Ubuntu Network Hopehill in Uganda 2025
Ubuntu Network · Hope Hill Bloom · art class · Shoes to Hope · vocational school
In 2025 I went back to the Hope Hill learning centre in Uganda with the Ubuntu Network team. We travelled as Hope Hill Bloom, with a line on our banner that we tried to live up to: we don't just teach, we help them bloom.
One piece each
The art class was built around a puzzle. Every child got a single blank puzzle piece and filled it however they wanted. On their own the pieces were just drawings. Put together on the classroom wall, they made one heart, which was the point we wanted the children to see rather than hear.
Shoes to Hope
We also ran a shoe drive, Shoes to Hope, under the line every sole deserves a future. Laying the shoes out on the field in front of the school made it obvious how many children a single pair could reach.
The vocational school, and the pattern
The second half of the trip was the part I had built Kikobana for. At a vocational school for single mothers, I passed on techniques from Korea and handed over the pattern for the Kikobana bag: the actual production pattern, not a sample.
That is the difference I care about. A donated bag is one bag. A pattern is a skill that stays in the building, that can be taught to the next intake, and that puts the person who sews it in a position to be paid for it. It is also what makes Kikobana's five per cent more than a transfer of money: what travels is the ability to make the product.
The year before is written up in Ubuntu Network Hopehill in Uganda 2024, and the organisation behind both trips in Girls Be Strong.