Staff
ARUA, UGANDA — One of the most powerful moments at the Heart to Harvest lecture in Arua came not from theory, but from lived experience, as leaders who were orphaned at a young age teamed up to demonstrate that background does not determine destiny.
Dr. Okello Sharon Nagenjwa and entrepreneur Sedrick Otolo, both orphaned as toddlers, stood before over 1,000 young people to offer living proof that it is possible to rise from loss to leadership through discipline, mindset, and purposeful action.
Otolo, founder of Kakebe and a partner in the Heart to Harvest initiative, openly acknowledged Dr. Okello as his mentor. He described her as someone who consistently challenges him to “sow higher,” noting that he was honored to be included in what he called a noble cause. “I have never seen someone as passionate about making a difference like Sharon,” Otolo said. “She will give her last coin to help someone and remain with nothing, knowing she still has a head that will bring money back.”
Otolo shared his own journey, including writing a book to pay school fees—an act he described as turning hardship into enterprise. His testimony reinforced the programme’s central message: that value can be created even in the absence of capital.
Dr. Okello complemented this by sharing her personal story of becoming an orphan early in life. She recounted how, at just five years old, she sang in church and, barely two weeks after her father’s death, earned an opportunity that paid her school fees. She described this as the first time she “made money without money”—a principle she later recognized as a simple but powerful economic truth reflected in Musevenomics.
Together, their stories reframed orphanhood not as a limitation, but as a starting point for resilience, creativity, and economic agency. The session deeply resonated with participants, many of whom described it as the first time they had seen people “who look like us” standing as evidence of what is possible.
