Uganda is the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, with over a million refugees, most of them from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Eritrea and Somalia. Influx of refugees into the country is mainly attributed to civil wars that have been experienced in these neighboring countries. We focus on Imvepi refugee settlement camp in the Northwestern part of

Imvepi, which is one of the newest refugee settlement that was formed in 2017 and basically it’s still more of a village which predominantly relies on agriculture as an economic activity because of the interventions of development partners that has encouraged refugees to engage in agriculture rather than relying on relief, but still it needs more emphasis from the government ,the civil society and other development partners.

In line with this, OAF is planning to enroll value addition programs for crops like cassava and sweet potatoes  for the refuges practicing agriculture. Imvepi  accommodates a proximately 57,748 refugees  mostly from  south Sudanese with 85% being women and children, 3% elderly, 21% youths and women alone constituting  53%, making them the majority at Imvepi, with the  outbreak of the COVID-19  pandemic  early march this year and the subsequent  lock down measures imposed by the government which led to loss of livelihoods, difficulties in access to health care, low living standards and welfare , closure of schools and its associated negative impacts.

Outcast Activists Forum as an organization that stands for the voiceless in this case for the already marginalized group has come up with a project dubbed “Juzza Lorry campaign’’

‘Juzza’ is a Luganda word meaning ‘Fill Up’. The campaign focuses on engaging relevant development partners, corporate companies, volunteers, and general public on how we can support these refugees  that are already facing twice the hardships that we are facing ,we shouldn’t forget that these refugees were forced out of their countries involuntarily, as OAF would want to address this by collecting  basic needs such as used clothes, food stuff ,soap, sugar and others and also explore key learning points for future intervention and what can be collectively achieved  for the refugee community at Imvepi refugee settlement for sustainable programs.

Why Juzza Campaign?

The campaign aims to meet the basic needs of the refugee community at Imvepi Refugee Settlement through collection of basic needs from the general public focusing on individual household forms of assistance and engagement with other development partners and corporate companies in addressing other needs based on non-cash sector interventions such as access to service and infrastructural interventions. Since it has been a very harsh year for every individual, we want to use this campaign to reach out to these refugees at Imvepi refugee settlement especially during the festive Season of Giving this December.

The campaign will also focus on further identification of persisting bottlenecks and up to date practices related to more integration with our partners, government, and other donor community to achieve sustainable programs.

Two expected specific objectives towards the campaign:

• Understand and identify the impacts, challenges of COVID 19 pandemic to the refugee community of Imvepi and come up with a more sustainable solution to these challenges using integrated community-based programs with government and other donor community.
• Identify inclusive areas and approaches towards the refugee community resilience linking the grass root level with the nationals, regional and global initiatives.

The event intentionally focuses on several activities below:

• Refugee Community of Imvepi mobilization and inclusive approach (people with disability; women; children etc.)
• Provision of healthcare services such as contraceptives, HIV testing and counseling, blood donation drive.
• Advocacy; Awareness; and Accountability
• Provision of sanitary pads to the girl child.
• Counseling on drug abuse and gambling.
• Music, art, performance for the refugee community

 This campaign is expected to run from November to December 26^th December (Boxing Day), to be specifically the day of un-boxing the campaign and implementing it.

Expectations

With the above statistics attained from the government of Uganda and UNHCR, OAF_Ug would want to attain the following results for the refugees at Imvepi most importantly that comprises largely women and the youthful generation.

• OAF_Ug will Provide basic needs like food, clean water, clothes, and other household items to the selected groups with our focus on the women, children, and the youths at Imvepi refugee settlement.
• We going to encourage more girl child to stay in school and as well as increase enrollment of the girl child to higher education through provision of sanitary pads that always helps to keep the girl child in school.
• Reduce early child pregnancy, early marriages that jeopardizes the girl child education by giving career guidance and keeping the girl child in school to empower the girl child.
• Improvement of the health standards of the people of Imvepi settlement mostly exposure to HIV, through provision of contraceptives, carrying out HIV testing and counselling.
• With our great partners AMARIATEK LIFE COACHING, we want to better the lives of the youths at Imvepi refugee settlement that have indulged themselves in promiscuous activities, drug abuse and gambling by giving them life coaching services.
• Imvepi has a future prospect of economic activities that will take place, with the ‘Juzza Lorry’ campaign, we want to train the people with financial literacy to help them manage their finances and businesses that will help them to sustain themselves financially when the time come and for those who are already actively involved in business .

Through the blood donation drive that will be taking on the 26th the day of event we want to increase the blood bank that will further help in saving lives.

Running the Campaign

The ‘Juzza Lorry’ campaign greatly involves the general public where we want to source the basic needs for the   refuges at Imvepi settlement, this will further be executed with other development partners with their various services that they can deliver and corporate companies. Therefore, we need the following activities that will be streamlined to achieve our goals of delivering to the people of Imvepi Camp.

• Meet the leadership of Terego East district where Imvepi refugee settlement is located, and also meet the leadership of this refugee settlement so as to exhaust others issues at hand, we as well want to meet up with other development partners already well-structured at Imvepi refuge settlement to help channel down the assistance we want to come up with.
• Media campaign through radio stations, talk shows, and televisions both in Kampala and the West Nile region, but most importantly engaging with Ugandan media center.
• Setting up collection points around Kampala Metropolitan City (Supermarkets, Hospitals, Churches & Petrol stations) where we can collect these basic needs from willing individuals.
• Moving around communities to preach the campaign by our community activist and other registered volunteers with identification.
• Distribution of fliers with dates and location for the different points of collection.
• Our team comprises of a logistic team that will help in collection, transportation, and storage of this basic needs before they are handed to the refugee settlement at Imvepi.

Utilize Media Personalities, Celebrities & Public figures to endorse the Media Campaign with the theme: #ShareTogethernessthisXmas.