A collaboration between Rwamwanja Rural Foundation and One Resilient Earth, to scale up regeneration efforts for long-term resilience among refugee populations in East Africa.
Bemeriki Bisimwa Dusabe of the Rwamwanja Rural Foundation, in partnership with the Permaculture Education Institute, Ethos Foundation and Permayouth, has been undertaking critical work to build the resilience of refugees to risks of food insecurity, income losses, conflicts, and local environmental degradation. Such risks are projected to increase as a result of the climate crisis, making the refugees living in the Rwamwanja refugee settlement in Southwest Uganda even more vulnerable to future climate change impacts such as droughts, floods, freshwater depletion, and the spread of diseases such as malaria.
The Rwamwanja Rural Foundation has already trained 500 refugee youth, particularly young women, in permaculture and Indigenous farming practices, and developed numerous online resources. Such support helped restore food security at a time when people’s movements were limited by restrictions due to the coronavirus crisis. The training sessions, which were open to both refugees and residents of the host country, also helped improve relationships between communities, while empowering women and improving their living conditions in the refugee settlements. Moreover, the Rwamwanja Rural Foundation has also contributed to rewilding and reforesting the land after years of overexploitation.
One Resilient Earth, in partnership with Permaculture Education Institute, Ethos Foundation and Permayouth, is currently supporting the work of the Rwamwanja Rural Foundation in:
- Accessing resources to establish and run a learning centre to train more youth, including young women from different communities, in regenerative agriculture practices;
- Developing additional activities to further grow the climate resilience of individuals and different population groups, in response to their own vulnerability, strength, and creativity, including through open dialogues, arts and culture;
- Scaling up digital educational products and services on climate resilience and regeneration, focusing on regenerative agriculture, in local languages. Such learning products and services could benefit refugees in other settlements in East Africa, as well as the growing number of population groups that are displaced as a result of climate change around the world.
In 2021, One Resilient Earth transferred 10% of the donations we received to support the work of the Rwamwanja Rural Foundation. We also provided and catalysed technical advice, as well as supported fundraising activities. The donation helped the Rwamwanja Rural Foundation explore ways to climate-proof local regenerative agriculture activities, in collaboration with Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), and to build the learning centre.
In 2022, we are working towards further supporting the resilience of refugee girls and women by exploring the nexus between population displacement, climate change, environmental degradation, and sexual and gender-based violence, in partnership with Mutera Global Healing.
Our collaboration and the journey of the Rwamwanja Rural Foundation was presented on the occasion of the #LearningPlanet festival in January 2022. The recording is available here.
In 2023, we were thrilled to learn that the Rwamwanja Rural Foundation has been awarded the Lush Spring Prize with 20 000 GBP, which will enable them to establish regenerative agriculture learning centres in 12 refugee settlements of East Africa. We are glad that One Resilient Earth contributed to their success through our support and capacity-building efforts.
This project is in progress and additional financial support and partnerships are welcome. If you wish to learn more, please do not hesitate to contact us at: [email protected].