Carol Azungi Dralega On Turning 50: “I’m Enough, So Are You!”

Powerful...

“I feel like I’m finally coming into my own and feeling comfortable under my skin.” Carol Azungi Dralega reflects on turning 50, a milestone she’s celebrating today. The Ugandan Researcher and Associate Professor is speaking to me via zoom from her home in Arendal, Norway. “From having a tough upbringing, moving to the diaspora, living and working here and starting a family – it has not been easy. I’ve had to learn, unlearn and re-learn many things. At and after 50, I’m looking forward to lowering my shoulders a little bit more, stressing less and smelling the roses.”

She has every reason to celebrate, there’s just so much to be grateful for. About 40 years ago, a young Dralega was placed in a precarious position by an authority figure in her life, no little girl should ever be in. “You are worthless. You’ll never amount to anything,” she recalls the words barked at her like it was yesterday. “I remember breaking down and feeling so worthless. An aunt later talked me through it and advised me to study hard because ‘education is the key to success’ and prove to myself that I can be something in life.” Indeed, this became her turning point, and she has never stopped at her quest to be somebody. “From that day on, I’ve strived for excellence. I’m always working at being better than who I was yesterday.”

After her studies, Dralega worked as a Senior Researcher at Western Norway Research Institute. She currently works as an Associate Professor at NLA University College in Norway. She holds Doctoral and Master of Philosophy degrees in Media Studies from the Institute for Media and Communication, University of Oslo and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in Mass Communication from Makerere University. She has had stints at Monitor Publications and New Vision, where she worked as a reporter and editor respectively. In 2019, she was a mentor and editor of the Youth Newsroom at the World Press Freedom Day celebrations at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa. She has taught Bachelors and Masters courses at the Department of Media and Communication, and the International Summer School, University of Oslo. She has also taught MA courses at the School of Journalism, Media and Communication, UCU as part of a Norwegian funded education project since 2014. She is currently involved in developing a PhD curriculum in the same project and plans to teach at the School of Journalism and Communication, University of Rwanda in the next 6 years of the project. She also taught and coordinated two e-teaching and e-Learning courses as the University of Agder in Norway. She has been a private research consultant on (New) Media and Last Mile empowerment. Her research interests revolve around media/information and communication technologies and how theories, policies and implementation processes affect marginalised communities.

Interestingly, as a preteen, Dralega wanted to be a wrestler. “After dinner, we would sit as a family to watch wrestling and I enjoyed it. I thought I’d make a good wrestler,” she laughs. This dream later fizzled away as the admiration for her father took over. Mr. Jerome Dralega, not only was the chairperson of the Swimming Association of Uganda and member of the Royal Lifesaving Association, he worked as a Personnel Manager at the then East African Distilleries for 25 years. This position came with many perks, a lot of respect and admiration by all around him. “My dad was stoic, honourable, principled, kind, generous and very wise, I admired him so much and saw myself ending up in Public Administration,” she recalls. She, however, ended up studying Mass Communication, a new ‘prestigious’ course at Makerere University, in the early 90s. “So, do you just want to read news?” her father asked in disappointment, but Dralega was determined to take it on.

“From early on, I felt drawn towards the subject of injustice, exclusion and marginalised, voiceless,” she tells me. Her work as a researcher and teacher has indeed focused on these themes. For her PhD thesis, she focused on how Information and Communication Technologies (interventions, practices, processes and policies) could help to empower women, youth and people living in poverty. This is a recurrent theme in the numerous research and publications Dralega has under her belt. One such focus on immigrant minorities in Norway won her a Best Article Prize at a Prestigious Conference in Ålesund, Norway and more importantly, her research has been referred to in National policy making concerning integration and inclusion of immigrant and minority voices and realities in mainstream public discourse in Norway.

“What I’d like to do more during my 50s is to use my experience to support and inspire young people especially those who are downtrodden and feeling hopeless about their future,” she adds.

As we chat away, her son, 16-year-old, Mani walks down the living room and is quick to say hello to me. Minutes later, her younger son, 6-year-old, Hosana does the same. “My children are my world,” her eyes light up as she says this. When she moved to Norway 20 years ago to pursue her Masters degree, it never occurred to her that her life would take the turn it has – living and working in Norway. She met her Norwegian husband Anders Kristian, who is also an educator, while at University and love and life happened. Their two boys bring them so much joy and it’s visibly written on Dralega’s face as she talks about them.

“I always tell them that they are lucky to come from two strong cultures, which they should equally embrace. They are Norwegian and also Ugandan, not half this nor half that,” she tells me. “I also often travel with them to Uganda for them to experience their Ugandan identities.”

Raising children and having a successful career overseas is not a walk in the park, and Dralega can’t agree more. “Unlike in Uganda, we don’t have caretakers here. My husband and I attend to the children ourselves, care for the home and also meet our targets at work,” she says. Her philosophy in raising her boys is clear, she says: “It is important to make time for the children. Be good role models to them and also encourage them to be critical individuals.”“It’s also very pertinent that you teach your children the right values yourself rather than letting them depend on their teachers, peers and worse, the internet,” she adds.

This is one of the many lessons she picked from her father. “My dad taught us the value of hard work. This, he did, not only with his words but also his actions. He also taught us to be humble, prayerful, dependable, and resilient individuals,” she recounts. “He was a very amiable man, who mingled with everyone; literally from the Queen of England to a beggar on the street.”

When Dralega starts to talk about her father, her sentences are laced with only such adjectives. Indeed, when he passed on in 2015 she was devastated. “I’ve never gotten over his passing. Although, I believe he was proud of me,” she muses. This begs me to ask about her mother.

“My parents separated when I was in Nursery school. My mother then left and I only saw her years later as an adult,” she recounts. Dralega and her siblings went through a traumatic upbringing. Later, when she learned that she was going to finally meet her biological mother, she was enveloped with such excitement, she had so much to tell her. However, on the D-day, instead of making merry with her mother, and telling her all the things she had looked forward to telling her, she only broke down into tears and never stopped till it was time for her mother to depart again the following day. She has since moved past it and loves her mother dearly.

“If I had the chance to meet my 10-year-old self, I would tell her that it’ll be alright. I’d ask her to take heart, hold her chin up. And tell her she is enough,” she tells me. “What we tell and how we treat children in their early years is so important as it forms who they become, what they believe in and of themselves. For instance, if you tell a child; “you are better than everyone else, everyone should serve you, you are not responsible for your actions. That is what they believe and vice versa’. As parents, we need to listen to our children more. We need to encourage them to speak up. As Africans, we have a culture of discouraging children from speaking up and being critical to authority figures. This is wrong. We need to raise children who ask critical questions and who have the courage to say “No” to authority figures especially when that authority is abused.”

On what she plans to do today, Dralega is quick to say: “Thanksgiving to God who has steered my path and to the village who, in their different capacities, supported my journey – from siblings (God rest my beloved recently deceased siblings in eternal peace), family, teachers, friends, employers, colleagues.”. “I am blessed. I have so much to be grateful for,” she tells me. She, however, is confident that her husband is planning something special. “I’ll leave that to him!”

One last thing Dralega plans to do more now that she’s on the fifth floor of her life is to lower her shoulders more. “We get buried in our work, parenthood and the stresses of life and often ignore the most important things in life which are; God, love, family and friends. I need to do more of that.”