Trail Blazing Nun Sets Agenda in Research, Academia and the Arts

By Ogova Ondego
Published January 4, 2022

Sister Dominica O Dipio is a Professor of Literature and Film at Kampala (Uganda)-based Makerere University where she also sits in the Senate and presides over a research project that seeks to create appropriate, relevant and high quality cultural broadcast content for schools and broadcasters in Uganda. She is also a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture, a team of professionals from around the globe appointed by Pope Francis for a term of five years to offer advice to the Vatican.
OGOVA ONDEGO (OO) speaks to Professor Dominica Dipio (DD) about her background as a Roman Catholic Church Nun and her climb to the peak of the academia and applied research.

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OO: Say Something about Transforming Ugandan Folktales into Digital (Animation) Films for Educational and Leisure Purposes, the research project you head as Principal Investigator
DD: This is part of Research Innovation Fund (RIF), a US$8 million project for scholars at Makerere University that was established in 2019 to help sustain work that drives the development agenda of Uganda. It brings together storytellers, scriptwriters, actors, musicians and engineers to adapt and animate African folktales to provide local content for schools and television stations.

OO: Where do you get the funding from?
DD: This project is supported by the Government of Uganda

OO: What are the main objectives of the project?
DD: To generate cultural content relevant for the educational and recreational needs of Ugandan youth and facilitate the implementation of the 70% Local Content of the Media Policy of Uganda through the production of quality media and cultural content; To contribute towards Uganda’s creative and cultural industry through production of artistic content that could be distributed beyond the country; To interest and engage the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) in our products for inclusion in the school curriculum; To increase awareness among Ugandans about the relationship of arts with national and cultural identity; To develop creative talents and to flag culture as capital that can be harnessed for economic development; To publish scholarly articles on Uganda’s rich intangible cultural heritage, and
To position Makerere University on the continent as a center of innovative research excellence and output.

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OO: That’s really something.
DD: In its first year, the team produced four animation films on topical issues, based on tales collected from various regions of Uganda. The folktales were creatively interpreted and animated to fit into the contemporary mentorship and recreational needs of Ugandan youth. The research also addresses the problem of cultural over-dependency on foreign content and identity crisis in the global context.

OO: And this involves just Makerere scholars and staff?
DD: The project brings together an interdisciplinary body of scholars and talents and practising animators.
The participants in the project bring unique competencies as scriptwriters, illustrators, animatic designers, musicians, actors/actresses and artistic directors. The film format we have used makes Uganda’s cultural artifacts more portable and suitable for use in contemporary contexts. Using art will inevitably open the country further to the global community. The selected folktales enhance a sense of national identity and pride.

OO: Why don’t you identify yourself as a film director or producer?
DD: Though I produce and direct film and also write on film, I don’t describe myself as a filmmaker or film producer because I don’t do it full time. I am more of a scholar who also makes films. I guess the scholar is more in the foreground.

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OO: Could we talk a little about your background; why and how did you become a Nun?
DD: How I became a Nun is quite big and philosophical question to answer in a phrase. Simply put, I fell in love with the life of the sisters and was attracted to being a missionary

OO: You attended Trinity College Nabbingo, a school that was well known and from which many secondary school-going boys across East Africa prided themselves on having pen pals.
DD: Trinity College Nabbingo is one of the traditional Catholic Schools in Buganda. I did Advanced Level Literature, History and Divinity here. The best performing students in Ordinary Level exams from St Mary’s College usually ended up coming to Trinity College. The Comboni Missionary Sisters-run St Mary’s College Aboke, then and to date, was one of the best girls’ Ordinary Level secondary schools.

OO: Where did your parents come from?
DD: My parents, now both deceased, were Ma’di. My dad, Saturnino Bandasi Okello, was of the royal family/clan of Moyo Vura Opi, also very much linked to the Palaro clan that is found in both Acoli and Ma’di.

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OO: And why don’t you use Okello, the family name?
DD: I used the name Dominica Okello Dipio until I came to Lira/Lango in the 1970s to Senior 1. Then it went to an abbreviation O. The O still remains in the official records. Since I came from West Nile region (the region where General Idi Amin Dada’s Kakwa tribe is based), the Langi kept asking how a Ma’di could be an ‘Okello’). As a timid little girl who left her district for the first time, I felt bothered. My peers could not accept that I could be Okello. Those were also years of tribal tensions (after Amin overthrew President Milton Obote, the father of the nation). But Dipio is my Ma’di name too.

OO: Why was your father opposed to your joining the convent?
DD: I asked him to explain this after I had become a Nun. He called me for a conversation three days later. It was sentimental. I resembled his sister who died just before she was married a great deal. He had hoped I would marry and have his sister continue through me. I really felt sorry for him. But once I chose to be a nun he supported me fully thereafter.

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OO: What is the difference between a Nun and a Sister?
DD: Although Nun and Sister are interchangeably used by the lay person, there is difference between the two. Strictly speaking, a Nun in the Catholic Church refers to one who lives a contemplative and cloistered life in a monastery: basically a life of prayer. The deep contemplative life of the Nuns supports the work of the active pastoral agents of the church. A Sister, on the other hand, is inserted in the society and is involved in active pastoral ministries; for example in schools, hospitals, media/communication, and social work. The Sister proclaims the Gospel of Christ principally through her life, lived among the people of God. However, both the Nun and Sister are referred to as the Religious, both live in community with their members, and both profess the three vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience.

OO: Did any of your nine siblings join the Roman Catholic Church as Brother, Sister or Father?
DD: I have lost three brothers and two sisters. I have a sister, my second follower, who is a Sister in another Congregation.

OO: How far is the land of the Ma’di from that of the Acholi?
DD: Depending on which side you are travelling, Acoli becomes a continuum with the eastern part of Ma’di, and in another direction, you find a group of Acoli, around Kitgum who are called Ma’di Opei (which the Ma’di think is corruption of ‘Ma’di Opi (Ma’di chiefs). Although the Ma’di and Acoli are linguistically distinct, they are culturally intertwined. There are names of the same clans that exist in both present day Ma’di and Acoli land. As neighbours they have intermarried and fought wars a great deal. And narratives say, Ma’di is the older group that gave birth to Acoli after intermarriage with the Alur.

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OO: What are some of the titles of the books and films you have written?
DD: Moving Back Into The Future: Critical Recovering of Africa’s Cultural Heritage, Gender Terrains In African Cinema, Traditional Wisdom: Folktales From Uganda, Student’s Guide to Julius Ocwinyo’s Fate of the Banished, Bishop Caesar Asili: A Gift To The Universal Church, and Theory and Criticism of Literature.

OO: What do your films address?
DD: My films, mostly documentary, deal with arching cultural heritage.

OO: Say something about your plans to establish a library in Adjumani Districtof West Nile District.
DD: It is just an effort to start something. It definitely starts small in a village town like Adjumani where there is no public library. It is meant to promote a reading culture instead of constantly watching English Premier League football or Hollywood. There should be some option for those who want to expand their knowledge.

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OO: Please talk about the typical day of a Ma’adi girl of your generation.
DD: I was n primary school in the 1960s and 1970s. Wake up early to sweep my section of the compound with my siblings, take a bath, then breakfast and then run off to school, just 10 minutes from home. School Assembly at 8:00 AM. After school help mother with domestic chores like fetching water from the borehole  200-300 metres away from home, wash dishes, grindg odii (groundnut and simsim paste for seasoning the sauces).
Recite the rosary before going to bed. And please let me add about the typical Sunday for the girl and her family. Went to Mass with the family every Sunday. On Sunday and feast days we children would dance to our dad’s blaring gramophone player and amuse ourselves and especially him dancing twist to the sound of those famous East African music.

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OO: Do you miss having a family of your own, like your mother did?
DD: motherhood and children are great values pleasing to God. Those who give up value for the Kingdom of God is also biblical. This is where Sisters like me come in. Our life of service is a gift to the universal church, just as the life of a mother is a priceless gift to the family. Both the religious mother and the family mother are gifts to humanity.
Although I am not a physical mother, I do motherhood every day. As a Missionary Sister of Mary Mother of the Church, motherhood beyond the physical is what we do in our pastoral work in society. I mother many people in the material and spiritual sense. For me, the crucial thing is not about physically bringing forth, but upbringing. In this regard, I go through the joys and pains of motherhood. As for ‘ownership’ of children, this is a problematic statement because people cannot be owned. This is the case even for physical parents of children. At a certain time, they become their own persons. No one can own human beings. But we can enjoy the love of human beings, whether these are one’s own biological children or not. The crucial thing is Love and upbringing. Love gives parents joys and pains, and yes, I go through this as a ‘material’ and spiritual mother. A life without love would be empty and meaningless. Each time I visited home, my dad would ask if I was happy in the life I lived because he knew unhappiness and lovelessness for the life I had chosen would be so painful. As Sisters, the vow of Chastity that we take, that make us renounce the experience of marital life, the joys and pains that come with it, is meant to liberate our hearts from loving exclusively to loving expansively, to embrace the human race. This is what our life calls us for, as Sisters. Ideally, giving up marriage is meant to liberate us to love the people of God generally and particularly in their needs as they come. We do this materially and spiritually. Infant, to be a Sister means to have an expansive heart to love. To do this, the first love that sustains is Jesus: falling in love with Jesus and his ideals is what sustains the Sister. The human love from the Sisters in the community, family and friends, both male and female, are crucial in sustaining us in our vocation as frontline women living and teaching the Gospel of Jesus.
Above all, we are human, subject to all the strengths and frailties of all humans. We are dependent on God for strength.