You are yet to find out how people, who had no hope, have restored hope in many families and lives, how they are creating a positive livelihood and making an alternative in ensuring social and economic wellbeing.
My name is Isreal Katembo and I was born 1985. I was among thousands of refugees who were forced to leave the Democratic Republic of Congo for Uganda at teenage age in 1992. Up to date most refugees are fleeing violence emerging from ethnic-political conflicts between the government and different militia groups and foreign armed groups active largely in Kivu and parts of Ituri province.
When I reached Kyaka II refugee settlement in 1993, I could not smile because I had lost most of my friends in childhood during war in Beni, North Kivu. I witnessed deaths of other refugees and asylum seekers dying of hunger and diseases due to limited proper medical and humanitarian intervention.
Kyaka II is home for a diverse community including refugees and host community. The relationship has always been positive because refugees and host communities share natural resources like land, water, social services namely schools and health services. Yet, while attending school in the camp, classes were overcrowded with more than 200 pupils. Life was complicated without hope and clear vision for each child. And it was during this time, when I started realizing that the community members can play a role in their life that can change things.
Initiating Changes in the Humanitarian Response
Although humanitarian and development agencies are realizing some interventions, gaps remain because the people are not involved in the planning and implementation process. However, even when community members are involved, gaps in communication can persist due to language barrier, conflict of interest of top to bottom planning procedures and bureaucratic process.
While at Bukere primary school in 2005, I was elected the head prefect by fellow students and subsequently head prefect at the secondary school and the college. I had learnt that a leader is elected by all community members. However, this practice is not the same in semi-leadership structure for refugees in Kyaka II. Even though the activity of election is put in place, only individuals in the interest of those in power to support refugees are the ones who are allowed to participate in leadership because in my experience the nomination and electoral committee is made available by aid agencies only. Moreover, after college, I had realized that most people in the camp are not informed of their rights and children were dropping out from school on a large scale.
Children’s Support
Together with others, I wanted to help and improve things. To this end, I mobilized three friends, Ntakiruti James, Baraka Benedict and Ishimwe Vannesa, in 2013 to start up an early childhood development centre. Our Youth Initiative for Development in Africa (YIDA) is still operating and ranks the best in providing education to refugee and host communities around Kyaka II.
I further mobilized fellow youth whom I attended school with to form a community-based organization to provide interpretation and translation services to communities. As a result, we created Kyaka Interpreters, Translators Association for Development (KITAD), with the aim of sensitizing communities and disseminating information about rights to new and old refugees, where to access different service providers, how and when to report any bleach of rights and laws. Although our group is now successful installed we had a difficult start: The group was tagged being subversive with the government, most members were threatened to be arrested and removed from the list of casual labourer’s in the camp, most members feared. Yet, KITAD now has 128 members and is registered as a community-based organization at the sub-county and Kyegegwa district.
Since members are in different villages, they provide paralegal services, following cases of domestic violence and report them to aid agencies in Kyaka II for further management. To a small extent, communities now have started demanding their rights every time they notice that their fundamental rights are being bleached. Not only that, it is very unfortunate that most systems and policies in Government and non-government structures at different levels do not consider or favour youth. Youth pass through hard time to legalise their own initiatives and has less engagement in decision making that concerns them even at regional and national level. Still many institutions do not appreciate and trust youth efforts being at the forefront in developing communities through resilience and commitment. Even when youth show their capacities and abilities for proper accountabilities, institutions do not trust that youth can be trusted and invest in their ideals. In the due course, a lot of resources are put into less use and many youth are left jobless and unlawful behaviour increase, the situation worsen as the pandemic hit underserved communities remained vulnerable.
Vocational Training and Business Development
Vocational skills trainings are last resort when formal education is not an option. Together with a number of outgoing school youth, I initiated a vocational skills training centre under the tree in Kyaka II. It is especially for youth who are not in the position to continue in the formal education system in Uganda (e.g., due to lack of school fees or food, or due to child-headed families, far distances to secondary schools, and diseases).
A focus is also put on women who often do not ordinarily qualify for financial support from aid organisations to start up a business and are rarely able to communicate in English, causing an overwhelming number of young women in Kyaka II to be unemployed. In addition to protection, youth therefore consistently demand programs with tangible skills to improve their livelihood potentials, and our training centre seeks to increase capacity to find jobs, make job creators or self-employment, thus promoting self-reliance.
In connection with KITAD, it is operating Themboe Mult Action wood and Metal works limited focusing on economic empowerment of youth through vocational training, skill development and encourage positive mind-set change. With limited resources, to date, we trained 140 youths in carpentry and joinery with business management skills, and essentially create hope among families.
After the training, the trainees are establishing micro enterprise to enhance their employability as well as their livelihood security.
Networking and Collective Actions for Entrepreneurship
I and Festo mobilised all emerging organised groups in different zones in Kyaka II, and on 2nd February 2022, Kyaka II Refugee Led Organisation Network (KRLON was found. The network is uniting more than 524 refugee led organisations (RLOs), community based organisations (CBOs) and groups of Kyaka II refugee settlement and host communities. KRLON is now composed of 90 CBO members and 434 groups. We focus on strengthening the coordination, acting as a collective voice for policy influence, promoting partnerships and build capacities of local organizations to be effective first and post recovery responders to humanitarians’ responses in Kyaka II. RLOs and CBOs are well positioned to address the needs of their communities. I learnt that “the only boxes that last are the one that we create by ourselves.“ RLOs and CBOs have local knowledge, strong relationships, they are flexible in implementation and cost effective in their operations allowing them to maximize impact of available resources. Thus being innovative, filling gaps and creating safe space for communities, self-capacity building first to better capacitate groups.
However many RLOs and CBOs lack adequate capacity in line with skills, knowledge and systems necessary to support themselves effectively, manage their operations, deliver programs and measure their impact as requested by aid actors. Most RLOs and CBOs have limited access to resources, they often struggle to secure stable and sufficient funding to support operations, most of which find it challenging to find technical personnel to handle required actionable activities thus making it difficult to deliver programmes effectively. RLOs and CBOs lack visibilities and recognitions, they struggle to create awareness of their work and fail to secure support from key stakeholders including government, development actors and local communities.
I have been seeing these issues for many years and aim to improve these conditions. For regional development, Early February 2023, I championed an online entrepreneurship business curative programme connecting five refugee settlements in western Uganda namely; Kyaka II, Rwamwanja, Oruchinga, Nakivale and Kyangwali. It focuses on identifying entrepreneurs and train them on best practices on how to start and grow business in refugee setting. A team development session was conducted and business mentors were identified, those with entrepreneurial DNA or mind-set to participate in online mentorship sessions which are conducted twice a month and mentors replicate information to business builders in their respective settlements and communities.
I see Kyaka II being a centre for learning in the long run because refugees has joined efforts to better communities. We reinforce that start up do not need funding, they need revenues because the more revenues the business makes the more fundable they become. We have 625 business start-ups from refuges and host communities in five refugee settlements respectively that we are mentoring, I with my Team.
Further Needs
With our initiatives we are supporting younger refugees especially thrive. In KITAD we focus on sharing important information with others. In our vocational skills training centre, we provide access to education, trainings and community services, and help people to gain skills and improve conditions in the community in Kyaka II and beyond. Moreover, in our new online entrepreneurship business curative programme, we share best practices and help refugees improve their businesses and work in RLOs and CBOs. However, our initiatives can only be seen as a starting point because during everyday life in Kyaka II, we continue to experience issues.