“Home is not a physical location. It’s the people you live with.”
In this blog post, we meet Raphael Muvunga and Bourgeois Kajangu Jim from Opportunigee, a non-profit which is transforming lives in Uganda’s Nakivale Refugee Settlement. Inspired by UN Live portal conversations, Raphael and Jim have introduced effective waste management, built a community arts amphitheatre and constructed long-lasting village housing by recycling plastic waste.
Opportunigee at work in Nakivale.
Founded in 2016, Nakivale is Africa’s oldest refugee settlement and it currently houses around 100,000 people from countries including Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Burundi, Eritrea, Kenya and South Africa. Nakivale-based Opportunigee is a non-profit which offers refugees entrepreneurial training – computer and digital skills, tailoring, handicrafts and more – as well as mentoring on personal and professional growth. Every year it selects 100 refugee scholars, aged 18-30, and teaches them how to create social enterprises that sustain livelihoods and local communities in this multi-nation settlement.
Diverse village cultures
Raphael Muvunga, Co-Founder of Opportunigee
We spoke to Opportunigee Co-Founder Raphael Muvunga and former-scholar Bourgeois Kajangu Jim – who hosts our UN Live Nakivale portal – to hear more about life here, and learn why Opportunigee has been so successful. Both men sought sanctuary here from war-torn Congo – Raphael travelling with his brother and Jim making the journey alone and arriving just before his 18th birthday. “Many refugees have fled conflict, leaving behind their house, friends, home and education,” says Raphael. “Opportunigee is all about helping refugees find their own opportunities.”
“Nakivale is like a very big book”, he adds. “There’s real diversity. It’s more like a museum. There are lots of local businesses, a weekly Friday market, and churches and mosques are everywhere. So many cultures. The Ethiopian village has the best coffee in the world. The Congo village is noisy, with lots of music and dancing and colourful clothes. Somalis are cat lovers, so their village is full of cats!”
Sustainable food skills
Around 60% of residents here earn a living through agriculture, growing maize and beans and keeping goats and cows. “Climate change has had a tremendous impact on farmers,” Jim tells us. “In the dry season, the heat can cause cows to collapse and die. Farmers are no longer producing the way they used to. A kilo of Irish potatoes costs 1.5 dollars now. It used to cost half a dollar”. He has become a passionate advocate for growing mushrooms – a skill that he has been passing on through his Global We conversations. “Mushrooms absorb carbon dioxide, grow easily in a small space, and don’t degrade the material they’re planted in. You can plant them in cotton substrate or coffee ground substrate. People here are getting used to eating them now!”
Environmental impact
Loss of tree cover and water scarcity pose additional problems. Trees are fast disappearing because people can’t afford electricity, so they use firewood for cooking. Raphael explains: “Nakivale is in a remote area and there used to be lots of trees. But the more people come, the more trees are cut down for fuel and shelter.”
Settlement villages have water points, but there’s still a shortage of drinkable supply. Water is pumped from the Nakivale Lake and treated, but it isn’t safe to drink, so many people develop typhoid or malaria. “Some people go 4 to 5 days without water”, says Jim. Climate change also means flooding, when the lake overflows and landslides wash away rudimentary shelters (refugees are only given a plastic sheet and a length of line when they first arrive).
Building strong communities – one plastic bottle at a time
Opportunigee housing made from recycled bottle bricks.
To protect residents, Opportunigee has already constructed two dozen villages, each of them solid enough to last 10 years. As we talk, Raphael takes us on a video tour of some of the colourful houses, hand-built out of recycled plastic bottle bricks – and maize sacks – filled with sand. “We have a saying here”, says Raphael. “Waste is not waste until it’s wasted” and the houses make maximum use of every available resource.
“At first, the houses we built were really about survival, not the environment. We needed shelter, and we were looking for durable solutions,” says Raphael. “We saw a prototype house featured in an Al-Jazeera documentary. Although it was 300 km away in Kampala, we went to see it and then we copied it.” Today, Opportunigee’s eye-catching homes are home to 300+ community members and both men are adamant: “Once you’re in our family, you stay in it!”.
Global We inspiration
Opportunigee housing made from recycled bottle bricks.
Raphael and Jim say they’ve learned a lot from other Global We friends, especially in Kigali, who told them about Rwanda’s monthly community clean-up days, when everyday commerce pauses and people turn out to fix potholes and trim hedges. “We don’t need complicated technology to make changes. We need solutions that everyone can feel involved in,” says Raphael. “Our villages are clean now”, he adds. “Nakivale used to be covered in trash, because our dustbins were too small and rain would wash them into the lake. But we taught everyone waste management skills and introduced two dustbins – one for plastic bottles and one for organic food waste, which Opportunigee students use to make and sell fertiliser”.
Another memorable Global We conversation – with the UN Live portal at COP27 – shared experiences of building with ISSBs – interlocking stabilised soil blocks. Made from compressed soil, these are stronger than clay bricks and much more environmentally friendly. Opportunigee was quick to grasp their potential and over the past 12 months it has built 23 houses for new arrivals – each with a self-contained kitchen and toilet, and each carefully constructed one manually pressed brick at a time.
Arts matter
Opportunigee's hand-built community amphitheatre.
Arts play a big community role here too, and the team has built an amphitheatre, so that people have a place to share music and drama. “We’re prototyping a way to cover it now, because the rain and sun has become more of a problem. Maybe iron sheets, but we aren’t sure yet…”, says Raphael. There’s also a unique village van, which they have nicknamed Shadowman. Originally built as a radio station, this contravened settlement rules, so the team are repurposing it as a food truck.
“People might be surprised to learn how much hope we have”, says Raphael. “Talk to a six-year-old and he says his dream is to build a school. Refugees say to me this is not the end of my life…” Adds Jim, “Home is not a physical location. It’s the people you live with; the family that accepts you as you are.”
The last few months of Global We conversations have added to Jim and Raphael’s experiences and they have a few ideas to share with global leaders who are looking to action climate solutions.
Jim:
The Shadowman food truck.
Don’t underestimate villagers. They can have a huge impact. Reach out to local people. There are so many people here who have time to make things happen.
We need water. Without water we can’t plant seedlings and can’t grow trees.
We need tanks to collect water so that trees can grow – and in 12 months they can become self-sustaining.
We need solar stoves or gas stoves, so people don’t have to use firewood.
Raphael:
Consider the opinions of all affected communities, not just so-called experts. Those most impacted by problems like poverty, immigration, and injustice (refugees, immigrants, orphans, prisoners, and others) usually have the most valuable practical solutions. Their voices are often overlooked.
Only by listening to those directly impacted can leaders develop policies that work. We need a diversity of perspectives and experiences at the decision-making table.
Involving all members of society in discussion and participation will lead to just, compassionate, effective solutions.
We are deeply grateful for the collaboration, support and leadership that Opportunigee has given to the Global We programme.
Join the Global We
During 2023 our Global We for Climate Action has given a platform to diverse, under-represented individuals and communities whose frontline climate solutions are changing lives. From villages constructed out of recycled plastic bottles to sustainable crops that grow in the simplest of conditions, these creative ideas are reshaping the global climate conversation.
You can join the Global We conversation via the Opportunigee UN Live portal, located at the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Bukanga County, Isingiro District, Uganda.
To find out more, and join the conversation, please click here.
The Global We programme is supported by IKEA Foundation and powered by Shared Studios.