EULOGISING “HOLISTIC EDUCATOR” REV FR DAMIAN GRIMES

Since the announcement of the sad news of the passing on of  Rev Fr Damian Grimes on Wednesday 4th September 2024 at the age of 93 in Liverpool, United Kingdom, the topical issue for discussion for most of the educated Ugandans above 40 years of age has been Rev Fr Grimes and Namasagali College. I, personally, have also been reflecting on what I used to read and hear about him from my young brother, David Wekiya, who joined Kamuli College (later Namasagali College) in 1966.

There is no doubt that Rev Fr Damian Grimes has left behind a legacy of transformation and compassion that continues to resonate in Uganda.

Unfortunately, Namasagali College became dilapidated after he returned to the United Kingdom and lost most of what made it a unique school in Uganda and East Africa, thanks to the unique integrated curriculum that Rev Fr Grimes created and nurtured at Namasagali College. As I will show elsewhere in this eulogy, The curriculum did not only make Namasagali College a unique college but also produced unique personalities who have gone on to serve their country in diverse ways and stations in life.

Hon Daudi Migereko and I agreed that I should find time to write an article eulogising the fallen “holistic educator”. I call him a holistic educator because unlike in other schools in Uganda and East Africa, he promoted a unique integrated Namasagali curriculum long before we started to talk of an integrated curriculum in Uganda’s and East Africa’s school higher education systems.

In fact, Uganda’s and East Africa’s school and Higher education systems are to date far less integrated than was the case when Fr Damian Grimes developed the Namasagali College Curriculum. They lag several years behind the Namasagali curriculum in the sense that they remain rigidly disciplinary in structure and function, largely producing graduates who are less responsive to the needs of the 21st century.

The 21st Century is more receptive to students and graduates who have gone through an integrated curriculum. Therefore, in designing the Namasagali curriculum, Fr. Grimes was looking far ahead, with a mission to produce students and graduates that would fit in the 21st Century and beyond. He wanted future-ready graduates and professionals who would earn a living without begging. To this end, Fr Grimes’ mind and my mind met. It is the main reason why I readily decided to write this eulogy.

Hon. Daudi Migereko thought and believed that I, Dr Patrick Bitature, Rt Hon Kadaga, Prof Frank Nabwiso,  Prof Wasswa Balunywa,  Hon Moses Kizige and Olive Lumonya were some of the people who could write a befitting eulogy for the fallen educator. My father, Mzee Charles Afunaduula Ovuma, Haji Balunywa (Prof. Waswa Balunywa’s father) who was Busoga Territory Administrative Secretary, Mzee  Nathan T. Mpabulungi (Hon Daudi Migereko’s father) and Mzee Kalange (from Namutumba), were intertwined in the story of Namasagali College as Members of the Namasagali College Board of Governors, who made the policies that fueled Fr Grimes’ administration in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Mzee Charles Afunaduula Ovuma was the Speaker of the Busoga Lukiiko that decided, in 1965, to establish a Busoga Territory School at Kamuli ( the very place where Busoga College Mwiri had its first home before it moved to its current home on Mwiri Hill), jointly with the Mill Hill Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church, Busoga. My father used to tell me a lot about the school when it started operation but I also got more information when my young brother was admitted to Senior One by the pioneer headmaster, Fr. Naval in 1966.  He tasted the militaristic disciplinary measures of Fr Grimes when he succeeded Fr Naval in 1967 as headmaster. David Wekiya failed to keep up with the disciplinary demands of Father Grimes and relocated to Jinja Senior Secondary School. I don’t know how many other students failed to cope, but discipline was part of Fr. Grime’s legacy at Kamuli College which became Namasagali College.

I was old enough in 1965, completing my Junior two-level education at Mwiri Primary School, when Kamuli College, which became Namasagali College was innovated. I used to read about the upcoming school in Uganda Argus and Kodheyo – The Busoga Territory newspaper edited by  Paulo Waibale (not the lawyer and former Speaker of Parliament of Uganda).

When I entered Busoga College, Mwiri to begin my Senior Secondary School education, I soon learned that Namasagali College interacted well with Busoga College, Mwiri. When Fr Grimes was named Headmaster of Namasagali College in 1967, I was in Senior Two at Busoga College, Mwiri. That year I was part of a group of Mwiri boys that visited Namasagali College in our new school bus. I don’t remember what exactly we went to do, but that was the time I saw Fr. Grimes for the first time. He looked imposing and ever alert about what was going on in his school.

Over the years, I interacted with Namasagali College students whenever they came to Mwiri for social functions such as dance. There was a band owned by Martin Muyomba and Egulwa to whose music we used to dance.  I continued to be connected to Namasagali College when my brothers, John Yalibanda and Michael Muganywa, were admitted to the school by Fr. Grimes.

Fr. Damian Grimes was resourced from Namilyango College, where, like at Namasagali College, he instructed boys in boxing. In fact, in Uganda, it was Namilyango College and Namasagali College where most prominent boxers sprang from.

Just like Rev. John Coates, the legendary Headmaster of Busoga College, Mwiri (193O-1965), Fr Grimes was the legendary Headmaster of Namasagali College (1967-2001) during the most critical formative years of the school. His legacy includes turning Namasagali College into an academic giant and promoting and encouraging performing arts and theatre at a time when the Makerere Free Travelling Theatre was declining.

Those who passed through Namasagali during his time as headmaster, say that although Fr Grimes displayed militaristic disciplinarianship in his administration, he was humane, visionary and believed in the success of every child entrusted to him by parents from all over Uganda despite the fact that it was a school established by Busoga Government. They do remember that their headmaster, who was a boxer in his early life, used to tell them that “if you have a voice, you can sing; if you have legs you can dance; and if you have hands, you can box”.

The next time I chanced to meet the legendary headmaster of Namasagali College was in 2004 at Makerere University’s Department of Music, Dance and Drama (today known ad Department of Performing Arts and Film). I was not surprised he was at the Department. During his time at Namasagali College, he promoted music, dance, drama and theatre. He had sent so many students to the Department of Music, Dance and Drama. It is possible some of the lecturers in the Department were his students at Namasagali College. That could be the reason he was at the Department. Or else he was there to do some part-time training (see below)

I am aware that the fallen legendary headmaster of Namasagali College wrote a book by the title “Uganda: My Mission”, in which he reveals the struggles of managing a secondary school in difficult and complex circumstances, but which gave first-class education to many children, some of whom have risen to senior positions in government, parliament, schools, trade, and industry, including theatre and music. From this book one learns that Fr Grimes did not become idle after leaving Namasagali College. He did part-time work at Makerere University and Uganda Television (now Uganda Broadcasting Corporation). This way he continued to interact with his former students from  Namasagali College.

While writing this Eulogy, I have established that 18 former students of Fr Grimes became Ministers in the Uganda Government, appointed by President Museveni. They include Rt Hon Rebecca Kadaga,  Moses Kizige,  Aggrey Bagiire, Miria Matembe, Isaac Musumba, etc. Others such as Faith Kalikwani Mwodha became judges. Others such as Peter Walubiri are prominent lawyers in the country. Jimmy Akena, a leader of one of the oldest political parties in the country and a Member of Parliament, Patrick Bitature, and Charles Mbiire are prominent businessmen. Prof Wasswa Balunywa and Prof Katwalo Mulenganyi are leading academics. Kanyomozi and Irene Namubiru are prominent in the music industry. The list of successful former students serving every sector both locally and globally is endless.

In death, Fr Grimes can boast that within a very short time, he was able to raise Namasagali College to the level where it could compete with traditional schools such as Busoga College Mwiri, Buddo, Ntare, Makerere College School, Namilyango, Kisubi, Namagunga, Nabingo and Gayaza in dominating the public space in all spheres of life. The legendary teacher can rest in peace having accomplished his mission: Educating for the future.

Let me end this eulogising article by refocusing on Fr Grimes’s memorable role in developing and sustaining performing arts and theatre during the times when Makerere University declined it its leadership in this critical area of education through drama and theatre.

The idea of taking free drama to the masses of people who have no local theatre and, in any case, could not afford expensive seats, was David Cook’s entrenched in his “Makerere Free Travelling Theatre” became an established custom for the Dramatic Society of Makerere University College of that time, declined in influence, but then Rose Mbowa resuscitated it as Theatre for Development in the 1990s, which was not anywhere near David Cook’s Free Travelling Theatre.

There is no doubt that many students nurtured at Namasagali College during Fr Grimes’s time found themselves in the Department of Music, Dance and Drama and in the Dramatic Society of Makerere University.

Performing Arts at Namasagali College seemed to supersede those at Makerere University with the passage of time.  In fact, while they declined at Makerere University, they flourished at Namasagali College, and became the most distinguishing feature of Namasagali College, in addition to academics, boxing, music and theatre.  Acting and dance became the hallmark of the Namasagali College experience of students under Fr Grimes. Performances were no joke. They involved rigorous training by Fr Grimes who also trained his young boxers until he stopped the sport on health grounds. In fact, he even rose to be the President of the Uganda Amateur Boxing Association.

According to Ian Kiyingi Muddu, in his article “Namasagali College: How the School Became Uganda’s Arts Hub” published in The African Theatre Magazine, on 13 June 2020, from 1978 until around 1998, Namasagali College managed to put up annual theatre productions. The plays written, adapted and directed by Fr Grimes himself with a team of writers like Kaganda and choreographers such as Sandra Jones, were eclectic, but, by and large, dramatic plots laced with music and dance. However, in an article by Linus Mugume titled “Makerere Returns to Community Theatre” in The African Theatre Magazine of 11 February 2021, community theatre was on its way back in the University’s theatre practice. This is good. It is an extension of the work of Fr Grimes, the holistic educator and legendary headmaster of Namasagali College who also did part-time lecturing in the Department of Performing Arts and Film.

May the Soul of Fr. Grimes Rest in Peace.