I joined the trucking industry in 2010, by that time I was pregnant, here when you get pregnant after high school you become a disgrace in society, I was 19 and naughty as any young teenage girl would be, I was told to get out of the house by my Dad who was so angry about me getting pregnant, I wasn’t annoyed at all because that’s how any parent would have reacted, I was strong yet I had nothing, but I don’t know where I got the courage to move out, the father to my pre born baby was a high school sweetheart so he couldn’t do much.

So I went in an abandoned house and started a life, let me get to trucking now.

Female truck drivers face a lot of challenges in my society, its a job of single mothers, orphans, drug addicts and any bad behavior you may think of, so the public talks poorly about anybody in the trucking industry, I joined the trucking  industry, at first I approached a female driver and asked to be her helper, I told her my story of being a single mom and she took me in, we started traveling together from Kampala heading to the east to the border in Malaba then crossing over to Kenya which is another country.

She didn’t know my intention was learning to drive, but I helped her whenever she needed my help, as time went on, I learnt routes, how l am supposed to behave on the road, she became my friend and she taught me slowly how to drive, how to identify problems and fault,  how to handle simple mechanical problems , we got along well.

I finally got in to business, started getting money and applied to a university where I pursued a degree in information systems, I got my father’s attention and other family members back, it was through a lot of hard work, toil and sleepless nights that I achieved my degree, I started talking to different female drivers whenever i met them on stop overs, they thought they are doomed, I started empowering them and I told them we also are needed in this  society, if we cut off supplies of food the society will lack.  I used my opportunity of being exposed and we formed a women’s committee in a big Association called Uganda National Lorry drivers and Transporters Association.

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