"Its just natural to caring about about community and helping them grow."

In 2016, during Uganda's midst of a refugee crisis, hope was born instead of fear. This hope grew and grew until it became an act of good faith. It became something whole and complete, yet still a work in progress.

Run 4 Community Rescue was established and officially registered as a non-profit by the Ugandan Government, to act as an English training center in The Nakivale refugee settlement.

Prior to its establishment, the founder had spent time in this camp himself supporting the youth and families that were struggling to find any sense of peace, wellness, or security. He listened to the voices of people who journeyed across Africa to find safety, he observed and realized that refugees were facing a really simple yet basic challenge of a language barrier, but that also impacted their education efforts and access, and future wellbeing.

"Many refugees in Uganda come from French-speaking countries and are faced with a high rate of lack of job opportunities given to them. Their everyday conflicts were increasing, day and night due to misunderstanding in languages between refugees themselves and helpers, since Nakivale hosts refugees from more than five countries across Africa, in addition to the nearby neighboring host communities."

Over the years, Holoshi Kavundika and Ndagano Namwangwa have been at the forefront of the organization, trying to gain more support and attention for a great cause. Since then, they have helped young refugees and their fellow adult family members, catch up on education and language skills to be able to communicate with one another and be legible for the available opportunities in Uganda.

"We wanted to make sure that they thrived inside and outside the refugee community. Our work grew further day by day, more than we could even tell at the time! The experiences of participants seemed slow. It was taking them a long time to be well equipped at the level of English that would help them for employment and education. We decided to transform the center into a nursery and primary school, and add teachers that are able to teach in both English and French and even other languages to protect and preserve cultures and identities across Uganda."

Run 4 Community Recuse, expanded in 2017 to be an official physical site where perseverance, learning, engagement, and inspiration could grow daily! A free establishment in fact, as parents did not have enough financial ability nor did the organization gain outside grants and supports for their projects. The government of Uganda has noticed the hard work that has been completed here and gave them ownership of the land and the organization, as well as additional land to build a playground for the younger population they serve.

"The same year in the ninth month we shifted from under the tree to the five adobe brick classes built for us. Later on, the number of young children was highly increasing and we also added three classes using our own manual efforts. This makes it a school of eight classes plus one room for teachers. These classrooms were built using adobe bricks for both foundation and the walls."

Finally, in 2019, parents were able to contribute a little bit of money to support the school activities smoothly.

"But a majority of them failed. In the process when we empathized with them trying to understand the biggest underlying causes, we realized that it was a business failure. We were focused on youth and parents obtaining education skills to better their lives in a Ugandan context."

"What parents needed were skills to start small businesses to sustain their families but often did not have those skills or were unable to obtain them after learning English fluently. This problem is not affecting only the parents of our students but Uganda as a whole. After the interactions with other schools and local leaders, we have reviewed our plans, and are currently tackling this challenge through skills development for the parent to help them gain skills that enable them to start or improve their families to sustain their families and also supporting their children’s education."

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* RUN 4 RESCUE is actively seeking INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEER support from anyone who needs hours for scholarship applications, resumes building, skill-building, cultural interest, or practicums.