Charity puts refugees in a class of their own
▶ The African nation has been generous in accepting so many fleeing war, but there’s only so much food and water to share. Still there’s hope, as Roberta Pennington found during a Dubai Cares tour of Ugandan schools
It’s not just a problem, water is a crisis in this area. Children go without food completely JESSICA ILOMU Plan International Uganda’s programme manager for education
Even before the celebration over new classrooms to be built by Dubai Cares was over, the stresses of life inside the Ayilo II refugee settlement in Adjumani, Uganda, quickly emerged.
“You can see in our school there is no proper water source,” said Cici Martin Wahi, 38, a South Sudanese teacher at Liberty Primary School, where the three new classrooms are being built in northern Uganda. “There is no water. This is the major problem that we are facing.”
Mr Wahi is among the 2,006,259 refugees who have fled South Sudan since 2013 to escape the brutal conflict that erupted between the country’s two largest ethnic groups.
About half of them have sought safety in neighbouring Uganda, with most settling in Yumbe and Adjumani, in what aid agencies call Africa’s biggest human migration since the Rwandan genocide and the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world.
In a year, the Bidi Bidi compound in Yumbe has grown to 284,927 refugees, becoming the largest settlement in the world, the UN’s refugee agency said. Adjumani district, supporting 233,654 refugees, is close behind.
“Uganda has a very generous refugee policy,” said Greg Lavender, head of programmes for Plan International Uganda. “It is known throughout the world for its progressive and welcoming refugee policy.”
The government gives families who cross into Uganda a small plot of arable land, while international aid agencies provide basic materials to help them to set up shelters and live and farm on the property.
The government’s open-door policy also grants refugees freedom of movement, and the right to work, set up businesses and access public services such as education and health, the UN’s agency has said.
“We treat the refugees from South Sudan and other parts of Africa as our own brothers and sisters,” said Oyaa Nahori Auwa, district commissioner for the Adjumani district.
But as the number of refugees to Uganda surged after fighting in South Sudan last year – about 1,800, mostly women and children – crossed the border each day, the local economy came under increased pressure, Mr Auwa said.
Dubai Cares has responded to the crisis by funding “emergency education intervention” in northern Uganda.
It donated more than US$1.1 million (Dh4.1m) towards three new brick classrooms each in six primary schools – three in Adjumani and three in Yumbe – to accommodate 15,000 children. Building began in July and is expected to be completed in February.
The project, which is being run in partnership with Plan International Uganda, also ensures the schools have toilets, changing rooms and showers for girls, chairs and tables, books, pens and maths sets for pupils, and teaching materials and training for the mostly South Sudanese teachers. “If governments prioritise education in any crisis, then the problem will get solved easily,” Dubai Cares chief executive Tariq Al Gurg said. “What will happen to those children if they don’t get education? They will become people who are uneducated, frustrated, a time bomb. They become a bait to terrorists.”
Last month Mr Al Gurg and his staff visited Liberty Primary School to assess the project being overseen by Plan International Uganda.
The distance from the Ugandan capital Kampala to Adjumani is about 445 kilometres. In theory, the trip should take no more than about six hours. But because much of the driving is done on narrow, rutted dirt roads often used by cyclists and pedestrians, the journey took nearly twice as long over two days.
When the Dubai Cares motorcade finally arrived at the school in the early afternoon, it was greeted by hundreds of singing refugees, many of them dressed in bright pink T-shirts that were handed to them an hour earlier by Plan International Uganda.
The adults formed two lines to welcome the foreign visitors with energetic chants, drumming and dancing, while bricklayers worked on the new classrooms near by.
Until the new rooms are opened, Liberty Primary consists of an office, two aged brick classrooms and one outdoor classroom that the refugees built with a plastic roof and wooden poles.
The school employs 11 teachers, nine of whom are South Sudanese refugees, to teach more than 700 pupils from Grades 1 to 7, although some of the pupils are 15 years old.
The classrooms will allow for 300 more pupils when the academic year begins in February.
“The schools that Dubai Cares is supporting are schools that were established to respond to the massive education needs of the children, mostly South Sudanese refugee children but also the host community children,” said Jessica Ilomu, Plan International Uganda’s programme manager for education.
“This project came at the right time, when that need was at its highest.”
But as Ms Ilomu and many other officials, parents and teachers said, there are more urgent challenges that have surfaced as the number of refugees surged since last year.
When pupils leave primary school there is a limited number of secondaries for them to continue their education.
“A lot of primary schools have been established. The challenge is the secondary level,” Joseline Draleru, community services officer for Adjumani told the Dubai Cares delegation.
“We are always grooming these children through the primary level, but by the time they reach the secondary level they are left unattended.”
The agencies are also struggling to meet the refugees’ basic needs for food and water. The closest bore hole to the school is nearly 2km away.
Women and children are usually the ones to make the daily trek to collect drinking and bathing water in the plastic jerry cans that they balance on their heads when full. The school has a large water tank, but it stood empty in the middle of a dry spell.
“It’s not just a problem, water is a crisis in this area,” Ms Ilomu said. “Children go without food, completely. They come here at 7am, they leave here at 4pm or 5pm, but they eat nothing. Whatever the parents can contribute comes from the rations that they are given by UNHCR.”
The UN refugee agency provides a monthly ration of maize, corn-soy blend, vegetable oil, pulses and salt.
But its budget for the South Sudan emergency is facing a funding shortfall of 68 per cent. As of October, it had only received $282m of the $883m needed to support the refugees, its regional report said.
Cheryl Harrison, of the World Food Programme, said the food needs of refugees tripled over the past 24 months.
“We are barely managing to meet the unprecedented demands,” said Ms Harrison. “Because of funding shortages, about 200,000 people who have been in the country since before mid-2015 are receiving half rations. This ration cut has been in effect since August 2016, affecting some refugees in Adjumani.”
Extremely vulnerable households and malnourished people are excluded from the cuts, she said.
“While WFP is very grateful to donors, funding has not kept pace with the rapidly growing numbers of refugees,” she said. “WFP urgently needs $71m for the next six months to meet refugees’ basic food needs.”
Mr Al Gurg said the visit gave him new perspective about the difficulties the refugee children and their families face.
“That’s why I’m here — to engage with the parents, to engage with teachers and see how the children are, to see what are the communal issues here,” he said.
“They spoke about water. Water is creating a problem. Having a water source in the school will not only solve community issues, but it will also cut absenteeism. There was a request and we can look into enhancing the programme to have at least water wells in every school. We can have a discussion with Plan on it.”
The Dubai Cares project does not include plans for funding a secondary school, but Mr Al Gurg said it might be something the organisation considered at the end of the 15-month plan.
“We were not told that secondary school was an issue,” he said. “We’re not going to enhance this programme yet, we’re going to wait for 15 months.
“We’re going to assess the situation, we’re going to have an external evaluation, and we’re going to see the response of the international community in terms of scaling up the existing programme, and once that is there we will add the secondary school component.”
Mark Kenyie, 28, moved to the settlement last year to reunite with his wife and two children. He hoped the secondary school would be built in the settlement in time for his daughter, 13, to enrol. She is in Grade 4.
Mr Kenyie said their new life as refugees was fraught with challenges but he was happy.
“I’m happy because I left the fighting,” he said. “When we were in South Sudan, at any time, we were thinking we were going to die. But if you are here, at least you know that you are safe, you are alive.”