Namulondo Rashida Muwanika is the 1st Prize Winner of the BN Poetry Award.
Rashida was born in 1988. She started writing at the age of ten being a girl raised boys. Her playmates were story books which she would rewrite out to suit her own version. At fourteen she started writing poems as a way to comfort her friends who were sad and later would sell some love poems and letters at five hundred shillings to boys who wanted to impress their girlfriends. At fifteen she was the assistant editor of a school magazine ‘The Gazelle’ in Nabisunsa Girls School and later become the cartoonist and wrote for the poetry column in the same magazine.
She has written articles for different newsletters among which include the ‘Inspiring Young Women into Leadership’ yearly newsletter in 2010 and ‘Imagine Uganda’ newsletter in June 2012.
She started performing her poems at seventeen at school functions and has performed on various poetry platforms among which include Poetry in Sessions, Open Mic Uganda, Kwivuga Poetry night.
In 2010-2011 she served as the Deputy speaker of the Islamic University in Uganda and participated in the Inter University Females Public Speaking Competition and emerged among the finalists.
She graduated from University with a Bachelor in Food science and Human Nutrition in March 2013.
She is an actress and dancer and has featured in stage plays among which include Trails of Brother Jero, Twisted by International Health Sciences University and different films among which Ajok, Arggh both Kampala Film School Productions.
She is a life skill coach and mentor in the field of self-discovery and awareness, public speaking and assertiveness and career choice, she is currently working on a project Art 4 Change which will aim at using spoken word as a tool of self-discovery and assertiveness.