Empower East African Refugee Youth in Uganda

The new year is off to a very busy and exciting start at SWB Uganda; filled with staff outings, awesome visitors from the United States, registration for the upcoming term, a fresh coat of paint for the SWB Center and, of course, the Sixth Annual SWB Youth Festival!

Due to the amazing donations we received in December, SWB Uganda was able to have it first staff outing in over a year and a half. The staff and newly arrived festival volunteers went to Munyonyo to play paintball. The outing was capped off by a visit to the Ggaba Fish market for a delicious dinner of fresh fish from Lake Victoria.

The Annual Youth Festival, by far our biggest event of the year, ran from January 9th-13th. The theme for 2017 was, “Remember the Time…” and the daily activities focused on learning in the morning and games, football, and food in the afternoons. Thanks to all of the support we received, both locally and from afar, we were able to make this one of the biggest festivals yet! Our M&E Fellow, Elizabeth was able to provide us with this amazing breakdown of the week in numbers:

• 330 lbs of rice consumed
• 264 lbs of beans consumed
• 3,000 bags (nearly 200 gallons!) of purified drinking water
• 319: total number of kids from our program and local community who attended
• 20: age of our oldest participant
• 2: age of our youngest participant
• 3 international volunteers
• 4 hours of team-building games
• 2 banana eating contests with the babies
• 15 minutes: length of staff skit about the founding of SWB Uganda
• 25 newly donated footballs from New York Red Bulls FC used during drills
• 30 tie-dyed t-shirts made for staff and volunteers
• Countless hours of sleep deprivation for staff members
• AND COUNTLESS HOURS OF MUSIC, FUN AND DANCING!

After the festival, we were able to add a brightly colored, new paint of coat to the interior of our center in Nsambya. We are now in the process of registering for the upcoming term, which starts on January 30th!