By Eleanor Milburn | Assistant Director
On December 30, 2021, students in the Virtual Academy in Kampala and Oruchinga Refugee Settlement gave their final presentations for their final course. They presented to MindLeaps staff Bashir Karenzi, Rebecca Davis and Martha Bua Peace. Having completed all courses in the Virtual Academy - Digital Literacy, Business Entrepreneurship, Communication, Project Management and Budgeting, Sexual Reproductive Health, Child Development, and Inclusion – these 36 young women received their certificates in a graduation ceremony. Following the success of MindLeaps’ Virtual Academy in Oruchinga, we will be launching our next Virtual Academy in Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement in Uganda in early 2022.
In addition, in October of 2021, after one and a half years of shutdowns in Oruchinga Refugee Settlement, MindLeaps was finally able to resume its in-person dance classes. 200 students enrolled in the Dance & Data program; this new cohort included students from Rwandese, Congolese, South Sudanese, Burundian and Ugandan backgrounds.
Schools reopened in January 2022 following almost 2 years of closures. When schools reopened this month, many families were skeptical that their children would return because of issues with discipline and because some had joined the workforce. However, almost all of our 200 students in the Dance & Data program returned to school.
Refugee populations became especially vulnerable during the spread of COVID-19 due to lack of food, water, and medicine, and falling employment rates. The World Bank recently surveyed refugees in Uganda and found employment fell from 56% to 32%. About 64% of refugees are food insecure and more than half of the refugee respondents reported experiencing depression (Atamanov, Beltramo, Waita and Yoshida, 2021). These findings highlight the importance of MindLeaps providing holistic programs that educate and empower refugees, and especially vulnerable populations – women and children – within the refugee community. MindLeaps programs help these students build the cognitive and social-emotional skills, the grit and determination needed to overcome these challenges and leap forward in life.
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