LATEST NEWS & UPDATES

The inaugural Okere Summit for Sustainable Development was organized from 26th-29th May 2022, in Okere City, Otuke district. This flagship summit centered on the theme: “Reimagining Rural Futures in Africa”.

We are enthralled to be enlisted as a Segal Family Foundation partner. This partnership shall enable us to strengthen the operations of Okere Shea Butter Cooperative Society as well as Okere Community School. 

Shea trees play significant roles when it comes to building both climate and community resilience. Read how and why we are championing the planting of shea trees in Okere as featured in Climate Tracker

​

Read the story of Opio, an iconic but forgotten Ugandan sculptor who is now our village/resident sculptor. 

As part of the #WorldEnvironmentDay2022, ACTADE went out to celebrate a few individuals who are out to conserve the environment and they featured our work as part of their celeberation.

Our work as published in D+C, a flagship German international development magazine. 

Africa News featured our attempt to sustainably build a smart city. Watch it here

Julia Spanier, a reader of rural futurism at the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development delivered the keynote address at during our 2022 Rural Futurism Summit. Click here to watch the keynote address address

Rural areas must also be positioned as places where innovations of the future can be made possible - Ojok Okello 

At our community school, participation of the parents in the general governance and administration of the school is crucial. Every school term, we organize two Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) meetings to reflect on the opportunities and the challenges. We also discuss how we can improve the standard and the quality of education we provide to our children. This video is a snippet from our End of Term 1, 2022 PTA meeting.

Ronald Musoke visit us and wrote this insightful article about our origin and foundation and current projects.  

Samuel Muhindo of The Observer Newspaper visited us and shared his experience in this article.

Our work of how we are attempting to reimaging tradition spaces in rural Africa has been featured on CNN. Watch it here

Our founder and CEO Ojok Okello caught up with Samuel Muhindo of The Observer Newspaper for a Q&A Session. Check it out!

As part of the Okere Leadership Lab, we brought up to 50 councilors in Okere to attend a workshop focused on enacting and implementing bylaws for ensuring better local governance outcomes.  

Our partnership with the Future Generation Trust gives us the opportunity to champion capacity development and girl child education in Okere.  

How can we foster community collaborations and work with different community actors to mitigate the effects of COVID-19? We joined the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF) and Strive Rwanda to share models of handling communities in the challenges brought about by the pandemic..  

Ojok Okello has transformed a small Uganda village into a hub of progress by listening to what the community needs. Episode 8 of our “People Making a Difference” podcast.

Read this article to know more about our community health centre one year after we started it at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Please watch this TEDx Talk delivered by our Founder - Ojok Okello to understand more about the inspiration behind our work. 

On June 09, 2021, we were hosted on Africa 400, a radio station in Maryland, USA to share Okere City's journey thus far.

Have you checked out Issue 5 of the KasUganda Newsletter? It features our political lab project. Okere Political Lab aims to strengthen the capacity of local political leaders in Okere to ensure effective local governance & delivery of public services.

Our work and the conversation about the unbanked in Africa continues in the BBC World Service's Africa Daily podcast. Listen to our rivetting chat with Goeffrey Mulei of Tanda, Kenya hosted by @KarnieSharp.

The Canadian Film Producer Luke Wilms paid us a courtesy visit to learn about our village bank model. You can watch the trailer of the documentary here

Listen to our inspiration and journey via this Scale-Up Africa Podcast

Macmillan Education ELT through the #OneStopEnglish initiative has turned The Guardian's article about Okere City by

Caleb Somtochukwu Okereke into an English Test. Are you up for a quick test? Download the questionnaire here

What inspired the Okere City idea? What are the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead? What’s different about our model? We shared the #OkereCity story and answered some of these questions at the 2021 TEDx IUEA Event. 

Ojok Okello is pioneering a new approach to community-led development in his own ancestral village in Northern Uganda. The model has led to rapid and sustainable development since its start in 2019. Click here to read more.

Our research report which depicts specific and granular details about the situation of Shea trees, Shea butter and the people engaged in various parts of the value chain of shea business in Okere. Enjoy the read!

​

How Ojok Okello is rebuilding the hometown he never knew. To read the full article  click here.

​

Our village now has a towering billboard. The message on the billboard endears the Okere folks to love and protect their shea trees. The image depicts a talking shea tree. It reads (translated from Luo): - "My name is shea tree. I plead to you, please do not cut me because I am the tree of life".

Our Chairman, Ojok Okello joined the #KampalaGeopolitics conference to discuss how biodiversity can offer a sustainable competitive advantage. He mostly shared about our work on shea restoration, conservation and value addition.

We cannot keep quiet about whatever destroys our future. This is why we must act to prevent the deforestation of Shea trees. Read more in this article by our Chairman and Founder - Ojok Okello

On 30 Sept 2020, our Chairman and Founder - Ojok Okello shared the Okere City story at the inaugural Gathering of Givers -  a philanthropic event organized by CivSource Africa that was aired on NTV-Uganda.

Whether it is for moisturizing or protecting your hair, Shea butter offers many benefits for our hair health. In this blog, we explore the many ways in which Shea Butter is particularly beneficial to the hair. #OkereSheaButter

With its oils extracted from Okere City's giant nilotica shea nuts, Okere Shea Butter has the kind of smoothness and finnese that is unbriddled. It is an organic, natural and perfect solution for most of your hair and skin care needs. How about you give it a try? Order Now!

This blog by Humans of Africa explores the story of our founder - Ojok Okello and why he initiated the Okere City project!

Thanks to the Multi-stakeholder Platform on Education and Environment (MPEEN) and National Forestry Authority, we received 3,000 mixed mahogany and mvule trees to make Okere green. This will be an important boost to the Okere Go-Green Campaign where we have already planted 10,000 trees in the past two years. Climate change is real and planting trees is the surest way to fight this global environmental threat.

Read this blog to have a better understanding of our rural retail model.

This new report analyses the prospects of Village Bank as a rural development tool in Okere and beyond. 

The end of May 2020 came with delight for our community members as we opened doors to a health centre that will provide basic health services.

"I’m so thankful to the people behind this initiative for giving us an opportunity to make a positive change in our country, one child at a time”.

Our journey started in 2019!
We didn't want you to miss any inch of how we rolled, so we pieced together all the pieces of the puzzle in this Annual Report.

"I am happy to sponsor Deborah Amolo at Okere Community School because I believe it will give her the opportunity to get the education she deserves”  

Our friend Maureen sacrificed her busy schedule to visit us on Saturday 01/02/2020. A passionate development communicator and researcher, Maureen's visit was motivating and also presented us with new learning experiences. Our heartfelt gratitude for sparing a moment to spend a quality and worthwhile time with us!