In 2006 Barefoot Workshops launched A RIVER BLUE, an arts empowerment project for the children of internally-displaced persons camps in Northern Uganda. Singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur was invited to help launch the project where one hundred young people were brought together to participate in a music, drama, and art festival. The festival was hugely successful which prompted Barefoot Workshops to continue supporting the community through A River Blue.

Twenty youth are now sponsored through A River Blue Vocational Training Center which offers a hybrid curriculum that mixes tailoring, agriculture, English and business. Students rotate between classes, giving them a variety of skills that offers more opportunity and a chance to support themselves and build back their community. An additional thirty-one youth are sponsored by A River Blue through a variety of outside programs including secondary school, catering/hotel management, and various other vocational training programs.