When youth meet across cities
What surprised you the most on the trip?
"How much you can recognize yourself and your own life in a completely different context and everyday life" (Student from KVUC).
In April, 16 students from the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) high school track at Copenhagen Adult Education Centre (KVUC) and two teachers made their way to Copenhagen Airport. To join Dreamtown on a study trip to Kampala and meet the young people they had collaborated with in Dreamtown’s SDG challenge - a training course developed by Dreamtown in collaboration with our Kampala-based partners Network for Active Citizens. The overall purpose of the course is to engage young people in deeper learning, reflection and dialogue on social change and sustainable urban development in interactive, fun and creative ways that inspire hope and agency in young people to take action.
The students from the SDG High school class and the young people in Kampala were tasked to innovate small-scale projects aiming to adress challenges identified by the young people in Kampala – challenges they had linked respectively to SDG 5: Gender Equality; SDG 13: Climate Action and lastly SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. You can read much more about the course in this story and in our facilitation guide.
It was finally the time for the youth from Copenhagen and Kamapala to meet in real life!
Together with KVUC, we spent an awesome week in and around Kampala together with our partners form Network for Active Citizens and their network of young people around the city. We went to the skate part in Kitintale where we were hosted by the local skating community - got to test out our skateboard and dance skills, make jewlery in the creative shop, and work on bamboo. We visited Kyebando community and the Ecosmart group for an intensive session on urban agriculture - where the students got to make their own area of the garden, and prepare it with planters made from recycled materials. We got our hands in the soil and planted a number of different vegetables that are now growing in the green space in Kyebando.
We went to see the forest outside Kampala in Jinja where the River Nile has its source. Went zip-lining through the jungle, and hiking through the forest. Sailed on the Nile to see the bird life along the river. We got to see a cultural show in Kampala that showcases the many languages and traditions of Uganda. And we visited Nabole Highschool and attented classes together with the students there. We visited the Green Play Space in Kamwanyi community where HADE (Holistic Action for Development and Empowerment) tought us how to make all kinds of products with recycled waste materials. We visited the Danish Embassy in Kampala and learned about how they support local development collaborations.
Check out some of all the cool pictures from the trip…
“How happy people are and how great of a community there is between people. It also surprised me how happy I was being there”
“I’ll take with me that it is not materialistic things that matter, but joy and love and dance and energy”
“Also thoughts on how to live your life and what attitude you should have in the future”
And watch another interview with some of the KVUC students done by Drake, a community journalist and part or the team at Network for Active Citizens.
What do you take with you home to Denmark?
“All my new acquaintances, our absolutely amazing experiences, my outlook on life has changed after this experience, to be happy with the smallest things and to keep in mind that not everyone feels as good as oneself. That money has nothing to do with happiness and for the first time in my life I have seen what true happiness is” (KVUC student).
From September 2022, Dreamtown will again be running our SDG Challenge course together with KVUC - we can’t wait to meet more students and experience their creativity and curiosity about the world around them! You can learn more about Dreamtown’s approach to Development Education in this video: DT x Development Education - YouTube.