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Home >> Adults >> General English >> NEWS LESSONS
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‘It’s radical’: the Ugandan city built on solar, shea butter and people power
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Warmer
Choose the best answer for each question.
1. Uganda is a country in East / West Africa.
2. The capital of Uganda is Nairobi / Kampala.
3. Kenya / South Africa is one of Uganda’s neighbours.
4. The currency of Uganda is the Ugandan dollar / shilling.
5. Shea butter comes from animals / trees.
6. Shea butter is used to make cosmetics / food.
Key words
Find the following words in the text. The paragraph numbers are given to help you.
1. a period of ten years (para 1)
2. very successful (para 1)
3. something that does not happen or is not found very often (para 2)
4. the small sums of money you pay over a period of time (para 3)
5. disappointed because something is not as good as you believed (para 4)
6. income from a business (para 5)
7. a new business or activity (para 6)
8. the thing that makes a product or service different from others (three words, para 7)
9. relating to the countryside or in the countryside (para 11)
10. relating to towns or cities or happening there (para 11)
Level: Intermediate

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Level: Intermediate
Caleb Okereke
3 March, 2021
The village of Okere Mom-Kok was in ruins
after more than a decade of war in northern
Uganda. Now, Ojok Okello has started an
ambitious project to transform the destroyed
village of 4,000 people into a thriving town.
Okere City began in January 2019. It has
a school, a health clinic, a village bank
and a community hall that also serves as
a cinema, a church and a nightclub. Electricity
is available to all, generated from solar
energy – a rarity in the region – and there is now
clean water, which will help to prevent cholera.
Pupils at the school pay half their fees in cash
and the rest in maize, beans, sugar and
firewood. The clinic lets people pay their bills
in instalments. There is a local security man,
an unusual sight in an area where many men
sit doing nothing while women do most of the
paid and unpaid work.
Okello is paying for the project from his own
pocket. In 2020, it cost 200 million Ugandan
shillings (about £39,000). He is a development
expert and has worked for several international
charities but he became disillusioned when
he saw projects fail because, he says,
communities were not involved in decisions
about their own future.
When he returned a few years ago to Okere
Mom-Kok, the village he had left as a baby,
he decided to put what he had learned into
action. He wanted to create a project that
was led by the people who lived there. Okere
now generates revenue. Every project, from
the school to the local bar, can fund itself,
something that has been possible because
the project is being built not as a charity but
as a social enterprise, Okello says.
Some people compare it to Akon City, the
futuristic smart city in Senegal, but Okere is
the opposite, according to Amina Yasin,
an expert in city planning. “Akon City is going
to be a walled city for the wealthy,” she says.
“It sounds like a capitalist venture on the
African continent. It will benefit mostly
non-Africans, unfortunately.”
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Okere City will use green energy, but its
unique selling point is its shea trees. Okello
says the idea came to him as he sat under
a shea tree outside his house one afternoon.
“I looked at the shea tree and realized that
we have this important natural resource and
we were not using it,” Okello says.
In August, Okere Shea Butter arrived on the
market. The whole city smells of shea butter,
and Okello has called for the protection and
regeneration of shea trees, classed as an
endangered species.
Once a week, an investment club meets in
the community hall. Most of the more than
100 members are women, mostly farmers, but
some also run small businesses. “I got a loan
from the club to buy shea seeds, which I sold
at a profit,” says member Acen Olga.
Members’ financial contributions are carefully
recorded before being redistributed as loans
to members who need them. When borrowers
repay the loan, the cycle continues. This style
of banking is particularly important because
it’s original to Africans, Yasin says. “The way
in which Africans think about money is about
community and caring for each other, and
patience, and long-term investments.”
Rural-to-urban development projects only
work if they are created by and include the
communities they are working to serve, says
Yasin. “Okere City is being developed with
the community in mind,” she says.
© Guardian News and Media 2021
First published in The Guardian, 03/03/2021
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Level: Intermediate
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Comprehension check
Are these statements true (T) or false (F) according to the article? Correct any that are false.
1. Everyone in Okere City can use electricity generated by solar power. T / F
2. Pupils at the school pay half their fees in instalments. T / F
3. International charities are paying for the Okere City project. T / F
4. Ojok Okello left his village when he was a baby. T / F
5. Okere City is the same as Akon City in Senegal. T / F
6. Okere City’s unique selling point is green energy. T / F
7. You can smell shea butter everywhere in Okere City. T / F
8. All the members of the investment club are women. T / F
9. Most of the members of the investment club run small businesses. T / F
10. Amina Yasin says that rural-to-urban development projects only work if the T / F
community is involved.
Using key language
Match the verbs in the left-hand column with the nouns or noun phrases in the right-hand
column to make expressions from the text.
1. pay a. electricity
2. repay b. a project
3. run c. a bill
4. generate d. natural resources
5. create e. a loan
6. use f. a business
Discussion
Discuss these statements.
• “Everyone should use solar energy.”
• “Money makes the world go round.”
• “International charities do an important job.”

Home Adults General English NEWS LESSONS
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Level: Intermediate
6
In your own words
The article discusses a project in a small town in Uganda in East Africa. Look up ‘Uganda’
on the internet and find as much information as possible about the country. Write a short
report that includes the following information:
• location (exact location of the country)
• population
• language(s)
• industries
• geography (lakes and rivers)
• wildlife

Level: Intermediate – Teacher’s notes
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Article summary: The article describes
how a ruined village in Uganda has become
a successful town.
Time: 60 minutes
Skills: Reading, Speaking, Writing
Language focus: Vocabulary
Materials needed: One copy of the
worksheet per student
1. Warmer
The purpose of this activity is for students to learn a bit
about Uganda as it is probably not a country that many
will be familiar with. Two of the questions also lead to
information about shea butter. Students may not be
aware but shea butter has a wide range of uses in
everyday products.
Key:
1. East
2. Kampala
3. Kenya
4. shilling
5. trees
6. cosmetics
2. Key words
Ask students to do the exercise individually and
then compare their answers in pairs or small groups.
Encourage students to use some of this vocabulary
actively by asking them questions such as ‘Which is
better – rural life or urban life?’, ‘What is the unique
selling point of your town or city?’ and ‘What are the
advantages and disadvantages of paying for something
in instalments?’ Point out that ‘disillusioned’ can also be
followed by the preposition ‘by’, as in ‘I was disillusioned
by the lack of job opportunities in the area.’
Key:
1. decade
2. thriving
3. rarity
4. instalments
5. disillusioned
6. revenue
7. venture
8. unique selling point
9. rural
10. urban
3. Comprehension check
The corrections given are only suggested answers
and students may correctly answer the questions in
different ways.
Key:
1. True.
2. False. They pay half their fees in cash.
3. False. Ojok Okello is paying for the project himself.
4. True.
5. False. It is the opposite.
6. False. Its unique selling point is its shea trees.
7. True.
8. False. Most of the members are women.
9. False. Most of them are farmers.
10. True.
4. Using key language
Students could be asked to do this exercise individually
and then compare their answers in pairs. Highlight the
difference between ‘pay a bill’ and ‘repay a loan’, and
point out that you can also say ‘pay back a loan’. If you
‘run’ a business, it implies that you are the owner rather
than an employed manager. As well as ‘create a project’,
one can also say ‘set up a project’.
Key:
1. c
2. e
3. f
4. a
5. b
6. d

5. Discussion
Allow students time to note down their ideas about each
statement and encourage them to say why they agree
or disagree with each one.
6. In your own words
Students search for ‘Uganda’ on the internet and look
for key information about the country. They should use
the six general categories provided but also add any
interesting information that they find. They could either
write a short report with their findings or present them
to the class in the form of an oral report.
Level: Intermediate – Teacher’s notes
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Uganda's Eco City - Intermediate Article.pdf

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