Greetings all!
Welcome to the second edition of “In Their Own Words”! I’m releasing two of these posts back to back on the same day in preparation for tomorrow’s Online Nakivale Young Artist Expo that I am facilitating and co-hosting. [Tickets still available! Click the link to find out more or message me].
Art Can Change The World
Meet Akon Deograce, a 22-year old Congolese refugee who fled the Democratic Republic of Congo with his family 12 years ago and has lived ever since at the Nakivale Refugee Settlement.
“Art can change the world” is not only a motto, it’s how he lives his life. He lives and breathes creativity and community organizing and is actively finding ways to uplift and empower youth of all backgrounds, nationalities and languages at the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda.
He is an entrepreneur and changemaker, storyteller [see his story that I guest published here], an artist and fashion guru. He teaches art skills, together with his young artist friends, upwards of 35 youth. On a monthly basis, he organizes public fashion shows at the Settlement to create cross-cultural connections and community (there are 170K+ people from 13 East African countries who have sought a haven at the Settlement). [Scroll down for videos!]
Akon is also my co-host along with Elijah Astute for tomorrow’s online Nakivale Young Artist Expo. While the Zoom event is closed to folks who register (there’s still time!) we will be live streaming on Facebook. So, look for me there Saturday, June 1st at 9 am EDT.
Limited Access to Substack
Similar to Elijah, Akon has few opportunities to participate in Substack. While he has an account here, uploading content is nearly impossible without the purchase of a modem and router and a data bundle subscription. It’s a wonder we managed to even do a Zoom together.
Nakivale Fashion
As I mentioned above, Akon organizes fashion shows as part of his Young Fashion Africa initiative. Last weekend, over 60 youth participated in these coordinated and organized fashion shows. While sending these videos to me over What’s App is possible, uploading to YouTube and Facebook much less Substack is impossible So, I’ve uploaded them to YouTube for him. Links to those videos are also here: Fashion Show #1 and Fashion Show #2.
Birthday Art
I’ll leave you with this generous gesture. For my 50th birthday this past month, they organized a surprise birthday portrait for me, sketched by 15-year old artist “Josby”.
I hope you enjoyed these last two “In Their Own Words” issues. I hope to do more. Depending on the content, they will either land here or on my other Substack called “RainMakers and ChangeMakers” that I just launched earlier this week.
Thank you for watching and caring!
Emily
NOTE: The above video is only my SECOND edited video, clipped from a Zoom session! Apologies for the poor quality initially. If you’d like to view the video with the accurate subtitles [Substack auto subtitles did a pretty good job but not 100% accurate), head on over to my YouTube channel to view the video there and turn on “closed captioning” [CC].
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