Restoring Hope Through Skills: Empowering Refugee Youth in Nakivale with UJUZI CO-CREATION HUB

Story by: Mugala Dervile, Ujuzi Co-creation Hub, Uganda

Focus Areas: SDG 1 – No Poverty; SDG 4 – Quality Education; SDG 5 – Gender Equality; SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth; SDG 17 – Partnership for The Goals.

Due to various challenges faced by the country such as war, family conflicts, tribalism, and other similar catastrophes, many people have been forced to flee in search of safety, arriving as refugees and seeking settlement in Nakivale Refugee Settlement. Currently, Nakivale hosts approximately 200,000 refugees from nearly ten different countries, including the DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan, and others. These diverse populations speak different languages native to their countries, while Uganda’s official language is English. This large influx of people has resulted in heightened poverty levels within the community, mainly due to limited access to employment opportunities offered by international organisations like UNHCR, UNICEF, and WFP. Studies indicate that over 60% of the youth are unemployed, which has led to a lack of basic needs in the community. Additionally, this situation has fostered negative mindsets among the youth, contributing to increased incidents of theft, kidnapping, association with undesirable peer groups, early pregnancies, and forced marriages among women.

UJUZI CO-CREATION HUB is one of the Refugee-Led organisations that was founded by MUGALA DERVILE in 2022. This was done through weekly community meetings with 10 young members. Following that, the first program prototype of a soap-making program, where 16 youth were trained on how to make liquid and solid soaps. From then until today, the initiative has kept on organising different training programs, workshops, and events for the youth communities in Nakivale Refugee Settlement through the support of local and international volunteers and advisors. These individuals are trained with technical skills, entrepreneurship, and business management, unlocking their full potential to drive positive changes in their communities and to help unemployed youth create small businesses or get jobs that will increase the availability of jobs in the community.

Since the start of the activities, UJUZI CO-CREATION HUB was able to reach to more than  800 youth, directly empowering 300 young people and creating jobs for 50 community members.

The lessons learned from this initiative are that the success of any activity depends on the actors, the people they work with – the team!  The passion, commitment, discipline, and hard work put into the activities from planning to implementation have enabled UJUZI CO-CREATION HUB to reach more people. The organisation emphasises that young unemployed refugees can regain dignity, hope, and create bright futures if they are given opportunities to learn new skills every day, shape their ideas, and are provided with funds to implement the activities/business ideas.

With the AU-EU YAL project, UJUZI CO-CREATION HUB plans to empower 500 unemployed youth in entrepreneurship and create more than 100 businesses before the end of 2026.