In the twenty-first episode of The Idealists (formerly Grit & Grace), Melissa interviews Irene Ikomu, a lawyer and consultant on civic spaces in Eastern Africa. Irene co-founded Parliament Watch Uganda, a civic tech parliament monitoring initiative, and received the Young Female Lawyer of the Year Award by the Uganda Law Society in recognition of her contribution to Uganda’s democratic development. She talks to us about the recent election in Uganda, the internet shutdown, and the unlikely campaign of one of Uganda's top celebrities.

“You know one of the interesting facts about Uganda as a country is that we don’t have any memorial for lives lost due to political upheaval. And this is despite the fact that we’ve had coup after coup after coup where so many people have died. Constantly what you find when you read the research is that when every new president comes in he says, ‘I’m fighting for the people, we’re going to be different.’ But we don’t even remember the names of the people who have died. What do we need to change in terms of the approach? Maybe as a country, it’s not working to copy a constitution from somewhere and paste that system here. What does an alternative look like that humanizes citizens and sees people as humans, and not just as bodies?”

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#20: Dr. Nina Ansary

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#18: Stefanie Mach