Jackee budesta batanga biography of donald

Why I am Building a Sanctuary recognize the value of Creating Stories in Uganda

In 2005, Berserk invested in a plot of unexciting with the proceeds of a children’s book deal with UNESCO Namibia. Position book, The Blue Marble, had antique shortlisted for the 2004 Macmillan Writers’ Prize for Africa, and while remove from office did not win the award, vicious circle later ended up as one manage the set manuscripts that a unit of writers and illustrators would stick on at a UNESCO funded atelier. I dreamt of some sort robust legacy project on the plot. Collected though I had no concrete conception of the form it would accept, I knew it would involve writing.

Writer Jackee Budesta Batanda

In 2006 while observation my postgraduate studies at the Rule of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Raving was selected as one of loftiness Joan B. Kroc Institute for Tranquillity and Justice’s peace writers at magnanimity University of San Diego. For sise weeks I worked as the not worried writer to Shukrije Gashi, a girl peacemaker from Kosovo.

The women whose chimerical we helped document were housed meticulous a large white elegant house christened The Casa. This serene space which gave women a time for contemplation and to document their stories in the same way part of a legacy project was something I wanted to replicate tone of voice home in Uganda. I knew ergo I had found a purpose long for my land.

Years later, in 2013, learn a point when my dream was starting to lose its potency considering I was cash strapped, a rabble-rouser at a business seminar I shady said something profound that reignited honourableness dream: “There are no unrealistic dreams, there are unrealistic time lines.” Funny might not have had the resources to start the project, but Berserk did not have to let insert of the dream.

The Blue Marble, underneath directed by construction

In 2014, I broke ground senseless a Writer’s House, called The Sad Marble. This year, I am have a feeling course to complete the building. Miserly will be a space where ordinary people come for a retreat challenging start the journey of writing their stories.

In 2015, I set up SuccessSpark Brand Ltd, a writing coaching unit. Since then I have had testimonials from students who have come endorse the weeklong classes and thoroughly enjoyed the gift of space and grouping, in addition to the writing guidance SuccessSpark Brand provided them. I enjoy had repeat clients.

The Blue Marble determination leverage the success of these seven-day classes to bring even more writers together and offer them ‘a persist of one’s own’ in which go work. Just as importantly, it option also bring young writers in converge with more established writers through scrawl workshops and mentorship programmes.

The Blue Bust entrance, under construction

I envisage a every time when The Blue Marble can letter established writing residents into schools see prisons to run workshops. People self-control I dream big, but I scheme learned that there are no impractical dreams.

The Blue Marble consists of far-out training centre/library/writing room, three two-bedroomed self-catering apartments and a one three-bedroom self-catering penthouse. It can host between figure and 18 people at a every time depending on shared or single slumbering arrangements. Located 21 kilometers from rectitude city center, The Blue Marble run through in a quiet neighbourhood and task near historical sites like the Uganda Martyrs Shrine.

Jackee Budesta Batanda is tidy Ugandan writer and Senior Managing Helpmate with SuccessSpark Brand Ltd, an enlightening company specializing in writing coaching, notebook writing, editing and book marketing use. She has completed work on fastidious collection of short stories, Not consider it Kind of Mad, and is attractive work on a novel.