Ayota hails ‘successful’ NSSF Seven Hills Run after collecting Shs940m

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has hailed companies and individuals who contributed towards this year’s Seven Hills Run from which Shs948 million has been collected.

Patrick Ayota, the NSSF acting Managing Director, on Sunday, said the run attracted about 8,000 participants.

“We have been able to rise about Shs948 million,  Shs400 million in cash,  the balance in kind,” he said shortly participating in the run on Sunday.

The seven hills run covers the 21 kilometres covering the seven hills of Kampala and is an NSSF Social Corporate Responsibility initiative intended to support different social causes such as rehabilitation and equipping of public schools.       

While NSSF had hoped to mobilize Shs1 billion from this year’s run, Ayota said it was still a success. 

“It has been great, remember we had a target of one billion shillings, and we think by the end of the day we should be able to get all the money we need for that purpose.  Close to 8,000 people turned up for this run which is very good because we thought people had forgotten due to the Covid break,” he said.

Ayota said they will now go on to select which schools will benefit from the proceeds of the run. He said they are targeting public or government-aided schools.

The schools according to Ayota t must have a good governance structure, with an active PTA, should be in a good relationship with the district, and must be non-partisan.  “The idea is we look out for a school in each of the regions and see what we can do with it,” Ayota explained.

Ayota said that the selection will go through a properly described procedure, and at least one school will be picked from any of the regions in the country.

He adds that for this cause, they are focusing on innovation, sanitation, and digital education within these schools.

The Run was flagged off at Kololo ceremonial ground. The participants competed in the 21-kilometre and 10-kilometre categories.

Various companies and organizations financially facilitated the Run. Individual participants had to pay 20,000 shillings each.

“Beyond us are millions watching, this is good because we want everyone to know that this is for a good cause. If you didn’t know, NSSF belongs to you, it’s fully owned by Ugandans, and fully managed by Ugandans. For the last Financial Year, savers contributed 1.6 trillion. We are now just slightly over 18.4 trillion as we go forward, you are going to see us being more involved,” Ayota said.

From previous editions, up to 15,000 pupils in the districts of Kampala, Soroti, Kisoro, and Otuke benefited as 60 classroom blocks were renovated, and 13 primary schools had their sanitation improved.

From the run, in the men’s category, Sam Wamuno won the 21-kilometer race. Meanwhile, Latif Kisamba won the 10 kilometers in the men’s category, whereas Doreen Agaba won for the women.