Character First! Institute in Oklahoma

I was privileged to recently be able to spend two days with the folk from Character First! in Oklahoma to discuss our needs and plans for the future. What a great team!

It was so good to hear what they are doing after the restructuring over the past year.

While at the Character Institute, I repeated my presentation, “Building and sustaining a Character-based authentic culture” which I gave in Tucson, Arizona during the FCCI Conference. I also discussed the progress that Character First! has made in organisations and countries here in Africa.

I recently received a very encouraging letter from a person in Uganda who has been encouraged by the Character First! materials. When I receive letters like this, I realise that we cannot ignore the challenge to spread the message of character in our great continent. I have included the letter below, for your encouragement.


Hello Dr. Mario, I am happy to inform you that I came across Character First! Materials and have much appreciated interacting with Character First! Website and I appreciate the rich content that I have grown to appreciate very much. I am a teacher by training and have been a tutor for over 18 years of which for 12 years, I have been in schools’ supervision. I have post graduate training in Human resource management and Counselling psychology. Currently, there is a character crisis in Uganda due to poor parenting, lack of excellent management systems, poor economy, lack of income generating skills training and limited access to such training opportunities as character development for people to be able to live a more productive life through wise life decisions.

There is high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and with more than 50% of the population below 15 years, and most of who are orphans. There is poor working ethics leading to high prevalence of unabated corruption. It is more of surviving for the fittest making people use crude methods to attain "success" making many people vulnerable and victims of social and economic injustices.

Character Development needs to be addressed first for the sustainability of the development we want to achieve. We would greatly be blessed to work closely with you to offer character training through workshop facilitation. How do you think we can realize that or relate best?

As a capacity building organization, we want to be equipped through training workshops and also to organize some high profile training meetings for training top corporate management and Institutions and organizations staff. I would also want to acquire some Character First! materials for reference. . I request for your advice of how best to relate with you to impact Uganda as a nation. Best regards, Abby Nakku Makubuya