Stay longer. Look closer. Take part.

Immerse yourself in SINA Communities in Uganda, with extended time at SINA Mpigi and a visit to a SINA Community in a refugee settlement.

The heart of DEEP DIVE is SINA Mpigi, the birthplace of SINA and its main Community. You stay long enough to get closer to how the Community actually works.

Spend time with the people holding roles. Join conversations and parts of Community life. Meet social entrepreneurs. See how decisions are made, where tensions appear and what happens when responsibility is real.

The journey also takes you through Uganda itself, with time at Murchison Falls National Park and on the Nile. Gorilla tracking can be added as an optional extension at the end.

DEEP DIVE is for people who want to immerse themselves in SINA and understand how the SINA Framework is lived day to day.

Why go deep?

More time begins to reveal what holds a SINA Community together. Who makes a decision when something goes wrong? What happens when someone does not fulfil a role? How does someone learn something they were never formally taught? How does an idea become a social enterprise? The answers are rarely found in a presentation. They become visible by spending time inside the Community.

The birthplace of SINA: Spend more time at SINA Mpigi

SINA Mpigi is where SINA began and where much of the SINA Framework has been lived, questioned and developed over the years. This is the centre of the DEEP DIVE. You stay long enough to follow the everyday life and work more closely. Depending on what is happening while you are there, you may join sessions, meetings, spend time with people holding different Community roles, meet scholars developing social enterprises, visit established social enterprises and explore how learning happens through responsibility.

SINA is a working Community, not something staged for visitors. What you encounter will partly depend on what is real that week.

What you will encounter

Real responsibility

We run SINA Communities ourselves. People hold responsibility for things the Community actually depends on: money, food, intake, communication, learning, water and much more. If you hold the water role and there is no water tomorrow, everyone notices. There is no exercise to complete and hand back to a teacher. Something needs to happen. You ask for help. Make a decision. Change the plan. Make a mistake. Deal with the consequences. Try again. We call the relationship between freedom and responsibility freesponsibility.

Learning that takes time to see

We learn through roles, coaching, reflection, experimentation and real work. Much of that learning is almost invisible on a short visit. Stay longer and you may begin to notice how someone grows into a role, how people challenge each other, how knowledge moves through the Community and how mistakes become part of learning. The Community has to function, so the learning matters.

Social enterprises growing from the Community

Across SINA, scholars have created around 150 social enterprises. Many start from problems their founders know first-hand. During DEEP DIVE, there is more time to meet social entrepreneurs at different points in that process. Some may still be testing an idea. Others may already be running a business and employing people. You get closer to the messy space between having an idea and building something that actually works.

A different SINA reality

DEEP DIVE also includes time inside a SINA Community in a refugee settlement. This is key to understanding what makes SINA so powerful: the same SINA Framework is lived in a very different reality, by people who have experienced displacement and now hold responsibility, build social enterprises and shape their own Community in an environment where opportunities hardly exist. You are not visiting a refugee settlement to observe refugees. You meet people through the roles they hold, the decisions they make and the things they are building. Seeing SINA in another context also makes it easier to understand what can travel from one Community to another and what cannot simply be copied.

SINA is not neat from the inside

People disagree. Roles are sometimes dropped. Mistakes cost money. Social enterprises fail. A decision that gives someone freedom also makes them responsible for what happens next. Communities have to work things out.

The longer you stay, the harder it becomes to reduce SINA to a simple success story. That is part of the DEEP DIVE.

This is not a project visit

You are not coming to meet “beneficiaries.” We are SINA. The people you spend time with may be scholars, Community role-holders, social entrepreneurs, facilitators, employers or changemaker-makers. Some have refugee backgrounds. Some have experienced poverty, displacement or exclusion.

Those experiences matter, but they are not the roles through which we want you to meet each other. DEEP DIVE is built around exchange rather than observation. Bring your experience and questions. Expect the learning to move in both directions.

Experience Uganda along the way

Spending more time inside SINA does not mean spending the whole journey in one place. The journey also includes Murchison Falls National Park and the Nile, creating space between the Community experiences to see another side of Uganda and let some of what you have encountered settle.

Who comes?

Educators. Entrepreneurs. Founders. Funders. Teams. People building organisations. People questioning how leadership, learning, aid or responsibility could work differently.

And people who are simply curious enough to stay longer.

Your title matters less than the question you bring.

DEEP DIVE is particularly suited to people who do not just want to hear what SINA does, but want enough time inside it to begin understanding why it works the way it does.

Upcoming DEEP DIVES and Cost

The price depends on the group size.

3 to 4 participants
€ 1.650 per person

5 to 9 participants
€ 1.500 per person

10 to 12 participants
€ 1.400 per person

The price includes the full DEEP DIVE journey in Uganda:

• accommodation
• transport within the journey
• meals and drinks
• time inside the SINA Communities
• social enterprise visits
• facilitation and reflection
• Murchison Falls National Park
• national park entry fees
• the experiences included in the itinerary

International flights, visa, travel insurance and personal expenses are not included.

Optional gorilla tracking extension

Want to continue the journey? Gorilla tracking can be added as an optional extension at the end of DEEP DIVE. The extension includes the additional transport, accommodation and gorilla permit required. €1,300 per person

A DEEP DIVE is not built around Communities providing their time and knowledge for free. Hosting takes work. People make time, organize visits, facilitate conversations and open up parts of Community life that visitors would otherwise never encounter. Part of the value created by the journey therefore supports SINA and the people and Communities making it possible.

Interested in a DEEP DIVE?

For an exploratory conversation without commitment, and to get the details or ask questions, reach out to Etienne Salborn at etienne@socialinnovationacademy.org.