About the Centre

 Nambi Sseppuuya Community Resource Centre

In April 2002 Igombe Village lost one of her deeply loved daughters named Irene Nambi Sseppuuya. Irene not only touched the lives of the people in Igombe, but many in Uganda and around the world.

A few months after her sudden death, an idea came to members of the Kiyimba family, where Irene came from, that something should be done in her memory. The idea was communicated to close relatives, friends, and residents of the villages of Igombe and Magamaga. It received overwhelming support and the implementation of the centre soon began.

Irene was an information person. She loved to inform, to educate and to entertain.  Her family and community knew that something put up in her memory had to be something which would benefit the area where she lived and was loved.  It needed to be something that reflected the things that Irene cherished.  

Those who knew Irene realized that if she had lived beyond the age of 30, she would have strove to create a place in her community where both children and adults could go to be educated, informed, and entertained.  This was how the idea of the resource centre was born.

Irene Nambi Sseppuuya

Improving Access to Reading Materials

In order to address the serious lack of reading materials for people in rural communities in Uganda, the Kiyimba family decided to construct a resource centre which would be open to all members of the community.

Construction began in 2004 and slowly each section of the library was completed.  The eight sections of the resource centre include:

1.    Office/reprographic room
2.    Store/document processing room
3.    Newspaper/magazine room
4.    Adult library
5.    Computer room
6.    Children’s library
7.    Rare collections
8.    Toilets facilities. 

In 2012, after eight years of hard work and support from all over the world, the Children's Library was completed marking the full construction of the Centre. Now, the focus is on creating a vibrant Centre to benefit the whole community.

Nambi Sseppuuya Community Resource Centre has twice featured in the New Vision, Uganda's largest daily newspaper - Resource Centre Boosts Reading in Jinja in 2011 and Children's Library Opened in Jinja (PDF) in 2012.

Download an information sheet about the resource centre below 

Pictures of the Construction at the Centre from 2005-2012