Where I live, extreme poverty is the only thing on people’s minds.

Personally, just recently in 2015, when the UN Global Goals were being launched, I was still going entire days without any food, and things had been that way for me since my years of childhood.

But the energy that surrounded the launch of these goals was one of the very first things that restored hope in me, and which made me believe a poverty-free world was now possible, and that people like us were now in the company of the rest of humanity.

So, I have spent the last 7 years trying to befriend humanity, with only one goal: using the period 2015 – 2030 both to turn my own life around, and to contribute to a lasting, self sustainable path from poverty in my region.

I wouldn’t want to be trapped in the same life of hunger and chronic poverty even in 2030, and I wouldn’t want to sit and watch the cycle of poverty in my region go unchanged even ten years later.

I also believe the only way global poverty can end, is when the ultra poor, i.e., those of us at the very bottom of the pyramid, are directly at the helm.

Why? Because in a place like ours, i.e., Kamuli & Buyende, in eastern Uganda — a rather impoverished remote rural region that stretches over 3,300 sq km —  it is very hard to spot anything that is taking place to end extreme poverty, let alone as a result of the global fight against poverty.

The extreme poor, meanwhile, permanently live in these impoverished communities, and are therefore best placed to end extreme poverty with continuity, if only they were at the helm, or if they were accorded the means to charge of events.

But boy, was I wrong.

I have tried to befriend humanity, to lend us a voice on the grip of poverty in our region, but I have instead only ended up going bald.

It’s true, due to stress. 

Here is a sneak peek at my quickly receding hairline: 1, 2, 3, 4.

At this point, every person in this world who is anyone (i.e., every influencer), and every person on earth whose work is even remotely connected to global poverty, or the Global Goals, has heard from me, asking for some form of collaboration. It’s been a NO all the way.

During those 7 years:

I have had countless responses, including from people whose only mission is to do “whatever it takes to end global poverty and meet the SDGs”, who have not only declined any slight form of collaboration, but who have stated plainly that even merely writing on their social media pages to let the world know we are seeking collaborators, would mean they are “endorsing” us, and that they were afraid of doing so.