via Wikimedia
Lacking the financial means or legal representation to fight a dispute with a neighbor in Uganda’s High Court, Jordan Kinyera’s father lost the land he had hoped to pass down for generations.
Kinyera grew up knowing that the battle was unfair - and decided he was going to take on the fight.
He obtained the necessary 18 years of education and professional training necessary to take on his father’s case.
“[My father] was desperate,” Kinyera shared with BBC Newsday. “[T]here is something dehumanising about being in a desperate situation and not being able to do something about it. That is what inspired me the most.”
Many Ugandan landowners have become just as worried about lands they have been forced to flee due to an ongoing war with the guerrilla group LRA.
After being forced to spend years in temporary settlement camps, most face a whole mess of legal troubles trying to exercise their rights to property ownership.
Thankfully, the Kinyera family - led by Jordan’s hard work - did win back their father’s land. Now, the responsibility lies with honest young people like him to fight for the property that was taken from their elders.
"Justice delayed is justice denied,” he said. “My father is 82 years and he can't do much with the land now. It's up to us children to pick up from where he left."