Who Will Carry The Work?

“If I tell my story to people and tell them how I managed to live, that is what gives another person the persistence in life.” — Dr Lydia Mungherera

There are moments in a life that divide the story into a before and an after. For Dr Lydia Mungherera, returning to Uganda gravely ill in 1997 was one of them. She speaks candidly about illness, treatment, family support and recovery, but what makes the story particularly striking is what happened afterwards. Survival gradually became service, and lived experience became something she could place in the hands of another person who needed reason to believe that their own story was not over.

She remembers a period when HIV carried enormous stigma and treatment remained inaccessible to many. Her response was to speak, organise and advocate. She says personal testimonies helped break stigma because another person could hear the story of someone who had become desperately ill, recovered and returned to a working life, and begin to imagine that possibility for themselves.

The conversation moves beyond survival into the architecture of a life of service: the networks built, women supported, communities reached, health systems challenged and younger leaders encouraged. And now, having spent years asking what can be done for others, Dr Lydia is also asking one of Footprints’ central questions: what happens to the work when the person who built it is no longer the person doing it?

For her, succession cannot simply mean identifying someone at the last moment and handing them a responsibility. It means teaching, mentoring and walking alongside younger people while there is still time to share the knowledge that experience has accumulated.

🎧Listen To Her Story HERE:

“We should be mentoring now the younger people to take over.” — Dr Lydia Mungherera

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