In 2007, IFFD was invited by FEU to teach couples how to moderate these courses. IFFD responded kindly and sent two facilitators to Uganda, one of them being the then President of IFFD, Marina Robben. In October 2007, the first Family Enrichment course moderators’ training took place.
Since then, several Family Enrichment courses have been done, most of them being Married Love courses, also called Life as a Couple courses, for various couples mainly those residing in the capital city, Kampala.
Over the years, some Family Enrichment course moderators in Uganda have studied and been awarded the Postgraduate Degree in Marriage and Family Education of the International University of Catalunya.
Recently, one of these graduates, together with his wife realized that Family Enrichment courses can be held in their residential neighborhood of Nsangi, a town about 17 kilometers outside Kampala. They set out to explain the case study methodology of Family Enrichment courses to various couples in this town. The result has been two well attended Life as a Couple courses, one in 2021 and another in 2023, with each having more than seven couples participating.
The couples were divided into two groups for each course. Each group had case discussions each month for five months, with group meetings occurring in the couples’ homes on rotational basis. Before the end of each month of the course, both groups had plenary case discussions together, hosted by the organizing couple in their home and moderated by guest moderators chosen from among those trained by IFFD.
The enthusiasm of the couples to learn more about how to live their married love was so great as evidenced by their desire to discuss the cases. Some couples also strengthened their friendships while others were happy to meet other couples working on improving their marital happiness.
More Married Love courses will surely occur in this town because many other couples have not yet had the opportunity to participate. Hopefully, parenting courses will occur soon in this town as well because these same couples have children whom they love and like to raise well into virtuous adults.
AL