August 3, 2019
Graduating to Resilience, an Activity implemented by AVSI Foundation and funded by the Office of Food for Peace, USAID gives hope to Congolese refugees like Mwamini and her two children
It’s a night Mwamini will never forget. Her husband had recently died, but there was no time for grief. It was time to take her children, all under 18, from the devastated village of Rutskuru, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and leave for Uganda. The goal: pursue safety with the hope of finding peace. While walking through a thick forest, she lost contact with six of her eight children. They were nowhere to be found. And may never be.
“I would never know how to explain what happened. It was dark, and I have not seen my children since.”
It’s a night Mwamini will never forget. Her husband had recently died, but there was no time for grief. It was time to take her children, all under 18, from the devastated village of Rutskuru, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and leave for Uganda. The goal: pursue safety with the hope of finding peace. While walking through a thick forest, she lost contact with six of her eight children. They were nowhere to be found. And may never be.
"I received UGX 54,000 from the cash transfer activity,” celebrates Mwamini, who can use this money to buy food for her family and any extra earned from other activities to pay for her children’s schooling.”
Mwamini would also like to save to invest in her own business. She wakes up early in the morning to cultivate her garden of corn and beans and, later in the day, works on her small shoe trade business, walking through the refugee settlement in search of customers.
Mwamini misses the days she spent in Rutskuru in the company of her entire family, but she is determined to start over again. Her monthly income from corn and beans and her small business, supplemented by the cash transfer, is making it possible to meet the immediate needs of her family. She lives with her two children, Zaina, 11, and Fatuma, 14, in Ntenungi Zone in the Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement. They go to school every morning after a good breakfast, confident that they will return home to a hot meal.
Now, with the coaching sessions offered by her Graduating to Resilience and her growing business, Mwamini is confident they will have a better future.
“I left my whole life back home. This time, I want to start over again, smile with my children and make sure they have a good education,” says Mwamini.
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