Humphrey fellowship empowered me to be accepted without question
I had no exhaustive knowledge about the Hubert H. Humphrey fellowship when I applied for it in 2013. My inclination was to leave the Daily Monitor newspaper newsroom, where I was the Chief Reporter, and go back to school.
As such, I applied for both Humphrey fellowship and the Chevening scholarship offered by the British government. I got both! The Chevening award was confirmed the day I returned from a pre-departure briefing at the United States embassy in Kampala and, as such, I had to forfeit the offer which couldn’t be deferred.
That decision did not come cheap. I was stressed whether to drop the Humphrey or the Chevening. In that moment of indecision, I reached out to Ambassador Olara Otunnu, a former Fulbright scholar at Harvard University and United Nations Under-secretary for Children and Armed Conflict, for guidance. His response was curt and poetic.
“Your situation is called an embarrassment of riches,” he said, laughing. He advised me to study in the US, saying it had a more liberal education regime.
I landed in Phoenix, Arizona, in August 2014, only for the desert heat to daze me the next morning. Roosevelt Point Apartment was a perfect home, and seven minutes’ walk to Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
My fellowship application study area was digital journalism. Besides the mandatory leadership and other courses, I signed up for Online Journalism and I was the oldest student in the class!
I am now applying those skills back at my work place where as the Managing Editor for Content, I oversee Monitor Publications’ news operations and content generation for Daily Monitor newspaper; the online platform and two sister FM radio stations. Of course, we work as a team.
Three years on, I’m fulfilled I took a sabbatical, even when balancing studies and relations with a young family thousands of miles away was challenging.
Our son, who was two-years-old when I left for the US, called me “uncle” the day I returned in June 2015. I was unsure whether to laugh, feel sorry for him or myself. It luckily didn’t take long before we bonded. My wife, Juliet Bako, kept the family intact and I remain eternally grateful she did. Many couples break up when one studies abroad.
The dividend of the Humphrey fellowship, evident in my career growth, is benefitting my employer, family and the community. Contacts I established while in the US have provided me exclusive stories; I was as a result of a richer profile picked alongside handful African journalists to report on the Panama Papers; and, I have a bursary to attend and meet top journalism minds in the world next month at this year’s Global Investigative Journalism conference in South Africa, the first time the symposium is being held in Africa.
Humphrey fellowship helped hone my critical journalism skills, spruced up my profile, inducted me in a global league of fine Fulbright scholars, opened more professional doors and buoyed my confidence and chances in life. Put another way, the fellowship purified me to be accepted by peers and society without question, and with respect. It became a qualifier of my innate flair.
I am now a visiting speaker at Journalism schools and run mentorship for younger journalists; the theme of my post-fellowship capstone project. Since return, I have participated in the development of a curriculum for Business Journalism at Makerere University, my alma mater, and previewed a new curriculum for Journalism and Communication course at Uganda Martyrs University Nkozi.
I actively engage in Fulbright alumni programmes, remain in close contact with the United States Embassy in Kampala, sat on the panel to select the 2016/17 Humphrey awardee for Uganda, co-hosted the immediate past chairman of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board Tom Healy and co-organised the visit as a Fulbright Specialist Scholar of Prof. Andrew Leckey, a Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Communication faculty.
The prestige of the Humphrey fellowship as I found out in the US was eclipsing. Imagine being hosted by the US Department of State for dinner in the hallowed Ben Franklin Room; with a leeway to invite your country’s ambassador to join, and grabbing a photo shoot with US Assistant Secretary Evan Ryan!
The people-to-people connections are working to my personal and professional growth/development to serve my community better. And I remain invested to share the knowledge by mentoring others and through public speaking opportunities. I’m justly proud to be a Humphrey alumnus better known in my country, Uganda, under the Fulbright stable.
Indeed while in the US, other Fulbright scholars called Humphrey fellows their “richer cousins”. Savings from my fellowship allowance enabled me to pay for and undertake “the Effective Editor” training at the Poynter Institute, preparing me for my current job.
A two-time visit to the Grand Canyon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was a highlight of fun time on the programme and envies my friends. And the icing was that I got a job placement with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Washington Bureau, as part of the fellowship requirements and I was assigned to cover the Pentagon!
The writer was a 2014/15 Humphrey fellow at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Arizona State University