Community Development, Culture, Ourstory

“Okere City; Building Community Owned Developments to Sustainable Cities” on Africa400, Wednesday, June 9, 2021


The Wednesday, June 9 edition of Africa400 covers the topic “Okere City; Building Community Owned Developments to Sustainable Cities”. Mama Tomiko and Baba Ty welcome Special Guest Ojok Okello, founder and developer of the Okere Community Development Project in Okere City, Otuke District, Northern Uganda.Ojok Okello earned a master’s degree in rural development and worked for international NGOs like War Child UK and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in England, He earned a second master’s at the London School of Economics.

He is co-founder of Refugee Innovation and Sustainable Enterprise – Urban Project (RISE-UP) and Team Leader at its adjunct initiative, RiseUp Hub, a social enterprise with the mission to expand economic opportunities for urban refugees in Uganda. Okello founded Okere City in 2019.

Okere Community Development Project (Okere City) is a community development and social enterprise providing a collaborative and holistic ecosystem to promote integrated rural development in Okere parish, Adwari sub-county, Otuke District, Northern Uganda. Okere City project seeks to be an enabler for the rural community in the parish to be more imaginative, cooperative, creative, innovative and enterprising as pre-requisites to make them more successful and be champions of rural poverty reduction.

Okere City has an ambitious plan to position Okere Shea Cooperative Society as one of the leading Shea producers in the world.

Okere City started an early childhood development center in 2019 with 50 children all taught in 1 classroom. The center has now grown into a fledged 3 tier center with 80 children in baby, middle and top classes.

The end of May 2020 brought the Okere City Project a new gift — the Okere City Community Health Centre. The facility will provide essential health services.

Listen to the June 9 show here:

Africa400 is broadcast live every Wednesday at 2:00 PM Eastern Time (United States) on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org). After the broadcast, the show can be listened to on HANDRadio’s Podcasts Page, in an updated version of this post and on the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).