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Uganda & Howest

Grey Crested Cranes (Istockphoto by Shashilesh)

Genesis

Where people meet, things happen.  Back in 2011 Howest journalism student Dries Dehaudt shot a documentary for the NGO Join for water, about the river Mpanga in the Ruwenzori region of Uganda, in cooperation with Narafi students and hence cross-university coached.  The latter would remain a beneficial side-effect at this birth of the Howest Uganda Outreach: ever since, our contributions, experiences and explorations continued emerging hand in hand with many other (inter)national universities and organisations on this globe.   In the Global South you never walk alone. 

Academic, governmental and business partnerships

The quite lengthy list of Howest-partners in Uganda is still counting.

- the VLIRUOS-IUC for the Mountains of the Moon University in Fort-Portal (2012-2024, University of Ghent, Free University of Brussels, Catholic University of Leuven and the Thomas More University),

- the SOLAR-powered MMU-radio (2015, Thomas More University and the Province of West-Flanders),

- the fibre connectivity project (2017, Province of West-Flanders and Cisco company),

- the Bigodi Sanctuary in Kibale Forest (2018, Kibale Association For Rural and Environmental Development),

- the Angel’s Care Center in Kampala (2019),

- the Virika Hospital Green Energy project in Fort-Portal (2020-2024, Virika Community, CEE and Polytra multinational companies and the province of West-Flanders),  

- the VLIRUOS-IUC for the Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Mbarara (2021-2034, Free University of Brussels, University of Ghent, Catholic University of Leuven and the AP University).

- our co-creation of an ICT-business incubator within MMU faculty of Science-Technology-Innovation (2022, in mutual cooperation with an expert team of the Hogent University). 

- the community-based mental health initiative Uzima Empowerment in Fort-Portal (2022, mid-pandemic meanwhile MoU-partner with Applied psychology and Social work) in cooperation with Hogent University.

- our Internet-of-Things (IoT) based data science with Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) expert role within the Erasmus+Strand2 AHUMAIN-project (2023-2026, AP University, Neapolis University (Cy), Universidad de Vigo Uvi (Es), Makerere and Muni University, Innovent Consult and RENU (Ug), Ardhi University and the Karume Institute of Science and Technology and Saraha Consult (Tz)) to empower the East-African labour market of both Uganda and Tanzania with such future competences.

Corporate Social Responsability

To make people meet, throughout this latter decade Howest enjoyed quite many student and staff travel grants thanks to various governments amongst which the Province of West-Flanders, the VLIRUOS, ENABEL and the European Commission.  But also some strong and social responsible (multi)national companies support our Ugandan endeavour, amongst which the multi-companies Cisco, Samsung, Polytra and the energy experts CEE (Eu), Smappee (Be) and SoftMat (Ug), the finance expert Innovent Consult (Ug), Ugandan's academic broadband RENU, Sahara Consult (Tz), etc.

Vision

The latter list introduces us to today’s Howest vision on this specific Uganda Outreach.  Rather than repeatedly donating means and transferring knowledge unidirectly from North to South, we approach all partners on equal base by exchanging ideas and competences.  Hand in hand we set up required fundings for life-changing projects by submitting proposals to various bodies, jointly with the Global South partners which often co-invests.  Due to our newest major story in the pearl of Africa (Howest’s leading role in the VLIRUOS-IUC for the Mbarara University of Science and Technology (2021-2034) to trigger youth employability) we today completely retire Africa’s image of the needy continent (fed by our western media, establishment and politics), instead realizing its huge potential (green energy, growing labour and trade markets) to successfully run commercial businesses.  Such an adventure requires a politically stable, sufficiently infrastructured and well administrated country: Uganda applies. 

Exchange

To make all the above happen, Howest welcomes around the year competent people with a heart for the Global South (students, staff, external partners, consultants) of various expertise, running from nursing to high tech and from psychology to finance.

Fundings through Howest Foundation

To fund all the above, Howest is continuously in the seek for fair co-investors in the Global South (donators, bequests, governments but also companies) to cooperate with our Howest Foundation over our focus country UgandaContact: ivo.de.pauw@howest.be

Projects >>