Lillian Thando Naluyima – Miss Uganda 2019
Lillian Thando Naluyima lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is currently attending Salt Lake Community College getting her associates in General Studies and Pre-Health Science. Lillian is involved with various activities charity non-profits that help back in her home country. She will graduate next year in December and she will transfer to University of Utah to get her bachelor’s degree in Nursing. Her aspiration in life is to become a Nurse Practitioner to help people in Uganda and USA who have poor access to quality health care, and to one day build a women and children’s hospital in Uganda. She is currently a board member of Inter-ethnic Health Alliance a non-profit organization that works with eight women’s groups in rural areas of Uganda. Her work with Inter-ethnic Health Alliance involves writing surveys for family planning and cervical cancer, volunteering in the field administering surveys, writing field reports, data entry and interpretation, fundraising, and planning events.
Last summer she volunteered over 200 hours doing fieldwork, administering surveys, meeting with potential candidates for country manager, and connecting with local non-profit organizations. She plans to volunteer with IHA again this coming summer. In addition to volunteering with IHA, Lillian is also board member of the non-profit organization: Ubuntu Healing Arts in Uganda. As a board member of Ubuntu Healing Arts Lillian plans and organizes events, she fund raises for the organization by selling crafts in the US, and attends monthly Skype board meetings. Lillian spends much of her free time volunteering with IHA, Ubuntu Healing Arts, or serving meals at the teen homeless shelter in Salt Lake City. She is a strong advocate for human rights and a passionate social justice activist.
Uganda is a country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the southwest by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. Famously called the Pearl of Africa by Winston Churchill, it is home to one of the most diverse and concentrated ranges of African fauna including the highly endangered mountain gorilla and the endangered common chimpanzee.