MBALE– The annual National Primary School Music, Dance, and Drama (MDD) Festival is underway at Mbale Secondary School in Mbale City. This annual event which kicked off on August 25th August 2024 and ending on 2nd September 2024, is being sponsored by National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) with the aim of encouraging communities to prioritize NIN registration and early birth registration as essential practices.
Prior to this festival, participating schools engaged in a series of competitions that began at the lower primary school level, progressing through sub county, county, district, and regional levels for a period of about three months.
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The Ministry of Education and Sports in collaboration with National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) is actively involved in shaping the messages conveyed through music, drama, and poetry performances.
For the third consecutive year, with support from UNICEF-Uganda, pupils are using their talents to highlight the importance of birth registration and the acquisition of a National Identification Number (NIN) under the theme “MY NIN, My Birth Right.”
Current statistics indicate that approximately 1.5 million births occur annually in Uganda. Without proper registration, many of these births risk going unrecorded, leading to a significant number of unidentified citizens.
To address this issue, NIRA has strategically utilized the MDD festival as a platform to raise awareness among various stakeholders. By integrating important messages into performances, NIRA aims to encourage communities to prioritize NIN registration and early birth registration as essential practices.
To further incentivize early birth registration, the government has waived fees for birth certificate applications for children aged zero to six months. This means that parents can now obtain a birth certificate for their newborns free of charge within this period. Early birth registration not only ensures accurate data capture at birth, but also facilitates the allocation of NINs, which are crucial for obtaining a National ID card when the child reaches 16 years of age.
At the festival, NIRA has set up a NIN registration center and deployed mobile sensitization trucks to further promote these important messages. Citizens are additionally encouraged to; take advantage of NIRA’s presence at the festival and in their communities to register for NINs, apply for National ID cards, register births, update personal information, among others. Taking part in embracing these services is not only a civic responsibility, but also empowers citizens to gain from the identifier including participating in the electoral process, among others.
Through these efforts, NIRA continues to foster a culture of registration and identification, ensuring that every Ugandan is accounted for from birth.
The journey to the national finals has been a remarkable one for the participating schools, with several phases that included: Intra-school Competitions: Inter-house/class/color competitions were held for each primary school in the country so as to select a school choir.
Zonal/Sub-Country Competitions: Each school within the district participated in the zonal/sub-county competition, and the best three (03) schools from each sub-county proceeded to district-level competitions.
District Competitions: These were held within each and every district at a selected school with a spacious environment. The best four (04) schools from each district emerged from the district-level competitions and proceeded to regional-level competitions.
Regional Competitions: These were held at a selected school within one of the districts in the region. Across the 13 regions, the best six schools from each region earned the privilege to compete in the national finals, seeking to be crowned the 2024 Champions of the National Primary Schools’ MDD Final.
