Uganda Martyrs Pro-Life Apostolate:

His Grace Dr. Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, archbishop of Kampala Archdiocese expressed the need of starting a Pro-life movement in 2007 to respond to the pastoral challenge of the rapidly spreading culture of death both globally and locally. He was particularly concerned about the high rates of abortion and the challenges faced by the family. In April 2008, we embarked on the enormous task of spreading the gospel of life in the Archdiocese of Kampala amidst various challenges; this was the beginning of the Uganda Martyrs Pro-life Apostolate.

Uganda Martyrs Pro-life Apostolate is an apostolate that promotes and defends human life from the moment of conception until natural death. The goal of the apostolate is to promote a culture of life. This we do through creating awareness about the sanctity of human life, marriage and the family, forming youth to respect and reflect God’s design and purpose for a chaste life, building capacity of the target population to defeat the culture of death and providing psychosocial support.

Creating awareness is the major activity of the Pro-life apostolate and so far we have sensitized hundreds of thousands of people through weekly Radio Maria programs, sensitization seminars given to various audiences including education institutions of various levels, Parishes, health workers, employees of different organisations, seminaries, community based organisations, the clergy and Religious among others. We have also published several articles in the print media and appeared on various TV and radio stations. We do a lot of work among the youths; in education institutions we have formed 42 Pro-life youth clubs which act as support groups to help them stick to chastity and protect life, trained 82 peer educators and often perform pro-life music, dance and drama.

We conduct charitable activities towards the poor, disabled, elderly, orphanages and crisis pregnancy centers and also care for the environment. We have provided livelihood knowledge and skills to the youth especially life skills and have also organised and facilitated prolife workshops. We have counseled over 200 people including those with various addictions, post-abortion trauma, crisis pregnancies and families in crisis.

We have established networks with over 10 organisations to help with services that we cannot provide like homes for pregnant teenagers, orphanages and rehabilitation centers for addicts and produced several IEC materials in form of posters, leaflets, flyers, banners, T-shirts, arm-bands, scarves, stickers containing Pro-life messages. We hold prayer days and days of convention annually. Most of the audiences we have addressed have been edified by our message and many have confessed having been transformed.

Many unborn babies have been saved from abortion and through counselling, desperate post-abortive mothers have received hope and many addicts have been rehabilitated. Our dream is to transform the population into one that respects life, sexuality, marriage and family as gifts from God. We want to see a population determined to defend, protect and promote these gifts of God so that they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God.