In February 2025, we were enlisted as one of Azurit's grantees in Africa. The foundation works to improve lives by funding solutions that generate skills, income, and access to knowledge. Through Azurit's support, we can invest in teachers' welfare and capacity development so that we can continue providing the best quality and affordable educational opportunities to underserved children in Okere in particular, but also rural northern Uganda in general.
Our work is made possible through the administrative, technical, and policy support of Otuke District Local Government. The Offices of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Residential District Commissioner (RDC), Community Development Officers (CDO), and Commerce and Production continue to offer legal and monitoring support to ensure that our work fulfills the goals and objectives of the Otuke Districal Development Plan.
Our partnership with the Overseas Resources Foundation Ltd (ORFL) enables us to invest in technology, research and development (R&D) to produce the best quality nilotica shea butter in the world.
We started thinking about utilizing various wastes generated as part of our human and production activities in 2023 when our founder, Ojok Okello, was undertaking a Humphrey Fulbright Fellowship at Cornell University. Thanks to interaction with Prof. Johannes Lehmann, a globally leading soil scientist who was one of the founding brains behind the Circular Bionutrient Economy Network (CBEN), we were introduced to biochar, a wonderful soil amendment ingredient which we could produce from the shells of the shea nut used in shea butter production. Through CBEN, we have had access to leading experts, practitioners, and resources about biochar production, and we intend to be a certified biochar producer by 2030.
In 2025, the Wisdom at Work Fund enabled us to continue providing functional adult education opportunities to 300 women in Otuke who are part of our Aerokwan project. The fund is a big boost to our quest of ensuring social protection to promote the diginity of the grandmothers in Otuke district.
Since 2020, we have been utilizing Funz Video's four outlets in Kampala as our sales and distribution outlets for Okere Shea Butter. This partnership enables us to make our product easily accessible to customers in Kampala.
Since 2022, the PBE Foundation has been facilitating the development of a more robust entrepreneurship ecosystem in Okere through its support of our village bank. The annual donation of $10,000 enables us to invest in businesses and offer microloans to women entrepreneurs in the village.
Agro-Supply Ltd supplies us with improved seeds, which we supply to smallholder farmers in Otuke District. The drought-resistant and high-yielding varieties of maize supplied by agro-supply enable us to boost the resilience of local farmers to the harsh climatic conditions of Okere, which is a semi-arid zone.
Forested, a company whose mission is to conserve biodiversity ecosystems, is working with us to conserve shea trees, add value to shea butter, and access a high-value market for our shea butter. This is in addition to collaborating to access carbon market opportunities for our farmers. Together, we are promoting tree planting and farmer-managed natural regeneration activities, and other biodiversity support projects like beekeeping.
In 2024, we are collaborating with Cornell's Polson Institute to conduct a value-chain analysis for Shea Butter in Northern Uganda. This research collaboration with enable 1 student and 1 professor from Cornell to come to northern Uganda to conduct fieldwork as part of the research project.
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In 2024, we entered into a "sister-village" partnership with the Ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI), an intentional community of 200 people living in Ithaca, New York. As part of the partnership, EVI is supporting us in managing Okere Shea Butter's e-commerce operation on Amazon in the U.S. We also share lessons of sustainable living through virtual conversations and engagements, as well as welcoming EVI community members to Okere to work on various passions and impact projects led by the members. Listen to our founder, Ojok Okello, and Thrive's Director Caitlin Cameron share insights on sustainable living in this podcast.
We collaborated with the Institute for African Development, based at the Eunaidi Center for International Affairs at Cornell University to host a literary event to celebrate the life and legacy of Okot p'Bitek, one of Africa's literary giants of the 20th century. The event is part of our "Echoes of Lawino" program which aims to celebrate and promote African culture, identity, and philosophy through storytelling, theatre, research, and debates. Read the event report here.
In the 2023/24 academic year, our founder, Ojok Okello was selected as a Fulbright Humphrey Fellow, where he did research, studied, and co-facilitated global development and entrepreneurship classes at Cornell University in Ithaca.
We partner with Hope Smiles, a dental service NGO, to organize two dental camps in Okere every year, targeting 1,000 clients. The dental services provided include simple, moderate, and deep cleanings, fillings, extractions, and dental care advisory support.
Since 2023, our collaboration with Myriad USA has been instrumental in advancing our resource mobilization endeavors in the United States. Myriad plays a crucial role in facilitating the collection of funds generated through our crowdsourcing platform, www.every.org/okere-city. Additionally, donors in America have the option to make tax-deductible contributions directly to Myriad, who then transfers the donated funds to our account in Uganda. This seamless process is made possible through our Friends of Okere in America account hosted at Myriad USA, providing us with access to 501(C) benefits like enhancing our fundraising capacity, and credibility.
We work with Football for Peace to implement sports for development activities. Among others, we organize inter-village and inter-school sports tournaments in Otuke District. Together, we also facilitate the technical and logistical operations of one of our major projects: Okere City Football Club.
Stanbic Bank, a member of the Standard Group and Uganda's biggest bank, has taken a leap of faith to invest towards improving health outcomes in Okere in 2022. The bank has supported the establishment of a lab unit and solar lighting at Okere Community Health Centre. In 2025, the bank also supported Okere Community Primary School by supplying 200 solar-powered school bags to our learners.
In 2022, we joined the portfolio of Segal's partners in Uganda. Segal is investing to improve educational outcomes at our community school. Additionally, their support also enables us to strengthen the operations of Okere Shea Co-op. According to SFF, "Okere’s model is especially exciting because it is tied to a core belief in using local and indigenous knowledge and resources as part of development efforts to transform society".
Future Generations Trust support is core to our administrative functions and investment in major projects. In 2021, the Trust invested in the construction of Umutesi House, a dormitory for our girls at the community school. The Trust also provides continuous support towards our staff and institutional development.
Together with the Uganda and South Sudan Office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) between 2021-2023, we are equipping the grassroots community and political leaders in Okere with leadership skills through the "Okere Leadership Lab" project. Similarly, KAS also supports the Okere Summit for Sustainable Development, an annual gathering that re-imagines rural futures.
Zishaye Fund's $3,000 grant was the first ever external resource that we received in 2020. The fund enabled us to lay a formidable foundation to raise awareness and sensitize the community against the destruction of Shea trees. The fund also enabled us to research to understand the significance of Shea trees for ecological and economic development in Okere.
The physical needs of building a city can be hectic and difficult, especially if you are working within resource constraints. But Obanga Ngeo Hardware (OBH), a construction materials shop in Lira City, supplies all our needs. We value this partnership because Obangeo Ngeo trusts us enough to supply all the construction materials we need on credit.
