Session 1: The Core Group:

This Sunday we finally had our first workshop with people from the community! Stephen (CDTS), Irene (Newplan) and we (Ragnhild and Andreas) agreed it could be good to make a reliable core of youth from the area. We invited five guys from CDTS and eight students from the Rwenzory High School. Some of Stephens staff were supporting us with interpretation and organizing. All in all we were 18 people in the workshop.

The 15 youth will follow the whole process, discussing, designing and building the structures they find appropriate for the Noremco Stadium. At the end of our project they will be presented a certificate for participating in community development work for the Bugoye Sub-County.


After presenting ourselves, we showed some pictures from Norway to let them know a bit of our background and lives back home. Not unexpected, the winter-images got a lot of responses.



We followed up with a presentation of everyones names and backgrounds, since all of the people in the group come from different villages. This was done by one inteviewing the other and presenting to the rest of the group. This way we introduced the idea of asking questions. We asked them to make a descriptive drawing of the other person to start the process of "talking through drawing". As architects, we are used to this idea, but for most of the people in the group, this was strange and to us surprisingly difficult.


The final part was group-discussions on pro´s and con´s in the area regarding the development of the community. This is a topic which is discussed regularly, and even though it was a bit slow in the start, many of the conversations and key issues were interesting for the following sessions.

We picked up a lot from the group, even from the things they don´t tell us directly. For every day we spend in Uganda, we learn a bit more and our understanding of how different their backgrounds and ways are is constantly increasing.

Our main challenge will be to prevent their answers to be what they think we want to hear. The education-system in Uganda is based on "correct answers" and is highly competitive. This makes it hard for them to suggest radical ideas and raise "stupid questions".

Next time we are planning on-site measuring and getting to know the field itself. Hopefully the more physical aproach will tap into the reservoir of free spirited discussions and playfulness.