Feature: Kaweesi empowers Ugandan youth through breakdance

The 33-year-old breakdance enthusiast has scaled the heights, displaying and teaching youth in different parts of Uganda exhilarating breakdance moves.

Kaweesi is today the brains behind Imagination Circle Limited, a social enterprise that seeks to discover talented youth and help them grow by assisting them to realise their potential and learn how to use their strengths and talents.

He is also behind Breakfast-Jam Fest, a Ugandan-sourced, unique, and powerful annual festival of breakdance, hip-hop, creativity, arts, and urban culture.

Kaweesi has used his breakdance skills to empower youth from all walks of life, thus creating impact in a country whose unemployment levels have consistently remained high in the last decade.

Starting out

Despite having a special interest in playing football as a child, Kaweesi says he did not get a chance to play for quite a number of reasons, among which were easily corruptible football coaches.

"I wanted to be a football player. That was my passion. But when I was growing up, I faced a lot of hardships. My parents died when I was just a child. So, I was living in a slum called Kiyembe, Kansanga. I dropped out of school when I was in secondary school because of lack of money. I also didn’t have a permanent place to live. I would sleep at friends’ places sometimes," he says.

He adds, "I believed in soccer and would find time to do some training. Our coach was a good person but didn’t earn a living from coaching football, so, some of my young friends who had parents would influence their parents to give him some money to play instead of me. Because of corruption, I rarely got a chance to play football. This really frustrated me."

Kaweesi found solace in breakdance when a friend of his called Kibuuka Mukisa encouraged him to join a programme called Breakdance Project Uganda at Sharing Youth Centre Nsambya.

Despite having second thoughts about joining the breakdance project, he says his perception of the project changed when he realised that it was a place where so many people were training, sharing skills, and learning many things about the dance at no cost at all. This inspired him to continue with breakdance training because he realised he also had something to offer.

"The model was that everyone is a teacher and a student. So, you come today and learn a few things, and then someone else comes tomorrow, and you teach them what you learned as you continue learning. This concept really inspired me," he says.

Using breakdance as a tool for change

Kaweesi says breakdance has given him the opportunity to learn how to share his skills by teaching those interested, most especially the youth.

"Breakdance gave me a different perspective on life because it helped me realise that I had something unique within me. When I was playing football, I was more reliant on the team, unlike here, where I am able to develop the skill alone. All I need is a speaker and maybe an open space for me to practise," he says.

He has trained over 1000 youth in breakdance skills in different parts of Uganda, such as Lira, Mbale, Gulu, and Luweero, among others.

To achieve this, Kaweesi partnered with two of his colleagues he met at Breakfast Project Uganda to start an event called Breakdance Jam in 2011. This is a platform he says was created for people interested in breakdance to be able to share, compete, and learn from each other. Kaweesi believes it has been able to empower the youth since they are able to earn from the skills.

The breakdance enthusiast also says he started teaching breakdance skills in schools, which later led him to start Imagination Circle Limited upon realising that there were other breakdance teachers out there he could empower to teach the skill as they earned a living.

His plans for the future

"I want to make Breakfast Jam a regional competition that attracts people from across the region. I want to train more teachers to be able to train more youth and also spread the dance in schools," he says.

He adds, "I want to focus a lot more on judging in the near future. I hope to gain more training in this area and also put up several training programmes."