Not your average Joe

Meet the WASH team at GDPU

Our WASH team at GDPU is small but mighty, led by Emma Ajok and Joe Okwir. The pair have amassed years of humanitarian experience, specifically working in disability advocacy and youth support.

This week, I interviewed Joe about life at GDPU: his role; his biggest challenges at work; and what he’d do if a donor gave him £1,000 on the spot…

Joe at the GDPU office.

What is your role at GDPU?

As the Project Officer for the Vplus project at Gulu Disabled Persons Union [a project offering safeguarding, counselling, and advisory support to over 80 young people with disabilities], my primary responsibility is to ensure the successful, day-to-day implementation and management of all project activities aimed at empowering youth with disabilities. This encompasses coordinating and supervising the training team and peer mentors, mobilizing beneficiaries, and overseeing the delivery of vocational skills, financial literacy, and business development training.

I am accountable for providing crucial follow-up support and mentorship to graduates, facilitating their linkages to jobs or small business start-ups, and diligently executing the project’s monitoring and evaluation framework. Ultimately, I am the key driver responsible for translating the project’s strategic goals into tangible economic empowerment and inclusion results for the youth we serve, which includes preparing timely and accurate project reports.

And for my role as the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer for the WASH Program at GDPU, my central role is to strategically drive program effectiveness by designing and implementing a robust M&E framework that rigorously tracks the success, impact, and sustainability of all project components, including the construction and utilization of drainable latrines with changing rooms and incinerators, the effectiveness of menstrual health training provided in partnership with Her Worth Foundation, and the uptake of malaria prevention training.

I am responsible for conducting field monitoring, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data on facility usage and behavioural change, analysing this data to carefully map out areas for improvement, and ensuring that all findings feed directly into adaptive project management. Furthermore, I manage vital stakeholder coordination with schools and local leaders to secure facilities, collaborate with partners to guarantee progress, and proactively leverage social media and blog platforms to promote awareness and document the program’s successes and community impact.

Joe with the Her Worth team at Kulu Opal Primary School, working with girls to make reusable period pads from recycled fabrics.

What made you want to get involved in advocacy work?

My motivation is rooted in a deep sense of social justice and accountability, driven by the need to close the glaring gap between the progressive laws of Uganda (like the Persons with Disabilities Act) and the difficult daily reality of exclusion and rights violation faced by PWDs (Persons with Disabilities) in Gulu. I am fuelled by the intellectual challenge and moral urgency of dismantling systemic barriers—whether they are physical barriers to facilities like the new latrines, or policy barriers to economic opportunity.

Furthermore, I draw immense satisfaction from empowering the community’s own voice, ensuring that the advocacy is genuinely led by the PWDs themselves according to the principle of “Nothing About Us Without Us,” while using my skills to facilitate, coordinate, and secure concrete, measurable improvements in their lives and in the broader community’s acceptance of inclusion.

Inspecting the incinerator at Kulu Opal Primary School.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

My mission at GDPU is to ensure that the rights of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) are not just affirmed but visibly achieved. My strategic commitment is reflected across three integrated functions: as the Project Officer for the Vplus Empowerment Project, I actively design and lead programs that deliver economic self-reliance through skills training.

Simultaneously, as the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer for the WASH Program, I rigorously generate evidence on the success and necessity of our inclusive facilities, such as the accessible latrines and MHM solutions. Crucially, I unify these functions by managing our organizational social media platforms, transforming M&E data and Vplus success stories into compelling advocacy content and public awareness campaigns. My motivation is complete: I am driven to implement life-changing projects, prove their success with hard data, and ensure that our collective voice and achievements are heard and replicated to accelerate systemic inclusion across the continent and globe at large.

What are the greatest challenges you face in your role at GDPU?

My greatest challenges in seamlessly integrating the Vplus Project Management, WASH M&E, Advocacy, and Social Media functions are rooted in the field. I constantly navigate the tension between generating the necessary, high-quality M&E data required to prove impact, and the need for immediate, compelling advocacy content to influence policy and public opinion, often resulting in a severe time-crunch were rigor battles urgency.

Furthermore, despite my best coordination efforts, I grapple with the overwhelming project demand versus the limited resources available, forcing me to humbly manage the profound disappointment and high expectations of PWDs in Gulu who need vocational skills or accessible facilities. Finally, the daily battle against deeply ingrained attitudinal and political inertia – the resistance from local leaders or school administrators who allow infrastructure to degrade – means much of my work is spent addressing systemic human barriers rather than purely technical challenges, underscoring the demanding nature of rights-based development work.

Hands-On and Hands Washed – Joe on a monitoring visit to Awach Central School.

If a donor gave £1,000 (approx. 4.7 million UGX) to GDPU and you could spend it on anything, what would it be?

I would invest the entire sum into Entrepreneurial Start-up Kits for 10 high-potential graduates of the Vplus Empowerment Project. This targeted expenditure is the most compelling use of funds because it directly bridges the critical gap between project output and measurable, sustainable outcome: instead of scattering the money on small operational costs, this single investment immediately converts trained individuals into viable business owners by equipping them with the essential capital assets (e.g., a commercial sewing machine or a specialized electronics repair kit).

This action not only delivers an undeniable return on investment in the form of sustainable livelihoods, but also generates the irrefutable M&E data and powerful success stories required for my social media and broader advocacy efforts, thereby providing us with the leverage to secure significantly larger future funding and influence lasting policy inclusion.

What do you hope to achieve with your advocacy work in the next ten years?

Within the next decade, my advocacy and professional trajectory is singularly focused on becoming the Lead Disability Inclusion Specialist in the region, if not Africa, synthesizing my hands-on experience with advanced academic expertise in Conflict Management and forthcoming specialization in Public Policy or Inclusion.

I will leverage this mastery to achieve a paradigm shift in the country from “Charity to Civic Right,” specifically by utilizing data to compel legislation and influence allocation and disburse a minimum of 10% of annual development budget toward PWD-specific needs, eradicating reliance on external funding for basic services.

This verifiable local success will serve as the proof-of-concept I then shall use in continental forums – alongside my academic credentials – to drive the adoption of the Vplus model as an official, scaled-up economic policy and to drastically reduce key indicators of public stigma by at least 50%. My goal is to use data-driven local victory to inform and enforce the highest standards of inclusive public policy across the continent, firmly embedding the principle of “Nothing About Us Without Us” at every level of governance.