Based on my volunteer experience working with street children in Uganda I wrote and designed the book “Hi Muzungu”. This is a slang word for white person in Uganda. It explores the issues underlying their lives. Lost innocence is the central theme. The cover design hints at something being lost, as the child’s identity is blacked out. I used images of ephemera of rubbish from the streets to mirror how the children are treated like rubbish to be discarded.

The core of the design is hiding a book within a book within a box. The box surrounds the cover exposing the binding, the book has to be slowly “undressed” and “exposed” mirroring the children’s lives. The power of the little book is its juxtaposition of children’s drawings alongside quotations revealing the brutal realities of their lives.