Comedian Andrew Onen steps up to support vulnerable mothers
Written by Derrick Asaba on December 13, 2021
Fast rising comedian, Andrew Onen of ‘News Laughs’ hosted a career launch in a grand event at Fairway hotel last Sunday dubbed ‘THE ANDREW ONEN COMEDY LAUNCH’.
The event was curtain-raised by young English speaking comedians like Facebook sensational, Little Brian, Dr Hilary and Gladys Titin.
Special about this occasion however, was that it sought to raise funds toward supporting vulnerable mothers of babies born prematurely; But why this move?
“My comedy journey started in 2019 from Nsambya Hospital where my wife had given birth to our baby prematurely at 7 months. I would see mothers in absolute distress but whenever I talked to them, it seemed as if they found everything that I said funny,” explained Onen.
Onen told Record FM that subsequently, the mothers kept asking for his YouTube channel so they could visit the site to kill their stress. “Unfortunately I was not a comedian as they thought and never had a YouTube channel as they presumed,” he said.
The Comedy Launch was largely supported by the Media Challenge Initiative (MCI Media Hub) and the Otuke Constituency Member of Parliament was the Guest of honor. He pledged UGX 500,000.
Money worth UGX 1,175,000 was raised at the event. An increase to this amount is expected when the pledges are fulfilled. This will thereafter be used to purchase nutritional breast milk production boosters and delivered to mothers.
“We want to buy the worth of this money, mostly what can help in milk production for the mothers. Prematurely born babies feed exclusively on breast milk which most mothers lack because they don’t have proper food to help them produce enough milk,” Onen clarified.
The perception mothers had of Onen, made him feel that he could perhaps save lives if he became a comedian. He took a stride on and at least, the fruits of his decision are proving righteous ― he will hopefully give out this donation to Nsambya and Mulago hospitals come Friday, December 17.
Onen started his comedy journey by auditioning at the 2019 East Africa’s Got Talent first edition but unfortunately never made it to the next levels.
His debut performance was at Salvador’s ‘JUST COMEDY’. He has also performed at ‘JUST ANOTHER COMEDY SHOW’ organized by Daniel Omara, and at the MCI events, too.
He is inspired by Uganda’s Pablo alias Kenneth Kimuli and Trevor Noah on an international scale.
Onen is the last born of five children raised by a single mother from Lira district. He became orphaned at the age of one.
He holds a Bachelors Degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Kampala International University (KIU) and is a 2020 MCI fellow. He does Branding and Printing works besides comedy.
