The Kujieleza Wall

The Kujieleza Wall believes that humans are always searching for ways to connect with society, to be heard, understood and accepted. Sometimes, the conventional ways are not conventional enough for us to express ourselves.  

KUJIELEZA provides that safe space for the people in the community of West Nile, Uganda to freely harness and exchange the energy inside of them.

As a forward-thinking entity, the Kujieleza Wall researches, documents and archives the past and present of our culture contributing to creating formative resources for the progressive development of our generation and the next.

We are passionate about changing the narrative on youth, women, children, refuges and other vulnerable  groups in our society.

Our zeal is to promote social continuity and togetherness and in so doing provide guidance and trainings that administer progressive development.

We aim to fight unemployment in our communities by exploring practical approaches through nurturing existing talent and providing guidance and training in the creation of markets and marketable talent.

We serve our target population through our programmes; 

The EVOLUTION ACADEMY

This is a hub that gathers, nurtures and deliberately grows the passions of our young generation into professions.

The Academy aims to intentionally influence the development of the young generation from West Nile by shaping the way they think, analyze and respond to critical issues of life.

Under the Evolution we have two categories. The K Club which caters to the young from ages 2 to 15 and the Academy to which the children transition when they become young adults to develop further the talents they may have identified in the K Club.

some of the activities include ,The Literature Centre which has a library of books, runs a readers-writers club, writing competitions, mentorship, exchange programmes, IT centre where they interface with gadgets and computers, also their stories are periodically produced into animations and Discover yourself an activity through which participants are given the chance to let out their creative self‐taking part in painting, crafts, drawing, dance and singing among others.

The Evolution Academy runs a 16 week long Fellowship that aims to cultivate a sustainable structure for professional development for young creatives in the Performing arts and visual arts industry in West Nile, Uganda.

 The academy  bridges the gap created by the lack of arts development establishments and market linkages in the region for creatives who by virtue of their geographical location have been placed furthest away from arts spaces and opportunities.

ARTIVISM

Our programmes enable refugees in West Nile, Uganda cope with the trauma experienced during turmoil in their countries of origin and helps them fit into the new environment they have found themselves in.

AMANI FESTIVAL

 The Amani Convention and Festival is a platform that gathers cultural leaders, civil society, government entities and creative industry stakeholders in West Nile for days to celebrate cultural diversity and to deliberate on how to domesticate cultural policies and spin culture as a tool for the development of West Nile as a region

At tHE Kujieleza Wall, Diana is;

• In charge of the overall strategic direction of the organisation
• In charge of guiding and supervision of the program managers on the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the organization’s projects and businesses
• In charge of strengthening the financial sustainability of programs through effective and efficient resource development effort and effective budget administration
• To ensure that adequate systems are in place and followed, regarding program procurements, management and maintenance of project assets
• Driving innovation in line with the mission of the organisation by ensuring that the staff are at the forefront of digitalization, technology development and technology training
• Research and identify funding and business opportunities for the organisation Identify, build and maintain business relationships with key public and private sector stakeholders in the arts industry

Ms. Diana Santiago who is the Lead on the Leap Project  is a detail oriented professional with over 8 years of experience in managing projects.  She possesses exceptional skills in formulating  dynamic business visions and then leading all aspects of its implementation across the entire organizational spectrum. She is highly organized with an ability to manage multiple projects, tasks and priorities effectively and in a timely manner. 

Isaac Ahele who is the Programmes Manager is a Self-driven and goal oriented individual; he combines technical knowledge and communication skills to deliver desired business outcomes. He is always  Constantly innovating and seeking professional growth while looking at every experience as a catalyst for improvement.

We will be supported by a team of volunteers with whom we have operated the K club from inception to where it is at the moment. We are confident that we can deliver the project to maximum expectations without compromising on our other annual projects.

The K Club, nurturing and deliberately growing the passions of our young generation into professions.

The K Club was born out of the need to support the learning of children in Adifeku village, Ringili Subcounty, Arua district, in West Nile a region in the North Western part of Uganda who throughout the 2 years of the lockdown brought by the Covid 19 pandemic had no direction or hope of an education. 

The community which has over 12,000 children between the ages of 2-15 has only one primary school which cannot cater to all the learning needs of children in the village given the inadequacy of resources in relation to the population.

Every child deserves a shot at life, every child deserves to be given the opportunity to explore their abilities and talents and the right to education.

The children of Adifeku village are vibrant, extremely talented and very enthusiastic about learning but lack the right material, guidance and direction to maximize their potential. 

 The parents and community members cannot afford the materials the children need neither do they have access to information that can support the proper learning for the children.

The children who have participated in the K club have shown tremendous improvement in their grades at school which gives us the energy to continue with the work that we are doing. 

Every month we have had a growth in the number of children who come to join the club because at the club, learning is made fun The initiative is at the point of looking for support to set up a community library and better systems and structures to support the programme to develop further to support the learning of the children in a more efficient way. 

Most times raw concepts are hard to grasp for children. Our approach begins with storytelling.

Our approach strives to make concepts relatable through carefully selected story books and music through which we engage the children to navigate through their emotions and break down the educational contents for them to easily digest. 

The children are introduced to stories from diverse backgrounds covering various topics. Through engagements after story time, we are able over time identify the interests and challenges of the children and provide support as we nurture them through understanding concepts.

At the K Club we run the following activities and are yet to introduce others.

Reader Writers Club

Through a readers-writers club, children are introduced to endless possibilities in regards to their potential, taming their fears and self-limits through the characters they meet in the books they read.

Last year we instituted the idea of healthy competition through writing compositions, essays and short stories. This is to encourage in them the spirit of innovation and to improve the literacy and literary skills.

Meet your Super Hero

This is an activity that we will be introducing this year. The programme will strive to book sessions and connect the children with influential, reputtable and real-life models, both locally and internationally including some of the authors they have read in the readers-writers club.

They will have the chance to ask questions and learn directly from those they admire.

Beyond the Borders

Through this we plan to build a bridge between the learners here in Arua, West Nile and those in the Diaspora by integrating the two communities through online exchanges and learning sessions.

We are instituting alliances with international academic institutions through which our children will enjoy exchange programmes to appreciate what happens on the other side of the world.

Technology

In this era there is no escape from technology. We are assembling our participants to resiliently survive in the ever-changing world.

Through acquisition of Kindle Fires as reading devices and other online sessions we will introduce them to a world of technology.

Every year, one winning story will be selected and adapted into an animation. Through the guidance of skilled facilitators our participants will produce and direct the course of their own stories into a fully-fledged animated movie.

Discover yourself

Through this programmes children will be given the chance to let out their creative self-taking part in painting, crafts, drawing, dance and singing among others.

Through the programme we will be able to identify their interests and groom  them.

After identifying the eminent need to support the learning of the children during the pandemic lockdown, through observation we engaged the local council leaders and community church elders in in-depth one to one interviews to assess the depth of the need and the possible ways to address it.

Together we hand picked some children whose previous performances in their schools was promising. we reprinted the same tests they had sat and asked them to redo it to which they failed terribly. 

We then decided to start a Saturday readers writers club to engage the children through story telling and keep them occupied and active. 

We did this for five weeks and gave them the same test to redo to which they excelled.

We decided to develop more ways of engaging the children and breaking down concepts to them through fun ways including music, book reading, dance and the arts.

We continued to run the club even after school had opened. 

We decided to compare and contrast the performance of ten children at the primary school who also attend the club. The report from the teachers showed that the children demonstrated tremendous improvement in their literacy skills and communication with their peers. 

Two children were able to top their classes in mathematics which was not before they joined the club.

We have continued with the activities at the club and are now at the point of developing formal and professional structures that can bring about sustainability and be able to track our progress.

We have been able to realize that children who are involved in our club are showing tremendous improvement in their learning at school.

We plan to take practical steps to develop and concretize our approaches with professional help to be able to track our progress and improve it professionally.

The K club is growing at a very fast pace. We have out grown the informal ways of addressing the learning needs of the children and now seek professional help to be able to expand our impacts and replicate it in the surrounding communities to which we plan to take the programme.

We saw a need to which we responded in the best way we could at that time. As a grassroot organisation with minimal financial capacity would like to take up this opportunity through MIT Solve to develop our programme to be able to attract support to expand it for the betterment of our beneficiaries.

How do we measure the critical thinking and analytical skills of the children.

How can our programme contribute to improving the general well being of the community in Andifeku Village.

How do we raise funds from the community to sustain the programme when there is no external funding

A professionally developed and workable strategic framework for our programme from which we ca pinpoint the changes and progress of learning of children involved with the club. 

A strategy than can be replicated to other communities that may be facing the same challenges as we are.

With the confidence we will gain from a well thought through strategy with imputs from experts we plan to expand the club by allowing in more children to join and implement the strategies learnt

We also intend to open up chapters of the club in the nearby communities to Andifeku Village to enable more children benefit from the programme

Build  professional networks that will support our work even after the project sprint has ended.

Gain skills that will help the organisation to professionally run the programme.

To have a detailed document that will inform the course of our approach going forward.