By Damien Junca
Elizabeth is one of the 100,000 South Sudanese refugees in Uganda. She fled the violence in South Sudan along with her four children. She is now one of the three hygiene promoters trained by CARE in her settlement, and benefitted from shelter and latrine construction.
Elizabeth is proud to show her hut to every visitor. Located in the middle of the refugee settlement in Uganda, the place is clean and tidy. “I apply to myself the practices that I teach to other South Sudanese refugees”. Taking the youngest of her four children on her knees to breastfeed him, this 26-year-old single mother looks back at the past five month of violence and fleeing.
“When the fighting intensified in Bor, Jonglei County, I took my children and the 11-year-old son of my brother with me and started to walk to Juba. I left my husband behind . We were many of us heading to the capital, and luckily a truck stopped by the road to take us. But once we arrived there, everybody split and I was alone and did not feel safe at all. I decided to continue to Yei, because they told me there was no violence there, and when I got there, I crossed the border by foot to Uganda.”
In Koboko, Uganda’s crossing point, Elizabeth and her family were attended by UNHCR and the Ugandan authorities. They were then transferred to a reception center away from the border, where she remained in a collective shelter for some time and was provided with food. The Ugandan government has a policy to allocate plots to refugee households, gathered in small or medium sized refugee villages. When Elizabeth received her plot in Agulupi village, she was given some tools, plastic sheeting and mats to accommodate herself. “I couldn’t build myself a shelter, so every night, my children and I had to sleep outside, under the tree, at the edge of the village. However, when I arrived I went to the village leaders and offered them my help for the community here.”
When CARE started its emergency intervention, she was referred as one of the most vulnerable refugees in the area and benefited from a shelter construction program. CARE hired local labor and purchased local material to build a hut for her family, along with a latrine and a garbage pit. Meanwhile, CARE started a hygiene promotion campaign and the refugee leaders of Agulupi requested Elizabeth to be selected as a hygiene promoter, even if she couldn’t speak English. “I was part of the Water User Committee back in South Sudan, and I wanted to improve the living conditions here”.
“My life has changed” she says. ”I wake up every day and I feel part of the community. I am so grateful to CARE and I see the community is also grateful to me. When they see the visible outputs of implementing the hygiene messages I deliver to them, I know they think about me.” However, the living conditions are still dire. “We need soap, and jerry cans to store the water. Also, my children have no clothes”. With the rainy season arriving, malaria is becoming a real threat. The majority of the refugees used the mosquito nets distributed by aid agencies as ropes to build their huts. In order to avoid that, CARE provided rope and nails in its construction project.
Despite the recent cease fire in South Sudan, Elizabeth doesn’t think that the future will be bright. She has no plan to go back to South Sudan soon. Even if the situation as a refugee is hard because her family lack everything, at least they have security. “I’m not going back to South Sudan until I’m sure I can live in peace” she concludes.
Read more about CARE's response to the South Sudan crisis.