Refugee-led organizations (RLOs) are hard at work in responding to the needs of their communities following the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, RLOs operate with limited technical and financial resources and even less assistance from host nations and international organizations. At Urban Refugees, our team works directly with refugee leaders to improve RLO COVID-19 response capacities by adapting our trainings and relief goals to answer to their most pressing community needs.
Our project aims to support refugee-led organizations (RLOs) that are actively responding to the needs of their communities in the wake of COVID-19. Additionally, by showcasing the importance of a refugee-led COVID-19 response, we aspire to drive a broader local and international community to refugee-led endeavors work directly.
As part of our COVID-19 response, UR is partnering with four RLOs in Kampala to support: Conducting community needs assessments and identifying the most vulnerable individuals and households; providing direct assistance to vulnerable community members; designing and sharing accurate information streams to share COVID-19 preventive measures with the community; creating referral pathways with humanitarian stakeholders; and creating income generating activities
As we continue this work, our team documents our process and lessons, so that other organizations can use these tools in their work with refugee communities. With each collaboration, we are building a global network of successful projects that can realize our belief that refugees and host communities can live harmoniously. The refugee crisis grows larger every day, but solutions are possible, and we work with refugees every day to realize them.
