Uganda : Hilda Tadria, an activist committed to women’s empowerment

At 75 years old, the Ugandan women’s rights activist Hilda Tadria still finds energy to advocate for women’s empowerment. The septuagenarian is a specialist in gender and social development. She is the founder of “Action for Development ” NGO and the co-founder of the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF).

Hilda Tadria has more than fifty years of commitment to women. In the 1960s, while a teenager, she traveled with her mother to teach literacy classes to rural women.

Her commitment to social development led her to study sociology and anthropology. She  obtained a B.A. in sociology from Makerere University and moved to England where she got an M.A. in anthropology from Newnham College in the 1970s and a Ph.D. in social and cultural anthropology in the 1980s at the University of Minnesota in the United States.

Back in Uganda, she taught at Makerere University and in 1985, she founded “Action for Development” NGO whose aim is to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality in the country. During the 1990s, she was also a consultant in gender for several organizations such as the World Bank, UNDP, the Ugandan government and various NGOs.

Promoter of Women’s empowerment

Through her association, Hilda Tadria is strongly committed to the empowerment of women. Between 2003 and 2004, she conducted research on HIV prevention programs in Africa, which she denounced because they ignored the lack of sexual autonomy of women in Africa. For her, the empowerment of women is the priority and the basis of the fight against HIV. She also argued that prevention of early or unplanned pregnancy, forced or unprotected sex is not possible as long as women are in inferior positions.

In 2008, she created the Mentoring and Empowerment Program for Young Women (MEMPROW). Its goal is to improve girls’ academic performance and encourage them to pursue careers while considering their sexuality.

She is also involved in the financial empowerment of women. In 2001, together with the Ghanaian lawyer Joana Foster and the Nigerian women’s rights activist Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, she founded the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF). An organization whose mission is to provide financial support to organizations that defend women’s rights in Africa.

She is currently working at the UN Commission for Africa (UNECA) where she is involved in gender mainstreaming and gender policy development.