Gulu City, Uganda: The Alur Kingdom has joined other cultural institutions from Northern Uganda in a high-level training aimed at promoting gender equity and ending violence against women and girls.
The three-day capacity-building workshop, held from February 24–26, 2026 in Gulu City, was organised by the Council of Traditional Leaders of Africa (COTLA-Uganda). It brought together gazetted cultural leaders to strengthen their role in designing, implementing and monitoring social norms interventions within their communities.
According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister of the Alur Kingdom, Prince Lawrence Opar Angala, the training focused on fostering gender-equitable attitudes and behaviours to prevent Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) while advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), particularly for adolescent girls and women.
Leading the Alur delegation was Hon. Bob Opio Okech, Minister of Culture and Legal Affairs and the Kingdom’s focal person to the Cross-Cultural Foundation of Uganda (CCFU).
CCFU is implementing the flagship “Culture for Her” project with support from UN Women Uganda, in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and COTLA-Uganda. The initiative seeks to harness the moral authority and grassroots influence of traditional leaders to challenge harmful patriarchal practices and promote positive, protective cultural norms.
By the close of the workshop, participants crafted and endorsed tailored community action plans outlining concrete steps their kingdoms and chiefdoms will undertake to prevent SGBV and promote SRHR at the grassroots level.
The roadmaps emphasise community dialogues, cultural accountability mechanisms and leveraging indigenous values to safeguard women and girls.
Cultural stakeholders described the engagement as a pivotal moment for Northern Uganda’s traditional institutions to align ancestral wisdom with modern human rights principles — positioning culture as a protective shield rather than a barrier to gender justice.
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