Umoja is a GUI project which aims to create awareness about a successful contemporary matriarchal society; Umoja. 

It was created to act as an agent of encouragement and solidarity between women. A creative storytelling piece that could be shared so that women across the globe could see how others had collaborated and built safe spaces together, particularly in domestically fragile environments.

Umoja was chosen as the main focus of the story because unlike other matriarchal societies, it was not built on cultural practices from hundreds of years ago, but rather to defy current cultural prejudices towards child marriages, genital mutation and rape in the Samburu region of Kenya. 

The GUI, uses a bird created on Origami that travels from scene to scene as the user drags it. The bird (a resident of Umoja) escorts the user into Umoja, as each scene progresses, a women begins her story through sound, visuals, text and interactions with the user. 

This project was extremely helpful in understanding how modern matriarchal communities are built on real needs that exists globally. It was interesting to be able to explore how creating an interactive story telling tool could help place the user in the shoes of the story teller, thus encouraging empathy and positive action.