Our Story
Vulolu was born in November 2025 in Adjumani, a town in northwestern Uganda, thanks to Valentino, a former universal civil service worker in Rwanda, and Josephine, a resident of Adjumani and a recent sociology graduate. Together we opened a shop that initially sold traditional fabrics. But we didn't want to stop at a simple business: we wanted to understand how to involve the local community, aware of the difficulties that Adjumani faces, especially due to the high influx of refugees from neighboring South Sudan.
Through the mediation of some NGOs, we found local cooperatives that believe in our idea. From young refugees who make earrings from plastic bottles, to the cooperative of disabled young people who make handcrafted sandals, to the village tailors: every partnership has enriched our assortment and defined our mission.
From October 2026, Vulolu officially arrived in Italy, bringing the colors of African fabrics and the artisanal products of local communities to Europe. But this is just the beginning!
Our Vision
Vulolu is a Ma'di word, the language spoken in Adjumani, and it means "long distances". It is perfect to describe our journey: to come to Italy, our products had to cross Kenya, India, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, all the way to the port of Genoa. But Vulolu means much more than this: those long distances represent the barriers that those who live in Africa face every day, where trade and mobility are more complex and limited than elsewhere.
Our vision is an interconnected world, but in an equitable way; a world, therefore, where there are no relationships of superiority or disparity, but agreements that bring benefits to everyone in a similar way.
Many of the organizations we collaborate with come from international cooperation projects born as training paths; however, once concluded, what results from them struggles to find space in the market. This is where Vulolu comes in: our role is to offer disadvantaged organizations the space to strengthen themselves. For this reason, we select certain organizations, and try to help them grow, bringing their products beyond their borders, to the most important fairs. It is not charity; we treat every partner as an equal entity and apply high quality standards. We believe that the true impact is born only when those organizations really work as they were conceived.