After seven years, it is time to write the Akiiki story on a broader and more structural scale. To achieve this, Marijke and her local partners are considering the establishment of a ‘basecamp’ in the city of Fort Portal. However, our colleague needs help to realize these ambitious plans.
Marijke D’Herde has two great loves: nonviolent communication and Africa. Because Marijke’s youth was not always easy, she has always been intrigued by personal and social issues. Since she could not find ready-made answers to these questions, Marijke first traveled to Africa over twenty years ago. There, she gained unexpected insights, new ideas, and much food for thought, which shifted her perspective.
If Marijke is not to be found in Flanders, you can be sure she is busy with Akiiki vzw, putting nonviolent communication into practice in Uganda. After all, aren’t we all occupied with the same questions? How can we make decisive decisions in which everyone feels heard? How can we have a difficult conversation or say sorry? How do we bring about change? How can we live together or argue ‘well’?
Community Center of Reconnection
Through Akiiki, Marijke invites both Belgians and Ugandans to join her on an adventure—literally and figuratively. Together, they learn how to become the hero in their own story and that of others. It brings people closer to themselves and their goals. Today, seven years after the start of the collaboration, Akiiki and her local partners want to work on an even broader and more structural basis, to initiate a wave of meaningful change and to be able to conduct research into long-term results.
What will this new step look like? Ideally, as a physical and visible working environment in Fort Portal, in the form of a ‘Community Center of Reconnection’. From this center, Marijke and the local partners want to stimulate connections: between people within the local community, between different Ugandan communities, between Ugandans and Belgian visitors, and so on.
All help is welcome
The benefits of such a ‘basecamp’? It is a place where people of different ages and backgrounds can meet, learn from each other, set up projects together, or simply find peace. It is also a place where people can bring an idea to development.
The center will be a fantastic but complex challenge. All forms of help are therefore welcome: gathering resources, building and starting up the center, etc. This is why we are making a warm appeal to everyone who wants to help build this: by providing financial resources, by offering legal or policy support… Marijke is happy to provide more information and explanation to anyone who would like to contribute to her project. Please feel free to contact her via marijke@akiiki.be or 0494/783630 if you would like a presentation.
In the video below, you can get to know Moses and Kellen, two of the local partners who put nonviolent communication into practice immediately.
