Our History
OUR STORY/BACKGROUND
From Boston to Rwamwanja Refugee Camp, Uganda
2007
RefEd Initiative started in 2017 with three students from India, Mexico and Brazil studying at Boston University who developed a class project around refugee education. At that time, around 3.5M refugee children did not have access to education and less than a quarter of refugees in secondary education were still studying (UNHCR). Today, it is estimated that over 4 million refugee students have no access to quality education. As migrants and children of migrants, we were struck by the issue and decided to work on an idea to mitigate it.
2019
In June 2019, after dedicating time to content creation, fundraising, and partnership prospecting, we arrived in Athens, Greece to implement our pilot program with Seeds of Humanity Greece. After interacting with prospective students for the program, the team identified the need for basic education in Arabic literacy. Pulling together all our resources, we developed a module on the Arabic literacy and implemented it with over 70 children who had little access to education. With this experience, our team decided to develop more modules for English, Arabic and math.
2020
In 2020, doors opened for us in Uganda and we discovered that the issue of inconsistent refugee education was very latent there. We then partnered with two refugee-led and refugee serving organizations, Platform Africa and Anzisha Impact Hub. We conducted needs assessment and realized that our model would fit refugees’ needs in Uganda. Through these partnerships, we served over 400 students. When our program gained traction quickly, we decided to recruit Ugandan team members. This enabled us to reach new regions, schools and more children which made us realize the persistent need for solutions like ours and a need for a comprehensive program to support thriving education for refugee learners and children from host communities.
2022
In July 2022, we piloted our project in Rwamwanja Refugee camp with over 100 students both in schools and within their communities. The outcomes of this project led us to pursue local registration in Uganda that would enable us support thousands of students in the country. In June 2023, we registered as a community based not for profit organization and opened up an office in Rwamwanja refugee camp in Kamwenge District, Western Uganda. We hope that through our interventions, partnerships, we shall reach out to as many students as possible with a deliberate approach to providing access to thriving education. We are open to partnerships and collaborations to enable us scale our impact. Our local team in Uganda is led by a passionate and competent professional with relevant experience in educational programs and knowledge of local realities.