Breakdance Project Uganda (BPU) is a non-profit, voluntary organization founded in February 2006 to empower young people by bringing them together through hip-hop and promoting positive social change.
bpu offers tree breakdancing lessons twice a week at the Sharing Youth Center, Nsambya and encourages people to pass on their skills and take on leadership roles within their communities. The Project centered on the belief that everyone can learn and that everyone can 1 and has the capacity to be a positive role model to others.
Mission:To engage young people, using elements of hip hop culture to provide leadership skills and promote social responsibility.
Goals:
- bridging the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged and bringing people of different religious, tribal and social background together;
- promoting positive social responsibility;
- building peoples' leadership skills and self esteem;
- increasing access to formal and informal education;
- generating employment opportunities through private teaching and performances;
- connecting local and international artists.
Over the past three years bpu has partnered with local and international organizations - including Oxfam, ms Uganda. usaid/Nuiti Break-point (Denmark), Danish Center for Cultural Development h.e.a.l.s (Gulu), Global Youth Partnership for Africa, Brave Kids Project (Poland), Uganda FDNC,AGYa. Music Mayday (The Netherlands) - and carried our activities in orphanages, juvenile prisons, local and international schools plus youth and community centers; North-Fast and Southern Uganda.
In May 2009, Breakdance Project Uganda officially launched a branch in Gulu, Northern Uganda, partnering with Straight Talk foundation at Gulu Youth Center to provide an opportunity for youth in the North to become bpu members and access regular, free break dancing lessons, formal and informal education opportunities plus other project activities that promote positive social change.
Through break-dance workshops and educational performances across Uganda and in Europe, the Project has reached a wide range of young people and provides an equal platform for people to build mutually beneficial relationships regardless of background or status. Project members can also benefit from diect and indirect employment opportunities through paid performances and teaching.
BPU supports formal and non-formal education opportunities by advocating the importance of education and partnering with organizations to increase members' access to educational services such as multimedia skills, visual arts training, peer mentoring, voluntary counseling and resting. Through the sale of BPU hand printed t-shirts, the Project also sponsors school tees for disadvantaged members.
Breakdance Project Uganda was born from a dream of one man. who wanted a better life for Ugandan children. Abraham Abramz Tekya (1982) was orphaned by the Hiv/aids pandemic. That is why he knows what is to live on the dregs of society. In the trailer of Bouncing Cats the question is asked: Could a dream of one man heal the wounds of the whole nation?