Day 187: Bujuuko 2.0?

Kids studying at Bujuuko High School, pre-pandemic

Seven years ago, I joined with colleagues from Uganda to form Bujuuko Foundation. We wanted to foster developing-country entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

My colleagues, Job Kasule and Sadhat Walusimbi, grew up in poor families in Uganda. They knew that traditional employment opportunities were few, and getting fewer, They wanted to make a difference for all the kids still fighting for a chance to learn, work, survive, and live their lives with meaning.

Over a few years, Bujuuko Foundation developed a unique model: College students served as peer mentors to students in an entrepreneurship competition at Bujuuko High School in Uganda, encouraging them in creative problem-solving — the critical skill of all entrepreneurs. The winning team won a year of school fees (like winning the lottery for many of their families) and seed money for their project. Theydesigned projects to enhance their school, but with the entrepreneurial skills they learned, they could replicate the process again and again to enhance anything in their lives.

After a couple of beta tests, we had a good idea how our project was working, and where we wanted to improve. We were preparing to run a revised version of the program and begin collecting data — in the spring of 2020.

We all know what happened then.

Hiatus and helplessness

Since the pandemic began, Bujuuko Foundation has been in mothballs. In the meantime, other obligations and personal circumstances made it seem nearly impossible to begin again.

For several years now, I’ve been unable either to move the project forward or to abandon it.

In the past few months, I began to do what I should have known to do all along: offer it up to God in prayer.

A Felicitous Visit

This week, Dr. Walusimbi and his family (who hosted me so many times at their home in Uganda that their kids call me “Aunt Alison”) paid a visit to Morgantown.

Over cups of Garden Tea (a Ugandan delicacy I recently found buried in the back of my pantry — still delicious), we talked about the pandemic, the changes in our lives since we last got together, the state of Ugandan politics, and the work we had begun with Bujuuko Foundation.

Bujuuko 2.0?

Recently, we’ve been approached from several quarters about resuming the project. The interest from students and community leaders encourages us. The model, we know, has potential — but to realize real change would take sustained commitment and human resources we currently lack.

This morning turned into a brainstorming session — our first in a few years. We spotted a few potential roads forward— and many challenges.

Then again, the word bujuuko in Luganda means “a place where obstacles are overcome.” Could there be a road to Bujuuko 2.0?