A strong start and a great opportunity for Congolese early years refugee programme

Refugee communities have hit the ground running in impressive style, preparing for the strengthening of early years education in Kyaka II settlement, Uganda. Since the launch announcement of the programme in May, new staff have been engaging in high quality training and creating colourful learning resources for centres. 

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Working with local organisation YIDA, we are supporting 30 communities ​to replicate our ​model of best practice, ​ensuring high quality, cost-effective ​Early Childhood Development provision for their children.

Our International Director Rachel Bentley spent some time with the team here in late June and said "It has only just started with training underway and centres that need upgrading but it shows such promise, with real community engagement and ownership already...Despite the many challenges including the potential risk of Ebola the people I met in Kyaka II still have hope for the future of their children".

In addition to the threat of Ebola, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is getting progressively worse with horrific reports of rape, kidnappings and violence displacing 300,000 people in a two week period. Consequently, Kyaka II (already hosting 94,000) is expecting another 30-40,000 arrivals in the next few months. There is already a shortage of funding and many organisations involved are even smaller than us. ​

Despite these challenges, the initial programme is running brilliantly with the impact of teacher training already making a difference and the Centre Management Committees (groups of local refugees taking ownership of the centres) almost fully trained. We will be starting community led refurbishments of the centres once the training has finished. 

UNHCR and the Camp Commander (who represents the office of the Ugandan Prime Minister) are so impressed with what they have seen they have already asked us to double what we're doing. Whilst we are aiming to cover 30 communities, this is still only half of the need.  At a multi agency coordination meeting our programme was held up as an example of how to engage and empower local people. 
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This is now a vital time for us to raise funds so we can provide quality and creative learning spaces for an estimated 4,000 young Congolese refugee children, who are lacking Early Childhood Development provision that is so crucial to any child, let alone those fleeing such violence and trauma. 

We have full confidence in the programme, our partners and huge gratitude for those donors who have enabled this work to get off to a flying start. What we need now is a strong investment for the future, so we can extend our work into as many communities as possible in Kyaka II.

What can I do?

If you would like to donate towards our early years refugee work in Kyaka II one way to do this is through our appeal with The Big Give in December, the UK’s biggest online matched giving platform.
Every donation you make will be doubled through our Big Give appeal and we are hoping to raise £30,000. 
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Please get in touch with us at [email protected] and we will send you more details of when and how you can give as the appeal approaches. ​