Refugees in Kampala form association

REFUGEES 

KAMPALA - Over 200,000 refugees living in Kampala on Saturday unveiled an organization among others, to address their social and economic needs.

African Peace and Rehabilitation Centre Uganda (APARC) will ensure that the refugees are equipped with financial management and entrepreneurship skills.

Uganda currently hosts over one million refugees, the majority from South Sudan.

The refugees face a number of challenges related to communication, food, health, sexual abuse and lack of necessary skills to enable them to secure a living.

It is on this note that Trust Finance Bank has offered support to their new organization to help the refugees in financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills.

Uganda's refugee policy has been lauded globally where refugees, among others, are allocated plots of land to engage in farming.

The executive director of APARC, Marina Manoka said they were soliciting for more support from the donors to support their cause.

This coincided with celebrations to mark the mothers and children of refugees day held at Katwe primary school in Kampala on Saturday.

Manoka said they have made a budget project of sh555m to build a refugee training centre.

"For a long time, refugees are faced with difficulties to secure support to start up their own business but they depend on refugee funding and also lacked training in entrepreneurship skills," Manoka said.

She added that with the formation of the organization, they would be able to get support from donors to empower them with entrepreneurship skills.

She pointed out that as refugees, they would enjoy life like other people in the country no matter where they are living. She said they want to reduce the stress they go through due to lack of jobs.

 "We plan to build a centre around the City that will welcome all those seeking to be empowered with skills to earn them a living. This will not only be for refugees but all people," she said.

Corneil Nkanga, one of the youth said that they have developed a band and have produced a number of songs that need to be marketed but lack sponsor. Nkanga said that once they get a centre,  it would be used to train more youth in entrepreneurship skills.

The relationship supervisor of Finance Trust bank Rita Bazabyabwe said the bank focuses on the youth who make up the bigger number of refugees.

Bazabyabwe said the youth would be trained in financial literacy.