KAMPALA –The French Embassy in Uganda on Friday, August 7, 2020, signed a £30, 000 commitment Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bonjour Kampala to promote professional teaching of the French language using the media and new trending technologies.
This partnership sets in at a time when teaching and learning has been gravely affected by the Coronavirus pandemic that has disabled the conventional way.
At the signing ceremony, the French ambassador H.E. Jules -Armand Aniambossou revealed that French is professional and language of communication, education, for the youth, students, decision-makers, entrepreneurs, artists and the sports fraternity.
“It is the working language for many international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), African Union (AU), World Health Organisation (WHO), International Olympics Committee (IOC) among others and many Ugandans have been discarded because they cannot speak, “he said.
“We cannot keep talking about French in our offices but have to get on the ground and reach out to the people. It has a long journey and I assure you that this is not just to sign the Memorandum of Understanding but to create real impact,” he added.
He said, “Most of Uganda’s neighbors are French-speaking countries including DRC, Rwanda, Burundi among others. For your information, the Capital of French is Kinshasha in the Democratic Republic of Congo, not Paris. The language extends the opportunity to do business with our West African countries that are French Speaking countries and others from North Africa.”
He further observed that they need to interact and talk with the real people and Bonjour Kampala was one of the essential tools which compliment Schools and Alliance Francaise de Kampala (AFK).
Aniambossou empathized that the quality of training of French teachers is the priority since it produces well-skilled learners and that they are ready to put the efforts to make this happen with the consent of the first lady who appreciated the endeavours which were.
He also retaliated that Covid-19 should not hold people in handcuffs rather an opportunity to even work better with creativity and imagination.
The director of Bonjour Kampala said, “We have engaged with artists such as Irene Namubiru and most people were surprised that she could speak French, and this a big opportunity for her to even sing and interact with other speakers freely. Since the schools are closed we are giving this opportunity for students and teachers to continue with the language and be in the system.”
“We are also committed to training Journalists and last year, we worked with Innocent Nabaasa from NBS who travelled to Ethiopia for training and hope to increase these opportunities to the rest. As per the plight, we are also planning to change our name from Bonjour Kampala to Uganda so that are very appealing to all people” he asserted.
