Seven years, to be precise, and the number 7 represents rest, completion, and moving to a higher level. This numerical symbolism perfectly reflects what is currently happening within Akiiki, the non-profit organization founded by Marijke. Given the impact of the project and the high demand for more in the current era of change, we have taken time over the past few months to reflect and develop a plan for the coming years.
Transition experts agree: in the coming years, we need ‘connectors’ between the old and the new. Connectors who link people, ideas, and systems so that a new network and innovative forms of collaboration can emerge. This is just as true in Uganda as it is in Flanders.
We know that new leadership is no longer based on ‘ego’. We no longer need to place ourselves above others to achieve our goals. New leadership works from a place of connection and is based on authenticity. Connectors are aware of this and know how to achieve things together. This automatically leads to more intense and engaged citizenship and stronger professional integration.
Training for high potentials
Akiiki aims to offer connector training for vulnerable young people who stand out for their enthusiasm and their desire to pass the method on to others. As ‘high potentials’ or so-called ‘hippos’, they are invited to follow an intensive year-long program together and grow into leaders in connection.
According to popular interpretations, people with ‘hippo energy’ have an innate ability to know what lies beneath the surface of any situation. They see and speak the truth and possess strong intuition. They are practical and balanced but are also connected to the spiritual world. They are also creative.
Parallel trajectories in Flanders and Uganda
Akiiki vzw intends to take a radically different approach to training: through experimentation, sharing, and co-creation, young adults take ownership of their own learning process. They are supported by experienced facilitators who can activate their highest future potential. By focusing on high potentials or ‘hippos’, Akiiki vzw strives for strong scaling and increased impact: after all, young connectors will in turn train other connectors through interactions within and outside the non-profit.
A group of young people in Uganda and a group of young people in Flanders follow the same year-long trajectory in parallel and then interact with each other: this allows them to experience that—despite the large, visible differences—they live by the same values. During the journey, Akiiki vzw creates inspiring encounters and deep listening practices that enable both the Flemish and Ugandan hippos to explore deeper sources of knowledge. The hippos become ambassadors of a new narrative: care, togetherness, and shared responsibility become their new criteria for the future.
Creating places of connection
Year after year, the number of connectors grows. The need is growing to have a place or places in both Uganda and Flanders where the inner path is also outwardly visible and tangible. Through guided entrepreneurship, a start will be made in 2024 with young people and the local community to design ‘places of connection’ where training is provided, where responsible and leading citizenship is made concrete, and from which sustainable businesses and initiatives emerge and enter into reinforcing interaction with one another.
And the story does not stop there, because everything is in motion. The themes around which young adult connectors will undertake business will become clear and require new structures and forms of collaboration. Social cooperative entrepreneurship will need to take concrete shape and be aimed at meeting the basic needs of the community: food, water, space, education, safety, fun, social cohesion… A social experiment with a beginning, but without an end!
