Kampala Breathes Campaign.

This project was launched in July 2025 following our participation at Clean AIr Forum Nairobi in Nairobi.This initiative focused on helping citizens better under air quality and what it means by daily exposure especially in urban areas where pollution levels are mostly high.

Campaign Approach

We mobilized individuals who already had interest in air quality monitoring using simple various monitors in their home, air filters or following global platforms the show Air quality in Kampala.These participants shared their data and experiences and reflections on how pollution affects their daily routine, health and environment.

Campaign Launch: The 60km monitoring run

To launch this project, Owomugisha Julian, a member of Public Square EA, kicked it off with a 60km run carrying a portable air quality monitor, the run started in kololo, central kampala to luwero outside the city.

This route was intentionally selected to demonstrate the difference in air pollution between urban centres and areas further from the city, as expected the PM 2.5 values were very high in the city and they kept falling as she approached Luwero, visually illustrating how urban pollution exposure changes changes across geography.

This run generated public interest and served as a powerful way to communicate the realities of air pollution in kampala.

Influencers and Public engagement

More influencial figures jumped onto this campaign to highlight air quality issues;

1. Canary Mugume,a well renowned journalist at NBS

2. Joseph Beyanga, a vocal road safety advocate

3. Raymond Mujuni,a seasoned journalist

4. Miss. Jacqueline Asiimwe, lawyer ,founder of Civic source Africa and so many others.

All these individuals used their social media platforms after doing walks around their communities by sharing their data and sparking public discussion about the relationship between air quality and daily life.

Media Reach and Public visibility.

The campaign gained national attention, by September, we had an online reach of over 2 million people. Our work has featured in a season newspaper, the daily monitor, our colleagues Julian Owomugisha and Anthony Natif have been interviewed on the cause and how to ensure this message reached nation wide on the biggest National Television stations in the country, NTV and NBS respectively.

Under this campaign, Public Square EA presented under one of UrbanBetter webinars on "how to make African cities breathe healthy", a well attended webinar by very many professionals in and not in the Air quality space This campaign is still ongoing through social media engagement and most recently in the first week of March,a talk show on Radiocity 97 FM.