About

Map

Education

Market Center

Eco-Tourism

Arts & Crafts

Handmade Paper

Barkcloth

Tree Planting

Enviro-Bricks

Banana Processing

Conclusion

ABOUT

Let Art Talk is planning a community art center in Masaka District, Uganda. The center is a pilot model project that shall attempt to mobilize young people in the area and educate them about social issues through art and also provide them with other livelihood skills. It shall also be used as a social community center for the area. The center shall offer a unique opportunity for communities to deliberate on issues affecting their lives and how they can be addressed.

Tourism is one of the major foreign exchange earners of Uganda. For some reason, most tourists tend to opt for national parks and game reserves and completely omit what is categorized as eco-tourism. The center will offer an opportunity for the rest of the world to learn about life in Ugandan villages by having tourists stay with the communities for some time. This interaction will enable the tourists and the rural communities to learn from each other and thus be able to solve some of the new global challenges.

One of the major reasons why this area was chosen is because of its location and history. The area is endowed with natural art making materials as well as talent in craft making that has prevailed for generations. It is also largely an agricultural area which can provide many of the raw materials necessary for art making.

Unfortunately the talent is slowly dying out. The youth have become ignorant or disinterested in their parent's talents and skills. Most of the youths have opted to migrate to urban areas for menial jobs.

The centre shall mobilize the youth so that the older generations can pass on their skills to them and help them improve or alter their crafts to suit modern day needs and utilities.

This craft shall be introduced due to the abundance of local materials such as papyrus, banana fibers and leaves, elephant grass, pineapple leaves and cutoffs. By growing more pineapples to provide the paper making craft with raw materials, the pineapple fruit will improve on the diet and incomes for the local community.

The craft of back cloth making is one of Uganda’s unique heritages but sadly it is slowly dying out. There is therefore urgent need for its revival by encouraging skills transfer from the older generation to the younger generation. The center shall have barkcloth making demonstrations as well as encourage the community to plant more mutuba trees from which barkcloth is made.

The planting of more of these types of trees will contribute to the environment at a time when the whole world needs nurturing by planting more trees to curb some of the effects of global warming. This is a fiber, that if well researched and utilized, could also be paramount to the green movement by providing alternative products to those that are made out of materials whose use is scientifically considered as environmentally unfriendly.

The making of barkcloth has been a part of Ugandan culture for centuries. It is a sacred fabric which defines the spirit of the Buganda kingdom. Barkcloth remains a  ceremonial dress code for royalty, chiefs, and heirs durining coronations and funerals. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has named it among the world's collective heritage.

To watch a video about how barckcloth is made, click here.

We shall encourage the community to plant trees and local herb gardens for fruit, medicinal, and agro-forestry purposes. We will have a tree nursery and demonstration farm to teach farmers new skills as well as revive old useful ones so they can improve their food security.

The bulk of the bricks that are used in the construction industry in Uganda today are made of clay and fired by wood. Brick-making is therefore one of the activities that are depriving the country of large volumes of trees. As a remedy, the center will promote methods of making bricks other than those using wood fuel. For example, a combination of marrum, lime and cement by compression can be used to make bricks. The term enviro-brick is therefore derived from the environmentally friendly method of making bricks.

A major food crop in Uganda is a green banana called matooke. It is like a plantain. Matooke is a staple in the diet of many Ugandans. Masaka district is one of the leading suppliers of matooke to Kampala and other towns in Uganda. At a time when we need to add value to what we export, the processing of matooke locally could lead us to further research about how we can contribute more to making matooke a more appreciated recipe.

The center will advocate peeling the harvested bananas before thay are sent to market. This can have several advantages.

It will provide an opportunity for people to earn income by peeling the bananas before they are destined for sale to the urban dwellers.

Peeling the bananas will ease pressure on overloaded trucks that carry the bananas to urban areas. It is common to find trucks overloaded with bananas mechanically stuck on the way to the urban areas owing to overweight and poor roads and yet half of what they carry is waste. It is also common to see people transporting bananas on bicycles to urban areas. By peeling the bananas locally, near to the point where they are grown, transporters will be carrying products that are ready for cooking.

This will also rid the cities of garbage. A large percentage of garbage in the urban areas is from food stuffs including bananas, potatoes, and other foodstuffs that are brought to the cities and towns before they are peeled.  By peeling the bananas in the village, the urban areas shall be rid of a considerable amount of garbage.

The peels will provide fodder for livestock which will enable the farmers to earn higher incomes from their animals.

The global community is faced with many problems that need a more unique and unconventional approach. Unless we have points of convergence where various categories of people can meet and exchange knowledge, experience and ideas, regardless of gender, race, tribe, age or level of education, in a very amicable and civilized manner, very little may be achieved in our quest for long lasting solutions to the problems that are steadily daunting mankind in this era.

The center shall benefit the people by providing a venue and creating a forum for dialogue in pursuit of the missing link as to why we are failing to effectively find solutions to our economic, environmental, civic, cultural, and health related problems. It will enable and hasten the activities of some of the government and non-government programs that are meant to make the ordinary lives of Ugandans better.

We therefore believe that such a multi-purpose community center can contribute to the global millennium development goals which are the basis for solving, developing countries’ problems.