In 2016, three SINA scholars asked a question that we had never had to answer before.
Patrick Muvunga Trickpa, Turatsinze Mafigi Victor and Raphael Muvunga had come to SINA in Mpigi after living for five years in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in western Uganda. Around nine months into their journey, they wanted to know: if SINA scholars were encouraged to create their own social enterprises, could they start a SINA in Nakivale?
At the time, there was only one SINA community with Jangu International, where everything started from. We had no replication manual, no established process and no experience of supporting another SINA community to start. But Patrick, Victor and Raphael knew the place they wanted to return to and the people they wanted to work alongside. We decided to figure it out together.
Now, ten years later, OPPORTUNIGEE is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Its story is also the story of how SINA began to grow beyond its first home.
Patrick and Raphael had fled conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and found refuge in Nakivale. Like many young people living in the settlement, they faced an uncertain future and limited access to education and work. When they returned to Nakivale with Victor, the beginnings of OPPORTUNIGEE were a little clandestine. On a small piece of land allocated to Patrick and Raphael, we started building the first bottle house. Plastic bottles became part of the construction, and the building became a place where the first pioneer scholars could come together. Under the roof, the ceiling became a small room with matrasses were Patrick and Raphael slept.
SINA founder Etienne also sometimes spend a few weeks in Nakivale in 2016 and along came also Abhijit Sinha from Project DEFY. They had just replicated something similar in India with their “nooks” and brought in his wisdom and on ground support. Patrick, Victor and Raphael brought the SINA experience with them, but they had to work out what it would mean in Nakivale. They began inviting young people from the settlement to discover their strengths, take responsibility for the community and develop ideas for social enterprises.
By the end of 2016, the first scholars were already coming together regularly. In an early update, we wrote about OPPORTUNIGEE as the first place where scholars were putting the SINA model into practice beyond Mpigi. At that point, we could see something taking shape, although we did not yet know where it would lead.
A community begins to take shape
The first bottle house was only a beginning. OPPORTUNIGEE grew as its scholars and founders made the space their own and started responding to challenges they knew from daily life in Nakivale. The early projects took different forms. Scholars explored beekeeping, made shoes from used car tyres and worked on crafts. They also made a short film about life in the settlement and their new learning community. Looking back at it today offers a glimpse of OPPORTUNIGEE close to its beginnings, when the first scholars were building a space that they themselves would run.
Watch the early video: OPPORTUNIGEE on YouTube
Social enterprises also began to emerge. Among them Tucheke Movies. The community created spaces for people to meet, perform and share their talents. In 2017, OPPORTUNIGEE began developing a public gathering space and an amphitheatre. A stage at the community hosted theatre, art and cultural events, bringing together people from different backgrounds living in Nakivale.
From one community to many
OPPORTUNIGEE changed how we understood SINA’s future. Until then, we knew what scholars were creating in Mpigi. Patrick, Victor and Raphael showed that the SINA Framework could also be taken to another place, shaped by people who knew that place and led by the community itself. The experience raised new questions for us: What should remain at the heart of SINA? What should each community be free to adapt? How could communities learn from one another while finding their own way?
There were no complete answers at the start. We learned through trying, making mistakes and seeing what scholars and communities created. In Nakivale, demand grew and another community, Unleashed, later emerged as OPPORTUNIGEE split and Victor wanted the freedom to create his own. In 2018, another SINA began with SINA Loketa in the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda, an early step in a journey that has since brought SINA Communities to different countries and contexts. Each has its own people, name, history and challenges. OPPORTUNIGEE was the first to show what could be possible.
A journey with changes along the way
Ten years do not follow a straight line. During the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions interrupted OPPORTUNIGEE’s implementation of the SINA Framework. The community went on to focus on other initiatives, including work on a new village for families arriving in Nakivale and they also found another partner with the Promise Hub. Across those years, OPPORTUNIGEE has continued to be a place where people in Nakivale come together to learn, create and build. Its story includes the founders who asked the first question, the pioneer scholars who joined them, and many more people who have contributed their ideas and work since.
Thank you for ten years
To Patrick, Victor and Raphael: thank you for asking a question we had not yet thought to ask ourselves.
To the pioneer scholars and everyone who has been part of OPPORTUNIGEE over the past decade: congratulations on ten years. You have built far more than we could have imagined when the first bottle house was taking shape. And to everyone who has supported OPPORTUNIGEE along the way: thank you for being part of its journey.
Happy 10th anniversary, OPPORTUNIGEE!