Issue (WIWE) status: Submitted, Unpublished

Weak Signal's progress: Fully-fledged

This Weak Signal came from: 
European Commission Framework Programme for RTD

The theme/scheme related to this Weak Signal: 
Theme 8 - Socio-economic Sciences and the Humanities

The sub-theme that best relates to this Weak Signal: 
Blue Sky Research on emerging issues and other research economies

When did the Weak Signal manifest ? 
before 2000

Weak Signal's description: 

The Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme is a non-profit organization that provides education and training for rural development in the very poor and diverse Kibaale District of Uganda. URDTP is seen as a benchmark project for successful social innovation. The starting point for the project was a three-day vision co-design workshop with community members in 1987, defining individual and collective visions and discussing how they could become reality. Today the rural village has become a "boom town," growing tenfold in size. It has a girls´ school, a vocational training institute, a community radio station, a microcredit fund and village extension programmes.
What is distinctive about the URDTP educational programs is that everyone learns the creative process--how to create a vision, contrast it with your current reality and take action to achieve your vision (in short, how to innovate!). This creative orientation is amplified through the students with “back home” projects with their families (building latrines, raising new crops, building new homes). Additionally all students learn both traditional subjects as well as practical subjects (solar energy, biogas production, charcoal cooling, construction, entrepreneurship etc.)