Tag: trust
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Community-Led Early Learning in West Nile Uganda
What happens if overcrowded Early Childhood Development (ECD) schools had access to well-resourced reading clubs and if local organisations received sustained funding to expand their supplementary learning programmes? The truth is, most ECD schools in refugee settings across Uganda’s West Nile region are nowhere close to that reality. Overcrowding undermines the quality of learning and…
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Dignity over Aid: The Requirements of a fairer and more inclusive approach to humanitarianism
In 2015, Cohere, which was then called Xavier Project, went to Kakuma refugee camp for the first time as part of a consortium delivering ed-tech homework solutions for refugees. The product, designed by an ed-tech company in Nairobi, was a set of homework quizzes on the Kenyan curriculum that ran on basic handsets through USSD…
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Agency, Inclusion and Trust-Based Relationships: a Triangle for a Just Society
The message we hear most often from the communities we work with is that the goal is not simply to escape poverty, insecurity or hardship in times of crisis. People seek justice, the dignity that comes from being treated as fully human, and the agency to shape their own futures rather than having them shaped…
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Refugees Leading Their Own Change: What I Witnessed in West Nile
When I first heard that we would travel to West Nile region of Uganda to visit refugee-led organisations (RLOs) in Bidibidi, Imvepi, Rhino Camp settlements and Arua, I was excited. It was my first time visiting that part of Uganda, and I could not wait to experience a different environment and meet communities hosting thousands…
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Rethinking Impact in Refugee Settings: Beyond Visibility, Towards Trust and Human Connection
A question has been nagging at me for a week now… and it keeps coming up whenever I talk about trust-based relationships and our approach at Cohere. When I present our work and our model, I’m often asked similar questions: “How sure are you that RLOs will use grants correctly?” “A refugee-led organisation can exist…
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Leadership, Land and Belonging
Regenerative agriculture in refugee settings is often presented as a pathway to sustainability and renewal. Refugee-led organisations are already demonstrating what this can look like in practice. But these examples also raise a deeper question: if regeneration depends on long-term relationships to land, what happens when the people doing the work are not fully allowed…
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Help Without Organisation
How can help be channelled? Should humanitarian aid flow only through an organisation? We (Joseph, Adhiambo, and Jovial) recently spent 10 days travelling through Kampala and southwest Uganda, listening to refugee leaders and having very interesting conversations about how to truly listen to the community and understand the community’s needs. One of our heated discussions…
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Education Under Strain: Displaced Children and Local Efforts to Sustain Learning in South Sudan
In a temporary classroom made of iron sheets, wooden poles, and bare ground, South Sudanese returnees, internally displaced children, and Sudanese refugee learners sit quietly, focused on their teacher. They are determined to learn with passion and curiosity despite the harsh environment surrounding them. Yet today, hundreds of these learners remain at risk of dropping…
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Leaning In and Listening from the Ground: Insights from a conference with Rwamwanja refugee farmers
“…solutions emerge when we lean in, listen carefully, and co-create with communities. Farmers already know what works and what is possible—they just need space, trust, and support to scale it.” In January, I had, what I can honestly call, the most interesting “conference” I have attended for a very long time. This time it was…
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Reflections from Geneva on funding flows and the agency gap
R-Space returning to Geneva alongside the GRF Progress Review came with something the sector rarely gets right; a programme designed around refugee leadership. Over three days, the space brought together refugee leaders, organisations, and allies across protection, localisation, disability inclusion, climate, economic inclusion, gender, etc and with a clear signal that refugee expertise belongs at…