remarks am sure each of us can contribute something to our country.
What a brilliant lady you are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t give up. I am Paul from Bushenyi tooo, a journalist.
its so irritating wat happened to the kasubi tombs ,,,, and we strongly belive it was the govt .
luck u …. wish u the best , hope u ll fetch uganda some touristr from costarica … uganda has alot to offer
who cares?
Hullo Rosebel, Its very encouraging, that you persue your dreams & goals till you achieve them. I live in kamwokya kampala, & I used to visit a muteso friend @ Radionetwork.
Otherwise iam with the http://www.gnld.com, incase you want to know more, just get back to me.
Thanks Sam &GOD BLESS you while there.
Hello Ross,
I have liked your contributions on peace and conflicts. I followed this link from the BBC report of the Kasubi tombs fire. And ofcourse known you as an NTV reporter. Well, I am having an online based NEW PORTAL for Uganda, which purely Ugandan. You can take a look and see http://www.weblogsafrica.com/uganda . I am interested in such great stories. Let me know what you think about this portal.
Dear Rosebell,
My take on conflict and investigative journalism is that the journalist must be unprejudiced, non-biased in her reporting. I have read many articles on the Ugandan situation especially related to the worsening relationship between the Kabaka (King) of Buganda and the Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni’s regime- which is think is a personal matter between him and Kabaka Mutebi. I may be wrong and this is why am asking for a professional journalistic view point.
I have just read about the suspected arson; the UNESCO listed historical tombs of four kings of Buganda was gutted by fire last night. When the president tried to visit the site, his presidential convoy was blocked by the people and so he could not reach his destination.
This does not augur well at all in a situation where the Baganda are already angry with him and the country is heading for presidential elections 2011 and where the Baganda feel marginalized and persecuted in their own kingdom.
Worst of all, there are insinuations of a brewing genocide; with each side accusing the other as the one planning the genocide! This is serious matter the world must not allow to happen in Uganda or ever again anywhere in the world. I refer to The New Vision Editorial that was rebutted by the Buganda Kingdom Attorney General about genocide.
There is an ongoing conflict between President Museveni and the Buganda kingdom. I would like to read from your thoughts about this ongoing conflicts and what the best solution could be to resolve this matter amicably. Of course I know you hail from Uganda’s western region and one would think you would be biased like many others from Ankole and Kigezi when it comes to a conflict between Museveni- a westerner himself and Buganda or any other ethnic group in Uganda.
The most disturbing issue for me is my knowledge that when Museveni came to power 1986 he came in as a unifying factor, a non-tribalistic principle; one that fought against nepotism and a staunch fighter for African unity.
He spoke much about the dangers of fragmentation of Africa into tribalistic groups and small nations but he is doing the exact opposite of his earlier principles regarding this now in Uganda.
In particular he has broken up Buganda into minor kingdoms that never once existed as kingdoms before; he has taken Uganda back to precolonial times breaking up the stakes of a unified country it once was at least at independence in 1962 when tribalistic disputes between Buganda and Bunyoro were tabled and resolved.
No other ethnic group submitted their disputes for autonomy or having been annexed to Buganda at the time. Why resurrect these issues now when everyone in Uganda is looking up to an East African Political Federation of which he is a vanguard? Judged against this state of affairs, Museveni is the reason why Buganda is now talking of seceding from Uganda. He has given ammunition to the cause.
By restoring kingdoms, Buganda in particualr, he built an anthill and is now breaking it apart…what does he expect the Baganda to do? To sit and watch him break up their kingdom? This is absurd.
In other words, let Uganda be dismantled and have each tribe be an independent nation as they were before the colonialists came to this part of East Africa and destabilised the peace. Is this what he wants?
What are your views about this and why do you think he is doing this at a time when he is fighting for an East African Political Federation?
Has he stooped so low for political reasons because he plans to stand for a fourth term as an elected president? What is the gist and kernel of this dramatic change in his political manifesto?
Good to learn that you are in Costa Rica, I once lived and studied in Los Angeles, California, but one thing I learnt about people from that part of the globe(Western Europe in General), is that they know very little about Uganda in particular and Africa in general, leave alone East Africa, please, my appeal to you is to sell our country as much as you can now that you are a journalist. John from Kampala
Hise Rose, wooow it’s nice reading your blog and as fellow former local journalists in Uganda do envy you.
Besides the fact that you come from Bushenyi also makes me strong that some body from Rushenyi in Ntungamo, I will change this world for peace and reconciliation the way you do.
OK, I do freelance with The Observer, and other local Runyankole language papers [ENTATSI] in Uganda.
It’s today that as I read a story on BBC about the Kasubi tombs, i came across your blog, lets keep in touch for there is a lot you will guide me on.
Am heading a CBO in Ntungamo, South Western Uganda majoring in Peace, conflict resolution, promoting alternative conflict resolutions and also calling on youths to conserve nature.
+256785767700
guvanon2@yahoo.com
it was really nice reading your stuff. keep it up plz
Splendid blog Rosebell.
We need your input at Abanyakigezi and Friends here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34350429158#!/group.php?gid=34350429158
Hi Kagu’s wat a great pleasure to read from you. I stambbled on your blog through BBC: U know me and U: Once a journalist always one. So we belong together. I just decided to drop u a line and say yes, we are all following home news. It is no good news. Iam glad you are doing the same course as me. May be one day, me and U can make a difference in our home land an Africa at large. Iam also doing my MA in Peace and Conflict Research in Otto Von Guericke Universität Madgeburh in Germany.
Thanks Joan,
I was wondering where you had disappeared to. Glad to hear you are studying for we need all the study we can land our hands on.
hope you will be back to the continent soon!
well done
god bless U
TAKE CARE
2010 ACP Photo Competition
Online Image
Today The Courier launched the “African, Caribbean and Pacific Talents: a Photo Award”.
As the title suggests, this competition is open to young photographers from ACP countries.
Through this competition, The Courier aims to increase the visibility of young photographers and encourage the use of photography as a tool to reflect and describe the society and the world around us.
The theme of the award is broad, and represents an invitation to investigate some of the most complex issues of our time.
The topics are:
Trade, Culture, Tradition, Science and technology, Climate change and their relations with development.
The winner will be selected by an international jury made up of professionals in the field, and will receive 1,000 euros.
Events and exhibitions will also be held in Brussels.
Please check on The Courier website for more information, for the detailed rules of the award and for the competition logo.
Thanks for spreading the news and please don’t esitate to email us should you have any question.
My question is totally outside your usual area, but you can probably confirm for me. I have been told that citizens of Tanzania pronounce their country’s name in two ways, not one: Tan-za-nee-a AND Tan-zane-e-a. Is this correct? Several people have told me so, however, I have had no luck so far confirming this. Please let me know your answer.
Thank you.
I am Ugandan so i go with the first pronounciation Tan-za-nee-a and am sure most call in the region go by that.
Hello,
Welcome to Togo, west Africa, place where I write from.
I was making a research and I was directed to your blog.
I find it special. Congratulartions!!!
I am Carlos Amevor, I have just ended my journalism
course and I following the practice now.
As an elder, I hope U give me help.
Wait for your reply.
Bye and may God keep you safe
Carlos Amevor
Hello Rosebell,
It’s amazing to learn of the immense interest you have in Transitional Justice. I got to know your blog through a colleague who studied at the University of Peace, Costa Rica; where you are right now. I am currently working with the African Transitional Justice Researchers’ Network (ATJRN), as the Regional Coordinator for the Grate Lakes. I am based at the Refugee Law Project, Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala.
ATJRN, has established an Institute for African Transitional Justice – IATJ (“Addressing Transitional Justice Issues in African Context”). We shall be running our first one-week-long course in Kampala, slated for Nov 21 – 27. The course is designed for Researchers, Academics, Practitioners, Government Officials, Students, and other Humanitarian Workers interested, and/or, working on African Transitional-Justice-related issues. We have a limited number of partial/fulltime scholarships. It would be great to get in touch with you, considering that you have a strong opinion on justice issues.
Thanks for your blog, just had a “run” through it today!
Cheers and keep it up
Levis O.
Kampala-Uganda
Thanks Levi I will inbox you.
Hi Kagus
Hope all is well with you,
Mum things are tough here. Currently with DW World and also ventured into the world of Radio so DW Radio too. But lol bks, Research and media aint making fun. Gues u know what it feels like. All the best my gal
Jane
Dear Rosebell,
congratulations on your blog, very informative. I actually want to contact you regarding an independent, international magazine I am working on at the moment. I know that free content is a swear word in today’s media industry, but if you believe in informing the masses, please drop me a message at cveits@thirtyone-limited.com and I will share my vision with you.
Best,
Chris
Hi Rose;
I am an Ethiopian living with a permanent residence permit in Uganda or to to tell it as it is I am a refugee.Mahidere Bekele told me about you whereupon I visited your blog.It looks interesting and you seem to be actively engaged in all the important things that matter to Africans.Well,keep up the good work.
Best Regards
Kiflu Hussain
Thanks Kiflu please in box me
Hi Rosebell,
Congs for what you have done and for what you are doing. I read widely and i just surfed into your blog through Google.
However, as i read comments on your blog, i came across one really disgusting comment. It was posted by a certain “Twakoowa” saying: who cares?.
Please ignore people like that. Imagine such a Ugandans – they start a quarrel for no reason at all.
Cheers!
Mubiru.
Thanks Mubiru!
Hello Rosebell,
I am graduating from a journalism program in Ottawa, Canada and am looking forward to a two month internship in Rwanda from July to August.
Though I will be interning at an arts magazine, I am interested in working on a couple of side research projects–one of which is learning a bit more about the role of female journalists in Rwanda and surrounding countries. I was wondering if you’d be interested in answering some questions I have on the subject. Extremely excited to go.
Thanks for your time!
Sincerely,
Rosella Chibambo
please send me an email. thanks
Thank you so much for your reply. I can’t find an email on your page. My apologies if it’s somewhere obvious!
Mine in rosellachibambo@gmail.com and I would love to speak with you about my project.
I have read your blog many times and i haven´t seen any reference to our goloco dances…..hahahah. Great work Rosita, very professional as always…..
Dear Rosebell,
I am writing from the Royal African Society in London as managing editor of our discussion site African Arguments http://www.africanarguments.org
The intention of the site is to provide a forum for the serious analysis and discussion of contemporary African affairs with an emphasis on political life, and its impact on economic and developmental issues. The site is formally edited by Richard Dowden and Alex de Waal.
Would you be able to help us promote the site by either mentioning it as a post on your own blog, include it in your blogroll, or perhaps send it out to any email or other social networks you might have access to?
If you would like to know anything further about African Arguments then please let me know.
Best Wishes,
–
Magnus Taylor
Editor
http://www.africanarguments.org
http://www.royalafricansociety.org
Royal African Society
36 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PD
Rosebell,
I just came across your blog and read through it for the last hour – oh my word I love your writing and the work you do.
Would you be kind to send me your email address – I’d love to share with you something.
I hope you find this in order.
Regards
Petunia
South Africa
Hi, please read my book “The Price of Stones” Twesigye Jackson Kaguri. We need more human rights advocates in Uganda.
We were both listed as Africans to follow in Social Media. That’s how I found your name.
is it available in Uganda?
Dear Ms. Kagumire,
I am writing to request an interview with you, via Skype, regarding your life as a journalist covering social issues in East Africa. As part of my journalism curriculum at Columbia College Chicago, I am taking an international reporting class in which our professor gave us free reign on parts of the world to cover for our class blog; I chose to write about the state of affairs in East Africa. One of our assignments is to interact (through social media tools) with journalists and activists from our “beat.” I would very much appreciate it if you could share your insight and experiences reporting on important issues that have come to shape the world in which we live. Your thoughts on the use of social media to disseminate valuable information would also be helpful.
Any form of assistance will be greatly appreciated, Ms. Kagumire. I hope this message reaches you in good health and high spirits. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Stephanie