Karamoja.org's goals are very simple
1. Protect the beauty of the region
2. Protect the heritage and culture of the region
3. Create opportunity for all the people with new skills and services
4. Build capacity, selling empowers all and new platforms to assist in sales and marketing products and services for locals is key.
6. Use technology and new cloud services to expand the reach and opportunity for all in Karamoja and then exporting these skills and services to all in Africa
7. Implement and then export Common Sense Capacity Building to all of Africa.
Vision
Our vision is simple, Karamoja, will Lead Africa Forward. When we came to the region, it was after the cattle wars and guns were being taken away. There were literally no roads, no electricity and no real economy to speak of. What was there were incredible people, an incredible culture spread across a land of incredible beauty. Immediately we knew that this was home and this was the one place in all of Africa where the greatest change would happen.
To Lead Africa Forward , we believed that it was important to:
Protect the beauty of the region and make this a centre piece of economic growth.
Protect the culture of the region allowing the people to share their way of life with the world.
Create opportunity using the internet and technology to help grow the economy of the region.
Karamoja.org is about helping all in the region gain access to opportunity, a better life, jobs and hope for their future and that of their culture. We live in a globally connected internet world and the expansion of internet cloud technology positioned properly gives developing communities like Karamoja an incredible lift up and advantage. Our track record in business, in starting and growing globaly successful grassroots organizations plus the business's we have started in Karamoja, place us in a very unique position and one where we feel we can help all to achieve thier goals.
8 years ago when we and the Bicycles for Humanity team brought 4,500 bicycles to Karamoja, as the cattle wars were ending, we knew that this was one of the truly incredible places on earth. What struck us most was the incredible beauty of the region and it's people and how important we felt it was to help them protect their culture and heritage.
At that time, there were no roads in the region, no electricity and few business's operating, but you could feel change happening. We and the people of the region knew that from this point forward, Karamoja would , Lead Africa Forward . This was a big dream and an even bigger goal, but today, we are well on our way to helping make this happen.
High value efficient models win, scale and with the internet reaching all corners of the planet, mobile technology coming down in price and increasing in power, we knew that the opportunity was there to protect the culture, empower the people and build new and exciting business's, while empowering the people to lead.
The 4500 bicycles became many successful and growing Bicycle Empowerment Centres. We followed that with the rollout of the iEmpowerment, free education for all, program across the region, allowing all access to better education and opportunity. Next Kara-Tunga a cultural tour and arts company was started, then the Tour of Karamoja, an IT service company and now a new model of development we call Cloud Empowerment that will fit nicely with major donors and NGO's looking to do more good with less money.
Where everyone saw failure and marginalized people, we saw incredible opportunity and talent, with a work ethic and a skill set unmatched in Uganda or Africa. We all understand the term Capacity Building, we just added Common Sense in front of that and our creative model of development took hold and has become incredibly successful.
Our goal is simple, to show the world what is possible and to empower the people of Karamoja, to, Lead Africa Forward. Common Sense models do work and at Karamoja.org, we are incorporating all we have learned ,deploying a new model of Creative Development that engages all who call Karamoja home and all who care about the region and it's people.