“Our main goal is to better understand the real reasons behind civil bloodshed in refugees’ countries of origin, and to make this information accessible to them; promoting peace by explaining that the real enemy is not their neighbor, but rather the economic systems that use and abuse them.”

An article by Dr. Noga Shanee, in Glocal Magazin, looking at the connections between the social and environmental roots of the current African refugee crisis.

Click here to download the full version (pages 6-8).

We continue our program of teaching women refugees about common disease prevention. Today, Dr. Hortensia Toledo gave a talk about malaria to a group of thirty Congolese women in Ndejje, kampala.

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This week we completed our third Grant Proposal Writing workshop for small Human rights and environmental NGOs in Uganda. We believe that the solution to Africa’s problem is not aid or charity and will not come from outside! There are thousands of local activists who offer effective, realistic solutions, based on their intimate understanding of the local problems. But these initiatives are often blocked by a discriminative funding system which is evidently biased towards top-down, western led, costly projects.

We are committed to help small grassroots organizations to achieve their goals and bring real change to African people and nature.

Thank you very much to all collaborators and participants and we hope this workshop will help you achieve your important goals.

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The Azande community of South Sudan was the first refugee community to welcome us when we arrived in Uganda exactly a year ago. They were kind and encouraging and where very active in conserving their rich culture, as well as learning new skills to achieve a better life in their current state as refugees in Uganda.
Although we have not visited this community for a few months, they kept progressing, and last week they invited us to see their work. We were extremely happy to see how far they advanced and are happy to get back to working with them and developing many new projects together.

Thank you very much to Monique Petiot who was with us for the last four months teaching English to the group of Congolese children in Ndejje. These children have no parents and the church group who cares for them can not afford to send them to School. Monique gave was putting a lot of effort in making their learning experience as exiting as possible and the children love her.

The best news is that Monique has promised to come back in a few months for a longer period to teach the same group. Also, for the time of her absence, Carol Nava, a local teacher, will keep teaching the children.

So we wish Monique good time back in Europe and we hope to see her back here soon.

Kandaakiat for women Empowerment is a wonderful women, refugees led organization we have been collaborating with since we started our work here in Uganda. They have many productive projects including liquid soap making, beaded bags and sawing. This week we taught some of the women and girls some jewelry beading techniques.