Karamoja Design - Home Page

Promoting Karamoja Culture
Fine jewellery, handicrafts, hammocks and music production

Contact: Mr Simon Lokai.
Tel: +256(0)788295191 or +256(0)755336221
Email: karamojadesign@hotmail.com
Based in Moroto, Karamojaland.

Seed Recording Studio

Creating the modern sound & preserving the traditional songs of the Karamojong. Located in Moroto, Karamojaland.

Producer, Song Writer & Artist: Mr Simon Lokai

Products

Karamoja Jewellery

Karamoja Jewellery is still the original product. We are always working to create new designs using local materials from Karamojaland.

African reading Hammock + Hammock Chair

A new product for East Africa created by Karamoja Design, using local materials found here in Uganda. Hammocks are a cool and healthy place to relax, read, and be inspired !

About :

1. Karamoja Design
   

2. Karamojaland and the conflict
   

3. Why the Karamojong are fleeing to the city
   

4. People and culture

Karamoja Design wants to create an alternative to begging. By making jewellery and traditional handicrafts, we can help to change the lives of the Karamojong in the city and in the village.

By focusing on the Arts, we can increase the sense of cultural pride which has been scarred for so many years by tribal conflicts.

Simon Lokai

Simon is the creator and director of Karamoja Design. He has spent a number of years working with the Karamojong in Kakajo-zone ghetto - a mass of squalid houses near the central market in Kampala. He started 'Karamoja Design' in 2007.

Before Simon was made homeless, he was lucky enough to have received an education in Nairobe, he can speak English, Kiswahili, Karamojong and Lugandan.

"It is a passion running this business," he says, "because, I myself have spent five years living in this ghetto, I know what its like."

Aisha Nashap

Aisha is the Jewellery co-ordinator for Karamoja Design. She manages 8 to 10 women who make neclaces, ear-rings and bangles. She gives them training in using new materials and creating new designs.

A quiet girl with a resilient temperament; the back bone of the team.

Making jewellery in Karamojaland

We are working in the central region of Karamojaland, because 50% of the people who have flee to Kampala are from this area.

Lokopo, Lopay, Matany or Moroto
Sub-counties.

Read our article :
Removing the Karamojong for CHOGM

About the land

Karamojaland is a dry semi-arid savannah covering a large area of North Eastern Uganda. There is just one very short growing season per year which is often unsuccessful. Karamojaland is subject to yearly drought and famine.

"At least 40 percent of the population lacks adequate, if any food stocks."
Report WFP (World Food Program), Jan 2009.

The Conflict

For over 3 decades Karamojaland has been the scene of a bloody internal conflict. The fighting is described as an inter-ethnic conflict, whereby tribes and villages are attacking one-another over the ownership of cows and for revenging previous attacks.

To begin with the Government ignored the gun culture in Karamojaland, leaving them to defend themselves from each other and attacking tribes from Sudan and Kenya.

The Disarmament

Since 2005 the Government is making its second attempt to disarm the Karamojong using more force and more troops.

This new method, however is creating new problems. Small groups of Karamojong warriors have refused to give up their guns and are hiding out in the bush. They are raiding villages that have already been disarmed, stealing cows, killing people and taking food stocks, leaving the Karamojong who have given up their guns with nothing.

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Central Karamojaland

This area is a very poor and affected badly by both conflict and food shortages. Simple jobs like collecting fire wood from the bush have become a potentially fatal activity. Men trapping small animals for food are also subject to attack.

It is the women and children, however, which are worse hit. They do not go on cattle raids, but suffer directly when there are revenge attacks.

Due to these problems, more than half of the population from some villages (mostly women and children) have fled to Kampala, Mbale or Jinja to beg on the streets.

How do they manage to leave?

Some collect wood from the bush and sell the bundles at the market for a few hundred Ugandan Shillings, others make local booze or collect water. Little by little it is possible to save enough for the bus fare to Kampala.

In Kampala

Once in Kampala, they come face to face with a new environment, a different language, very dirty conditions and a new range of bad charactors to contend with.

The Karamojong, however, have started a new method of survive - using small children as objects for begging. This of course is not good for the children. Often the children are placed on the street alone and in the direct shine. Cases of traffick accidents and abductions are common.

See our new Documentary & Animated Film : Karamoja City Warriors - 2010

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Culture

Despite all the problems the Karamojong still manage to preserve some of their traditions, like wearing jewellery, dancing and singing, and story telling.

Jewellery

The Karamojong are well known for their colourful designs of jewellery. The beaded waist straps are the distinguishing feature of the Karamoja women. The more lengths of beads, the more respectable and desirable for marrying they become.

Parents sometimes sell off their best cows in order to buy beads for their daughters, so they can fetch a higher dowry price when married.

The people

Karamoja people are the only semi nomadic people of Uganda. Most are pastorialists, looking after livestock, although cultivation of crops like sorghum and maize are also very important.

Karamojong means "The tired old man".

It is said, the Karamojong began to migrate from Ethiopia around a 1000 years ago. Some went to Sudan to a place called Nadapal to become the Toposa; some went to Lokichokio in Kenya to become the Turkana.

From Sudan or Kenya these people then entered what is now Uganda. The ones who were tired stayed in Karamojaland, the rest of them made it to the neighbouring and much more fertile region of Teso.

Relatives of the Karamojong can be found as far away as Tanzania - the Maasai.