Chapter 19: Transforming Leadership through Village Outreach: Women as Change Agents in Sub-Saharan Africa

This is the story of Budondo, a village in Uganda where inclusive, transformational leadership has fostered change on a grassroots level for 20 years. We will describe how an American family joined with a Ugandan family to spark the creation of a rural health center, through an arts-based leadership process.

Budondo village has found its way onto the map through a blend of indigenous and Western leadership, placing female empowerment foremost and demonstrating that everyone benefits when “women lift the world up” (B. Beti, personal communication, May 3, 2016.). Budondo Intercultural Center (BI Center) was started by the family of Bernard Mukisa, in a village not far from the equator and the source of the Nile. In 1999, Mukisa returned to Budondo village after 6 years at the University of Minsk in Russia where he studied theater for social transformation. Grateful to find his wife Teopista and their children well cared for by the community, he has dedicated himself to his village ever since.