By BAMUTURAKI MUSINGUZI

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Hope Babigumira is an author and social entrepreneur on a mission to inspire, educate and motivate over one million underprivileged Ugandan girls through her project ugandangirl.com.

Babigumira says she wrote her biography No Makeup On: The Rebirth of Identity to help young girls avoid the mistakes she made growing up.

The self-published 150-page biography is a captivating descriptive memoir about a Ugandan girl's choices, loss of identity, and finding love and grace to overcome and to win in the end.

Babigumira’s parents had big dreams for her but life took a different turn. Death, poverty, confusion, struggles and fear led to a loss of her identity.

Her father, Dr John Babigumira died in October 1988, leaving behind two widows and 12 children.

His medical practices in Kampala and Kabale soon collapsed plunging his family into poverty, lack and uncertainty.

Two of her siblings died in childhood, and her brother Peter was crushed to death in front of her by an old wall at their home, in November 1990.

The loss of loved ones at an early age, being spanked for wetting her bed, sexual abuse, attempted rape, clubbing, alcohol abuse and an abortion were the results of Babigumira’s low self-esteem from the harsh conditions while growing up that nearly destroyed her childhood and early adult life.

Relatives and house helps abused her mentally, physically and sexually.

She says salvation brought her healing and freed her when she turned her life to Jesus Christ.

Babigumira reveals that she only noticed that she suffered from low self-esteem when she turned 30. “I wasn’t confident. I was the textbook case of low self-esteem.

Suspicious of people, fidgety and never trusting anyone. I was sensitive to insults, afraid of confrontation, afraid of failure. I thought success wasn’t meant for people of my kind. A low self-esteem will ruin your life,” she writes, adding: “You will always live in a lower version of yourself until you learn how to overcome and trust that you are good enough.”

Babigumira lives in Kampala, with her husband, Ivan, and two children.

No Makeup On is available in Kampala at Ush30,000 ($8) at several bookshops.