ONE YOUTH, ONE HEART
Refugee Youth Self-Organizing for Mutual Support and Empowerment
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Our soon-to-be-posted “One Youth, One Heart” story takes a unique and hopeful look at the refugee crisis. While on a vacation trip to Kampala, Uganda, our Capital Institute colleague Nora Bouhaddada sought out the leaders of One Youth, One Heart. The story she will soon be sharing about that visit focuses not just on the plight of refugees, but their self-empowerment. She was surprised to discover that regenerative principals were at work within refuge communities through organizations like One Youth, One Heart, enabling young refugees to thrive in extraordinarily challenging settings.
Nora’s story takes us to the heart of Africa in Uganda, where the government supports and promotes one of the most progressive refugee policies in the world. Here, refugees are free to move about, free to work, and have access to education among other supports. Talking to the stand-out leaders of One Youth, One Heart in Kampala, she learned a great deal more about the situation on the ground, and in particular the complexities of the refugee system, especially for those in protracted situations (those who are not in an emergency state, but who are “waiting” in a kind if limbo, often for decades). Nora not only discovered that regeneration is indeed possible in such settings, but that like many systems, the global refugee regime can learn much from holistic organizational approaches like those practiced by One Youth, One Heart as it seeks to address the new realities of this mounting crisis. We hope this story will not only shed light on the incredible potential for regeneration within refugee communities, but will demonstrate how imperative it is that the search for solutions not be exclusively top-down. They must also include the voices of refugees, who perhaps know better than anyone else what they need to rebuild their lives. |