Building What's next
Title: “The Coffee Corner” In Nakivale, where every sunrise brings a new struggle and a new hope, Hakim, a 24-year-old refugee from Burundi, had one dream: to build something that would last. Back home, his father ran a small café in Bujumbura—nothing fancy, just coffee, chapati, laughter, and radio music. When conflict forced Hakim and…
I came to Nakivale with nothing but my hands and a few dreams stitched into memory. Life was hard at first—no money, no work, just waiting. Then one day, I borrowed a sewing machine at the women’s center. I started by fixing torn clothes for neighbors. Slowly, I learned to make skirts, dresses, school uniforms….
When I first arrived in Nakivale, I thought all I could do was wait—for food, for resettlement, for luck. But waiting didn’t feed my family. So I started small. With 10,000 Ugandan shillings and an idea, I began selling fried cassava near the football field. At first, people laughed. Then they tasted. And they came…