By Mwiru Victoria
In Uganda, the sound of a whistle, a Local Council chairman moving door to door, or a police officer shouting “Bulungi Bwansi is today!” is often what pushes us to clean. Every last Saturday of the month, we are reminded that it is general cleaning day. Yet by 10 a.m., many trenches in Katanga, Bwaise, Kisenyi, and even Nakawa are still clogged, polythene bags still flying in downtown Kampala, and markets still swimming in rubbish.
Why do we wait to be forced to clean the place we live in, work in, pray in, and raise our children in? How can we move from forced cleaning to a culture of voluntary cleanliness?
This is not about government. It is about us.
1. Understanding Why We Resist Cleaning
We must first be honest. Many Ugandans grew up seeing cleaning as a punishment. In school, if you made noise, you were told to “go and clean the latrine.” At home, cleaning was what you did when visitors were coming, not a daily habit. So our brain linked cleaning to shame, not pride.
Secondly, we have normalized dirt. When everyone around you throws a mineral water bottle out of the taxi window, you start to think it is normal. When the trench in front of your shop has been blocked for months, you stop seeing it.
Thirdly, we think cleaning is for someone else. “KCCA will clean.” “The landlord will clean.” “The market master will clean.” But KCCA has only about 1,200 cleaners for over 2 million people in Kampala. They cannot be everywhere.
To embrace cleaning without force, we have to change mindset first.
2. Make Cleanliness Personal, Not Political
Cleanliness is not about impressing the chairman. It is about your health.
The Ministry of Health tells us every year that 70% of diseases we suffer in Uganda — cholera, typhoid, diarrhea, malaria — are directly linked to poor sanitation. A blocked trench in your area breeds mosquitoes that will give your own child malaria. The polythene you throw in the trench blocks water, floods your shop, and destroys your stock worth millions.
When we understand that cleaning protects our own money and our own family, we no longer need a whistle.
Ask yourself: Would I want my child to play in this compound? Would I eat food cooked in this kitchen? If the answer is no, then you have a reason to clean, not because of LC1, but because of love for your family.
*3. Start Small at Home — The 15-Minute Rule*
The Japanese have a concept called Kaizen — small continuous improvement. You don’t need to wait for Saturday to do general cleaning.
Introduce the 15-minute family cleaning rule. Every day at 6:00 p.m., before supper and news, every member of the house cleans for 15 minutes. No phone, no excuses. Father sweeps the compound, mother cleans the kitchen, children arrange shoes, wash plates, and empty the dustbin.
In 15 minutes, a home transforms. After 7 days, it becomes a habit. After 30 days, it becomes identity. You become a clean family.
Teach children that cleaning is not a punishment but responsibility. In Buganda culture, there was “Obuyonjo” — cleanliness was a sign of good upbringing. A girl who could not sweep well was not considered ready. Let’s bring that pride back, but for both boys and girls.
*4. Make it Business — Traders and Shop Owners*
If you own a shop in Kikuubo, Owino, or Kiyembe, your front is your billboard. Customers will not enter a shop with stinking rubbish at the door, however cheap your goods are.
The most successful business people in Kampala clean twice a day. They sweep in the morning before opening, and in the evening after closing. They put a small dustbin in front of their shop — a used 20-litre jerrycan cut into two — and they tell customers, “Please put your rubbish here.”
This is not extra work. It is marketing. A clean shop attracts customers. A clean restaurant attracts diners. In fact, you can put a small sign: “We value cleanliness.” People will trust your food more.
Market leaders should stop waiting for KCCA enforcement. Create a rota: each lane cleans its lane. The chicken lane cleans chicken waste, the tomato lane cleans tomato waste. Reward the cleanest lane every month with a certificate. Competition works better than force.
*5. The Landlord-Tenant Agreement*
Much of Kampala lives in rentals — single rooms, doubles, apartments. The biggest problem is “whose job is it to clean the toilet, the compound, the trench?”
The solution is simple: include cleaning in the rent agreement.
When you enter a rental, the landlord should write clearly: “Tenant will clean the compound every Tuesday, tenant will slash every Saturday, tenants will contribute 2,000 shillings weekly for garbage collection.” When it is written and agreed, no one is forced. It is a contract.
Landlords in areas like Nansana, Kasangati, and Seeta who have done this have the cleanest rentals and the highest demand. Tenants want to stay where it is clean.
Also, landlords should provide infrastructure: one skip or dustbin for every 5 houses, a soak pit, a clear drainage channel. You cannot tell people to be clean and not give them where to put rubbish.
*6. Schools Must Lead, Not Punish*
We have over 15 million children in schools. If each child becomes a cleanliness ambassador, Uganda will change in one generation.
But schools must change method. Stop using cleaning as punishment. Instead, make cleanliness a subject of pride.
Have Cleanliness Clubs. Have inter-class competitions for the cleanest classroom, cleanest latrine, best compound. Let children inspect each other. Give small rewards — a book, a pen, a badge.
Teach practical skills: how to make a dustbin from a sack, how to make compost from food waste, how to recycle plastic bottles into brooms — which some youth groups in Kamwokya are already doing and selling.
When a P.5 child learns that banana peelings can make manure for the school garden, they will never throw them in the trench again.
*7. Churches, Mosques and Cultural Institutions*
Ugandans listen to religious leaders more than politicians. If every Friday, the Imam tells the congregation to clean their homes before Juma prayers, and every Sunday the Pastor says “Cleanliness is next to Godliness — show it in your home,” people will listen.
We have seen it work. Watoto Church does community cleaning. The Catholic Church in Mbarara organizes Bulungi Bwansi every month without police. Kingdom of Buganda through Bulange has “Bulungi Bwansi” as part of Buganda pride.
Religious institutions should have monthly community cleaning as an act of worship, not an act of law.
*8. Use Media, Music and Influencers*
Young Ugandans spend 5 hours a day on TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Instead of only dancing challenges, let’s create #YonjaUg challenge. A challenge where you show your compound before and after cleaning.
Imagine if musicians like Eddy Kenzo, Spice Diana, or Azawi posted themselves cleaning their compounds and challenged fans. Imagine if comedians like Maulana and Reign made skits about how funny it is to be dirty — people would laugh and learn.
Radio stations, especially local radios in Arua, Gulu, Mbale, Mbarara, should have 5-minute “Obuyonjo Tips” every morning.
*9. Make Waste Money*
One reason Ugandans litter is because we see rubbish as useless. Change that.
In Kampala alone, plastic recycling companies like Plastic Recycling Industries in Nakawa buy kilos of plastic bottles at 300-500 shillings per kilo. If a youth group in Kawempe collects 100 kilos a week, that’s 50,000 shillings. That’s capital.
Food waste can become organic manure. Youth in Wakiso are making briquettes from charcoal dust and food waste.
When people realize “my rubbish is my money,” they will not throw it away. They will store it, sort it, and sell it. No force needed.
*10. The Pride of Being Ugandan*
Finally, we need national pride.
When Ugandans travel to Kigali, Rwanda, they come back saying “Rwanda is so clean!” But Rwanda became clean not because Rwandans are naturally cleaner than us, but because they made a decision. Every last Saturday, every Rwandan from President to the child cleans. But more importantly, they clean every day because they believe “Isuku ni ishema” — Cleanliness is pride.
We can do the same. Uganda is called the Pearl of Africa. Pearls are clean, shining, beautiful. Can a pearl live in garbage?
Let us stop waiting for KCCA to announce that whoever does not clean will be arrested. Let us clean because we love Uganda. Because we want visitors at Entebbe Airport to say “Uganda is clean.” Because we want our children to grow up without jiggers, without cholera, without flies.
*Conclusion: Clean Without a Whistle*
You don’t need a law to brush your teeth. You don’t need police to bathe. Cleaning your environment should be the same — automatic, daily, personal.
Start today. Not next month. Today.
– Buy two small dustbins: one for biodegradable, one for plastics.
– Sweep your compound for 15 minutes.
– Unblock the trench in front of your house.
– Talk to your neighbor about cleaning together on Saturday, not because LC1 said, but because you both want a clean lane.
If each of the 45 million Ugandans cleans 1 meter around them every day, the whole country will be clean without a single whistle blown.
Bulungi Bwansi should not be an event. It should be a lifestyle.
Let us be the generation that stopped waiting to be forced, and started living clean because we choose to.
The writer is a former Woman Member of Parliamentary Aspirant for Mukono District
