Every development comes with benefits and detriments. The construction of the sh9bn university library is coming with its own.

The university is foregoing the Ordinands’ Village (OV) to construct a library. The village which is over 60-years-old with about 15 small, permanent identical residential houses will be brought down to allow the library project to kick off. Four houses are already destroyed.

The project is also affecting the residents who are shifting to look for new residences. Joachim Serugoba and Rev. Elly Kansiime have shifted. 

To those who have lived on this village like Peace Kwikiriza, it is hard to think that they will ever find a place as conducive as it has been.

For five years, Kwikiriza has stayed on the village. She became a resident in 2003 after applying for one of the houses through the housing committee that was then headed by Dr. John Senyonyi. By then she was a student of theology.

During that time, she says, the houses were given to international students studying theology. Students who had families were accorded the first priority, she adds.

For Kwikiriza God was on her side. Although she does not come from over seas, she got one of the houses and since then she has lived in it even after finishing her studies.

“I had a three-month old baby and I think that’s why they considered me for the house,” she says. To her, living on this village has been a blessing.  

Kwikiriza, a tutor at the department of Foundation Studies has a five-year-old kid whom she says was born sick, and needs close care. But for the time she has lived on this village, she has been able to get moral and spiritual support.

“I don’t think I will ever get a place around the university that is as good as the ordinands’ village. Where will you find fellowships outside Uganda Christian University?” she asked.

Kwikiriza has not yet been asked to leave, but she’s ready to do so when time comes. To those who have been around Uganda Christian University for long, the ordinands’ village has been a treasure.

 “We shall miss it, but there is nothing to do. You can not stop the developments,” said Lusania Kasamba, a veteran clergy.

The history of the ordinands’ village can be traced from the 1940’s when John Taylor came to Bishop Tucker College in Mukono as a new warden. Those were 20-years later after the establishment of Bishop Tucker Theological College as the seminary of the Church of Uganda.

It is believed that with the need to acknowledge families, he founded the village in 1945 as a training center for the wives of married students. The wives received instructions in the use of the bible and handwork like tailoring.

The original Ordinands’ Village had 14 houses. They belonged to the department of Community Development and Welfare of the protectorate government during the British colonial days.

When Taylor started the center, the colonial protectorate government, which gave the college the grant to run the wives’ course, surrendered the buildings to the college. More houses were later constructed on this village. To date, these houses have always accommodated theologians.