On May 22, 2025, children from the Orphans of Uganda Children’s Center, an orphanage in eastern Uganda that’s part of the Bitcoin Kampala community, took a road trip to the zoo thanks in part to bitcoin donations from around the world.
The team that helps fund and run the the orphanage chose to take the trip on Bitcoin Pizza Day to show the orphans, many of whom had never left the village in which the orphanage is located, that anything is possible, much like Laszlo Hanyecz showed the world that paying for goods and services in bitcoin is possible when he paid 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas on May 22, 2010.
“We organized this trip to give the children hope and to open their minds to what’s possible,” Brindon Mwiine, founder of Bitcoin Kampala, told Bitcoin Magazine.
“Last year, we started teaching them to write down their dreams in notebooks we gave them, and when we asked what they wished for at Christmas, their answers were simple: visit the capital, see animals, and travel,” he added.
“Bitcoin Pizza Day at the Entebbe Zoo became the perfect way to bring those dreams to life while teaching them about Bitcoin.”
A Bitcoin-enabled ‘Day of Firsts’ in Uganda
Mwiine also noted that this was the first time the children had taken an extended bus ride, crossed the Nile, traveled through the capital city of Kampala, explored a zoo — and tasted pizza.
“It was a day of firsts,” said Mwiine, who added that it was all the more special because he, the support staff and the children “experienced it all together as a family.”
Edith Mpumwire, a member of Blink Wallet’s marketing team and someone who works with the Bitcoin Kampala team, seconded what Mwiine said.
“This trip is the first of its kind [for these children],” said Mpumwire in the video embedded in the X post above.
“Most of these children are from eastern Uganda [and] they stay in a small house located in Bugiri. They have never left Bugiri, so, for them, today is the first day to not only visit the zoo, but to leave their enclosure,” she added.
Mpumwire also noted how the international Bitcoin community is partially to thank for enabling the orphans to take this trip.
“The global [Bitcoin] community contributes to their livelihood [and] here we are taking them on a road trip [where] they get to see a mini national park, Lake Victoria and very many animals.”
You can contribute to the Orphans of Uganda Children’s Center via the project’s Geyser page.
