Ukukakulwa: When Kindness Sets Us Free

What does it mean to be free?

For Professor Kasonde Musoma, the answer begins with a single word from his Bemba heritage: Ukukakulwa. To be free. Not freedom as a destination, but as a daily practice grown through courage, honesty, and the fierce, transformative power of kindness.

Born in Zambia and shaped by the wisdom of ChampaLesa village, Kasonde was also educated in European-run institutions that taught him to trade his name, his language, and his cultural inheritance for colonial acceptance. His journey from Kasonde to Henry and back again is the story of millions who have been asked to subtract themselves in order to belong.

Through stories of students, grandmothers, fences built on Saturdays, and a six-second video that moved the world, Ukukakulwa makes a bold argument: kindness is not a soft virtue. It is the most powerful currency we possess. And it compounds in ways no spreadsheet can ever capture.

You can count the seeds in an orange. You cannot count the oranges in a seed.