This is no longer a challenge. We are calling for a culture.

 

Do you know the number of times the Apostle Paul wrote the phrase "one-another" in his letters? They are numerous! Paul knew the nature of Christ's body, the Church, it was not a one man job. Her life came from One - the Head, Christ but it was shared among the members.

Rom 12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.

Blogging is not one of the internet crazes of Ugandans right now. I dare say, it is easier for us to get onto a trend on Twitter because let's admit, 140 characters do not need a lot of attention unless of course you're a Social Media marketer who knows the importance of brevity. Or you just love the attention and yes many of us do.

The way the Blogging Challenge started was something out of a book in the Bible. No prior planning, no market analysis, nothing. It was something that sprung out of life. It was a "Rise up and walk" kind of thing! A few of the bloggers had lamented the decline of the blogging culture and had for so long moaned about how we needed to blog again. It never happened. There was a pocket of Ugandan bloggers blogging but the community had died.

However this time, during a Sunday Twitter conversation, a Challenge was suggested and we had Ugandans blogging!

From the old bloggers I used to read, I probably only saw 5 of them participating. The other 70 were totally new. And a great deal of the writing was brilliant. We had people questioning customs, politics, themselves, religion; writing creatively on travel, relationships and feminist issues; goodness, there was a lot to chew cud on.

I realised as I read that there are many of us willing to contribute to this pool of Ugandan blogging. Many are willing to be part of the community.

This is no longer a challenge. We are calling for a culture. A culture of Ugandan-ness in her different forms. A culture where we do not merely get on TweetDeck in the morning and simply share stories from The Verge, Time, Telegraph or BBC. Yes we are in a global world but aren't we fading into the crowd?

Where are the stories from Entebbe? Arua? Kabarole? Jinja? Kampala? Is our source of content meant to be only Ugandan press? Tabloids? What about the introspection, the soliloquies? Are we ever going to look outside?

We are looking forward to great Ugandan writing being exposed through this culture. The 7 Days are over, kudos to all who managed posting on all the 7 Days but let us not stop. It doesn't need to be daily, but as long as we are blogging and reading each other, not forgetting commenting on each other's work, I dare say we could be starting something powerful.

Who's with us? 

If you have any ideas on how we can improve on our blogging, please send me an email. nevender@gmail.com. Otherwise, the people over at Dignited are curating Ugandan blogs. If you haven't submitted your blog yet, do so using this link.

Thanks to everyone who got onto this challenge. Even the photobloggers! Stunning imagery. 

Cheers. Happy New Week!