It was a momentous 7 days of trekking as Faith Agumya our Studio Administrator together with Kiggundu Rodney the founder of Kiggundu Rodney Art Studio joined 6 other dreamers from across Africa in Moshi to Summit Mt Kilimanjaro under the #AfricaDayKiliChallenge. from 19th to 26th May 2023.
The Summit was organised by "The Great African Art Banner" team in partnership with Origin Trails Tanzania with an aim of celebrating Africa Day 2023 at the summit and 60 years anniversary of the African Union (AU). The trek comprised of dreamers and artists from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe who set off from Machame Gate to take on the challenge. With flags from other representative African countries and nations like Comoros, Ethiopia, Somalia among others like the African Union Flag, we trekked with all of them for the first 5 hours through Machame route to Machame Camp.
The climb involved walking for hours and camping at specific camps on the route for a period of 5 days. It was also aimed at officially launching the Great African Art Banner officially as well as the Mock Banner that was done by a select group of artists from Uganda. The mock banner comprised of images showing wishes and dreams these young artists have for Africa.
Every one who climbed had a dream they wished to see and unveil at the summit. Among these was our very own Faith Agumya who launched her upcoming book " To Live or Not to Live" as well as the Kwa Imani Community aimed at creating awareness about suicide prevention a continued prevailing mental health issue in Uganda. Also together with Faith, Rodney also took up his Art Studio and FireSideChArts Africa to the summit launching these dreams officially at the 5895m point of the highest mountain in Africa. Kiggundu Rodney Art Studio is aimed at empowering early stage creatives within the Ndejje Community back in Wakiso Uganda whereas FireSideChArts Africa is a Non Profit Creative Initiative founded by Artist Kiggundu Rodney. It is a Platform founded on the basis of authentic Conversations and authentic story telling. A safe space for early stage creatives to have conversations with elders and creative industry experts across Africa on how to manoeuvre the dynamics of life and the creative industry respectively to be able to tell authentic stories about Africa through their craft.
Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is quite nerve wrecking but has great lessons about patience, leadership, commitment, teamwork among others. It involves going through the different vegetations that make up the fauna of the ranges of the mountain that is the Tropical Rain Forest as well as the moorlands. Special Thanks to the team below, the porters, guides and everyone that took on the challenge of Climbing the Highest Mountain of Africa on Africa Day.
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