The story
A vocational center rooted between farms, markets, and health work.
KIHEFO’s proposed vocational center sits in Uganda’s Kabale District among an onion market, banana farms, a village, and the organization’s established health programs. Courtney Wedel’s thesis connects that context to workforce training: classrooms and workshops support practical skill, while site planning and landscape tie the center to local production rather than isolate it as a formal campus. Research into climate, flora, available materials, and precedents such as Butaro Hospital informed a structure intended to be durable, naturally comfortable, and understandable to local builders.
Reliable groundwater and nearby electrical service become starting conditions for a program that can expand KIHEFO’s integrated work against disease, poverty, and limited educational access. Vocational education works best when it remains close to the systems students will enter: agriculture, health, local enterprise, and the everyday economy of Kabale.
