"Addressing One’s Self" is a multi-year project structured to change my normal path of research/creation—which is to produce work and then transition components of the work for use in community/outreach purposes. Instead, I am inversing the path by first actualizing a workshop within a specific community and using the experiential knowledge to develop my process, objectives, and production.This initiative also aims to help solidify a fledgling partnership with an orphanage in Uganda—an unfamiliar geography, culture, community, and environment where I will learn as much as I will teach.I traveled to Uganda for the first time in 2011, where I met the directors of St. Jude Children’s Home in Gulu. We proposed and negotiated the redesign of their website, newsletter, and logo, which was then developed by a Concordia design student under my guidance. Through the website project, I began a series of sewing workshops.The workshops aim to address one’s self/identity through the making of garments and sewing skills training. I apply my design skills to teach the women working at St. Jude to make clothing for themselves and for the babies under their care.Dressing the self or one’s self implies clothing one person at a time, created by the hand of that individual. Ad.dressing suggests a re.turn to the development of self, which in post-conflict regions is often disrupted. The goal is to re.claim technical skills lost or never acquired due to years of displacement and separation from family and community.The caregivers at St. Jude Children’s Home are known as "the mothers"—whether the children in their care are their own or orphaned. The mothers are quite young, often have medical needs, are poor and unskilled, with no financial support or time to create non-essential products or build community amongst themselves.