St Claret Catholic Parish in Nyabwina, Sheema District
Three days in Nyabwina brought 32 weddings, thousands of free medical treatments and tonnes of seedlings to one of Uganda’s quieter hill parishes
By Mukama Phillip Kahigiriza
For three days this week, St Claret Catholic Parish in Nyabwina, Sheema District, became something altogether different from the quiet hill community it normally is. The 12th annual caravan of the Archdiocese of Mbarara Development Association (AMDA) descended on the parish — and what followed was, by any measure, extraordinary.
More than 280 AMDA members left Kampala and drove over 300 kilometres to Sheema. They were not coming for politics or business. They were coming home.
AMDA began in the early 1990s as the Mbarara Diocese Development Association, a handful of Banyankole Catholics who had settled in Kampala, Entebbe, Mukono, Wakiso and Jinja but whose hearts had remained in the region they grew up in. Their goal was straightforward: to stay united, to worship together in their mother tongue, and to remain connected to the 66 parishes of Mbarara Archdiocese that had shaped them. From those beginnings, the organisation has grown to more than 3,000 members and today serves as the official umbrella body for Catholics from Mbarara Archdiocese living in Uganda’s central region.
In 2013, that sense of rootedness produced a new idea — the AMDA Caravan, an annual return to the home parishes to give back not only money but skills, medical care, and sacramental life. Since then, the caravan has visited 27 parishes. This year, it was Nyabwina’s turn.
When the convoy arrived on Thursday morning, the parish was waiting. Women ululated, drums sounded, and children lined the roadside holding branches. What followed over the next three days touched almost every dimension of life in the community.
The medical camp was among the most striking elements. Under AMDA’s health pillar and in partnership with Mulago National Referral Hospital, Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital and the Sheema District Health Office, a team of more than 150 health workers set up what amounted to a field hospital in the parish compound. People began queuing before dawn. By the end of the camp, preliminary figures showed more than 3,800 had received free treatment, screening or counselling across departments covering dental care, paediatrics, cervical and breast cancer screening, hypertension checks and trauma counselling. All medicines, laboratory tests and reading glasses were provided free.
“We came here thinking we were just going to give Panadol,” said Dr Rosemary Byanyima, executive director of Mulago National Referral Hospital and a senior AMDA member. “But what we found is deep pain. People walking 20km to see a doctor for the first time in 10 years. This is why AMDA exists.”
The spiritual dimension of the caravan produced the week’s most emotional moments. On Friday, Archbishop Lambert Bainomugisha of Mbarara Archdiocese presided over a Holy Mass at which 32 couples who had been living together for years — some for more than two decades — were married in the Sacrament of Matrimony. AMDA’s Spiritual Development Council had spent months preparing the couples through catechesis and counselling, and had provided wedding rings, veils, suits and church dues for each pair. Children attended who had never seen their parents wed in a church.
“You can give a man seedlings and medicine,” AMDA chairman Chris Gumisiriza said, “but if his family is not blessed in the church, he is not complete. Today, we have not just given Nyabwina a hospital; we have given it 32 new holy families.”
The same Mass saw hundreds receive First Holy Communion, Confession and Baptism. A night vigil of adoration followed, with the parish gathering to pray together.
Beyond the medical camp and the weddings, AMDA distributed more than 6,000 seedlings — 3,000 high-yielding clonal coffee plants and 3,000 Hass avocado seedlings — alongside indigenous trees for environmental protection. Scholastic materials and new curriculum textbooks were donated to St Claret Nyabwina Primary School and other Catholic-founded schools in the parish. More than 500 students attended a career guidance session led by AMDA members on leadership and entrepreneurship. Separate sessions addressed domestic violence, family legacy, inheritance planning and responsible citizenship.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Gumisiriza reflected on what the caravan represents. “We are not donors,” he said. “We are children who have come back home. We were raised by this community, not just our parents. Giving back is our way of honouring that legacy. We are building not just infrastructure, but stronger, healthier and more hopeful communities.”
As the AMDA convoy left Nyabwina yesterday evening, the women of the parish sang a farewell in Runyankole: “Come back again, people of AMDA, come back.” The torch for the 2027 caravan has been passed to the next parish, but in Nyabwina — in its 32 newly sanctified marriages, its thousands treated, its hillsides newly planted — the visit will not quickly be forgotten.
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