xavier-project-winter-newsletter-2012-2013

Xavier Project works in three areas: Education, Livelihood and Media.. Xavier Proj- ect is still remembered by its alma mater and Francesca Bifolco gives us an idea of what’s been happen

N E W S L E T T E R , W I N T E R 2 0 1 2

I N T H I S I S S U E : A Note from Ed 2

Social Media Course 3 Education 2013 roadmap 3

XP across the world 4

P A G E 1

VISION AND MISSION VISION: Xavier Project aims to provide opportunities to refugees living in urban areas in Kenya and Uganda who are otherwise excluded from the means to live a fulfilled and dignified exis-tence so that they will be able to take back control of their lives and make a positive change whether to their new communities

or to their country of origin

MISSION: The Xavier Project works to achieve its vision through

a holistic approach to development Xavier Project works in three areas: Education, Livelihood and Media Through the pro-vision of financial sponsorship and extra-curricula support and mentoring it seeks to offer a sustained and individually tailored education programme As part of a commitment to sustainable development Xavier Project’s Livelihood initiative aims to im-prove access to employment for refugees and therefore increase the chances of refugee families being able to cover school fees The Media platform is designed to give refugees a voice so that they can speak out about the realities of their lives in order to effect positive improvements

NEWS ROUNDUP Welcome to the winter edition of

the Xavier Project newsletter

Support for people who have been forced to leave their country of origin is at the heart of Xavier Pro-ject’s Mission and many of the articles in this season’s newsletter implicitly or directly deal with origins and concepts of place

Ed Page moved to East Africa over

a year ago and he reflects on that time in his Note on page 2

It was in Scotland in 2008 that Xavier Project was really born

Having found Congolese refugees children in Uganda who couldn’t afford an education, Ed decided to come back to St Andrew’s Univer-sity and set something up to raise

a few hundred pounds to help

That ‘something’ has gone on to become a registered charity in the U.K and Wales that operates in Kampala and Nairobi Xavier Proj-

ect is still remembered by its alma mater and Francesca Bifolco gives

us an idea of what’s been happen-ing with Xavier Project St An-drews on page 4 - we are very grateful to her and all involved in

St Andrews

After spending time in East Africa, the Xavier Project’s new home, Josie Middleton and Rory Mellows took their experiences in the sum-mer back to the U.K and ran a half marathon, the details of which are

on page 4, to raise money for Xa-vier Project That money allows the project to educate children who have been displaced, but it also goes towards empowering dispossessed people to create their own place in the world using social media Find out about our October Social Media Course on page 3 Xavier Project has been learning from its own social media lessons and has uploaded a new

YouTube video, please take a look

at it You can find the link on page

6

It is important for those who feel alienated and dislocated in a for-eign country to be able to express needs, desires and themselves That’s why a course in English is being run for 50 students which you can read about on page 5 With their newly acquired English skills the students can take advan-tage of the library that we are planning for our Kampala office, which will also be treated to a new kitchen in the refurbishment

so students can nourish their bod-ies as well as their minds, read an update on page 2

Whether or not you’re celebrating

at home we wish you a very merry Christmas and all the best for 2013

It’s now been a year since I moved to East Africa, and it has been a very hectic year – we now have eleven staff and counting and only one of them was with us 18 months ago It has been great to see our three programmes evolve naturally, pro-pelled by energy from the refugees and the care of our dedicated team It is lucky that we have been well received by those who could have put a spanner in the works, most notably UNHCR and the governments in Uganda and Kenya who have been very supportive of our plans

We are going into 2013 poised to implement the work we have been building up to throughout this year Having worked closely with UNHCR in both Kampala and Nairobi on baseline assessments for current refugee education, we are now in a posi-tion to implement a strategy that has been formed

in partnership with all the other agencies working

on education for refugees As part of that, Stephen has paved the way for at least six education pro-grammes in Uganda, including the full or partial scholarships of 60 refugee children in formal schools In Nairobi we have been recruited by Nairobi city council and UNHCR to put in place similarly ambitious projects This includes a liveli-hood campaign which should improve access to employment for refugees and therefore increase the chances of refugee families being able to cover school fees This programme will replace the previously named ‘microfinance’ programme

Meanwhile we hope to expand the Tamuka SMS platform to receive 1000 messages per month and expand the exposure to 1000 people on twit-ter before six months is up The social media courses in Tamuka Hub Kampala are increasing in popularity and with Alex Kubana at the helm we can only expect this to continue The Tamuka me-dia programme is now being directed in both countries by Edmund Rous Eyre who joined us full time in November, and in the space of a short month Tamuka already feeling the presence of his energy and creative ideas

The current crisis in Congo means that our work

A NOTE FROM ED

P A G E 2

will increasingly become part of an emergency response This means three things: firstly we must be prepared to be flexible and keep adapt-ing to the ever changadapt-ing environment, and for this to happen we must stay closely in touch with the needs and challenges of the refugees

So the second commitment is to renew a focus

on our work being refugee run and inspired

Thirdly, we need to boost the links that Tamuka seeks to promote between East Africa and the outside world, so that everyone can make their own mind up on what they think about the wars

in Congo, Somalia and elsewhere In UK, for in-stance, we are grateful to have such a strong team in St Andrews who have set up a recog-nised University society and continue to advo-cate, and raise funds for the work we are doing They are keeping the link going strong between the two parts of the world, and as part of this we are inviting George Omondi Oduor from UNHCR Nairobi to visit St Andrews on March 14th to talk about the issues faced by refugees in Nairobi, and I would encourage any of you who can to come I should also mention and thank the Not-tingham, London and Dundee support teams, who are making a huge difference with their efforts for Xavier Project

The future for refugees in East Africa is uncer-tain The signs of an impending election in Kenya are starting to surface, as violence pops

up all over the country As in Uganda in 2011 the refugees are often caught in the middle of this such as the Somalis in Eastleigh who are being unfairly linked to Al Shabaab and chased out of their homes There are certainly improvements

in some sectors, but what can be sure is that for many refugees 2013 will be no better than 2012 These are the ones who do not yet have control

of their lives and are not living in dignity, and for that to change they need help So thanks to eve-ryone who has made the decision so far to put your trust in the work we are doing to give them the boost they need – the feeling over here is that it is worth it

Plans for

the

HUB

To live up to its name Tamuka Hub in Kampala needs to be a bee-hive of activity To attract the bees, we need the honey We have plans to open a Tamuka library and a Tamuka kitchen, offering cheap drinks and snacks, so that the hub can be a central place where refugees can meet each other, get support, learn about social media and use the SMS-platform

P A G E 3

A NOTE FROM ED

The Xavier Project Education pro-gramme aims to improve refugee children’s access to quality educa-tion We are frequently reminded of how important this objective is

Earlier this year we found that 74%

of school-age Congolese refugee children are not going to school As

we continue to interact with fami-lies and schools we observe signifi-cant deficiencies in the quality of education available In response to the multitude of challenges that refugees face, Xavier Project will be diversifying its education pro-gramme in 2013

The sponsorship programme will continue and expand In 2013 the number of children sponsored to attend primary school will grow from 16 to 50 We will also sponsor

5 secondary school students

In December 2012 and January

2013, Xavier Project will be running

an English course for refugee dren The course aims to help chil-dren to adjust to the Ugandan school system Refugee children may be taught in a different lan-guage in their country of origin (in

DR Congo, it might be French or Swahili), which means that when they come to Uganda they may be forced to drop down a few classes

or drop out of school altogether

Clearly English courses like this are important, yet this will be the first

time that a course of this nature has been offered in Uganda The English course will be aimed at children who don’t know English and have had 3-6 years of primary education

in their country of origin

During 2013 we will be analysing our course, with the hope of run-ning a similar course towards the end of the year We will also be con-sidering how we can run a similar course for secondary school-aged students

With regards to the quality of edu-cation available to refugee children, access to reading material is a big problem in the government-aided primary schools that refugees usu-ally attend These schools have very few ‘readers’ (those little books you read when you are first learning to read); reading time at school typi-cally involves a teacher trying to teach reading to a class of 100+

students, with an assortment of

20-40 readers While talking to the head-teachers of nearby govern-ment-aided primary schools, Xavier Project has developed a plan for how to address this problem We will purchase sets of 60 books per title, train a team of 4 reading assis-tants, and then our team (along with any volunteers who might be here) will go with our books to schools when they have their reading time, and assist the teacher in teaching the children to read

We will also work with schools to establish reading clubs, where children will have further opportu-nities to read, and where we will help children to write their own books Initially we plan to partner with 3 government-aided primary schools and 1 refugee-run primary school, although this will depend

on the availability of funding and the flexibility of school’s timeta-bles

In the upcoming year Xavier Pro-ject will participate in the soon to

be formed ‘Refugee Education Working Group.’ Earlier this year the UN Refugee Agency unveiled an education strategy for 2012-2016, and declared that Uganda is 1 of 13 priority countries As part of the

‘Refugee Education Working Group’, Xavier Project will meet regularly with other organisations

to consider how we can coordinate our activities to ensure that the strategy translates from words into action Xavier Project is open to taking on more responsibility, so exactly what we will be up to next year is uncertain

We have big hopes for 2013 There are plenty of opportunities for people to be involved, whether it

be by donating or raising money,

by letting others know about the challenges refugees face and what Xavier Project is doing, or by

com-ing here to work with us

Week 1:

Monday: Introduction

- What is a computer?

- Parts of a computer

- Memories of a computer

Tuesday: Introduction

- Types of computers

- Storage

Wednesday: Introduction

- Mouse, keyboard, screen

Thursday: Email

- Introduction to emailing

- Sending & receiving emails Week 2:

Monday: SMS platform

- Why and how to use SMS

Tuesday: Google

- Why and how to use Google

Wednesday: Google

- Practicing with Topics

Thursday: Facebook

- What is Facebook?

- How to use Facebook

- Private and Public uses

Week 3:

Monday: Facebook

- Sending messages

- Settings

Tuesday: Blogging

- What is blogging?

- How to create your own blog

- How to make and post a blog

Wednesday: Blogging

- How to post and share a blog

- Interacting with other blogs

Thursday: Blogging

- Interacting with other blogs Week 4:

Monday: Twitter

- What is Twitter?

- How to make your own account

Tuesday: Twitter

- How to follow, tweet & connect

Wednesday: Skype

- What is Skype?

- How to use Skype

Thursday: Skype

- Video and other possibilities

The first Social Media class

at Tamuka Hub Started on

1ST October 2012 There was high demand for the course from refugees who came to the Hub but did not know how to use a computer

We offered the course to a group of 20 refugees, 6 female and

14 male

The first group completed its course on 2nd November 2012 and they were followed by another group of 20 refugees who started on 5th November

The Social Media classes took place over a period of 16 days, from Monday to Thursday The 20 attendees were divided into two groups, each running from 2:30pm – 3:30pm and 4:00pm-500pm

Welcome and Registration

Alex Kubana, Social Media Trainer, gives us an overview of the first Social Media Course

P A G E 4

Since its inception in 2008, The Bongo Ball has been one of the

highlights of the St Andrews social calendar for many, and this

year was no exception As the ball has grown, in notoriety and in

scale, so too has interest in Xavier Project

This September, Xavier Project Society St Andrews was founded

with the aim to increase awareness in the activities of the Xavier

Project and to provide the charity with a steady stream of

finan-cial support from the University and town beyond Bongo Ball

Thus far, the Xavier Project Society has concentrated on the sale

of Rafiki Fabrix to students Concentrat-ing on the Bongo Ball audience, many of our sales happened at the beginning of the semester We hope to have one final sale before Christmas Additionally, Xavier Project St Andrews has

part-nered with Fox and Bhut, a local clothing

boutique that has agreed to stock Rafiki Fabrix, enabling sales year-round! Other fundraising activity (including bake sales, the sale of ‘Bongo Burgers’ outside the Student Union and the running of the Union cloakroom) has further tributed to XP fundraising and will con-tinue throughout the next semester

Meanwhile, XP St Andrews has increased its social media profile

with the creation of Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr pages to

keep followers up to date with Xavier Projects and to create a

timeline of all that has been achieved so far (all social media can

be found on our website http://flavors.me/xavierproject)

Xa-vier Project Society is currently undergoing the affiliation

proc-ess with University as a result this will allow increased exposure

and funding opportunities for the society

Xavier Project Society St Andrews is an active member in the

‘Coalition for a Conflict-Free St Andrews’, a partnership of 15

student societies aimed at raising awareness of the current

con-flict in the Democratic Republic of Congo; a concon-flict which has

been responsible for the displacement of many of those who

receive the assistance of the Xavier Project

As part of the Coalitions ‘International Day of Peace’ Symposium, Xavier Project St Andrews, along with other societies, was given its first platform on which to tell people about the work that it does and the people it helps

from all societies joined together to create a human star in a show

of solidarity with the people of Congo (some even wearing Rafiki shorts)

The star on the flag of the DRC symbolizes a radiant and pros-perous future for the Congo Xa-vier Project Society will also be involved in helping the Coalition prepare for a symposium occur-ring in St Andrews scheduled for April 2013

In addition to this, in early November, Xavier Project submitted pictures to the University’s Social Justice Week’s exhibition These pictures highlighted the work that Xavier Project does The exhibi-tion aimed to emphasise the social injustice around the world and the work of the organisations which are trying to improve the situation for those affected

The coming semester promises to be even more successful than this one: in March, Xavier Project St Andrews will welcome George Omondi Oduor, the head of Community Services for Refu-gees in Nairobi, to speak about issues facing the urban refugee population The talk will be followed by a drinks reception Fur-ther highlights of the semester to come include a night for Xavier Project at a popular local bar, a pub quiz competition and plenty more events to get St Andrews students educated and enthusias-tic about Xavier Project!

Forget Fun Run, JOSIE MIDDLETON remembers her Ugandan Education Fund Run

On Sunday 30th September, Rory Mellows and myself took to the roads of Nottingham and partook in

our first ever half marathon, in aid of Xavier Project Rory spent the summer volunteering in Nairobi; his

main focus was working on the XP extra-curricular camp during the holidays As the end of the summer

approached, I was excited when Ed informed me that there was another student at the University of

Nottingham keen to be involved in XP, who had set himself the challenge of running the Robinhood Half

Marathon I had always wanted to run a long distance race and so welcomed the challenge

The race itself was a personal highlight of 2012 The 13.1mile course took us in a loop around

Notting-ham We started in Victoria Embankment, had the privilege of running through the Boots main

head-quarters (not usually accessible to the public), round the lake on university campus, through

Notting-ham City centre and finally finished by the river Trent I was incredibly happy to cross that line

During the race, the atmosphere was electric and the steel drum band at the half way point certainly

helped to keep me motivated Rory and his long legs just beat me with 2 hours and 5 mins However,

with 3 weeks of training I was happy with my time of 2 hours and 6mins Together we raised £2,000 for

the Ugandan Education Fund

Since being back, we have been working on setting up the XP Nottingham Society Fingers crossed we will soon be accredited

by the Student Union and we will be able to get on with the many exciting ideas we have in the pipeline

NEWS FROM ST ANDREWS

With thanks to Francesca Bifolco & all at XP St Andrews

P A G E 5

SPONSOR A CHILD

To send a refugee to secondary school in Kenya costs £40 per month

If you decide to sponsor a child we can guarantee that ALL the money you send will be spent on the school fees Therefore you are enabling a child to access formal education who definitely would not be in school if it was not for your support To see

a selection of profiles of children contact ed@xavierproject.co.uk

Sharon

Otieno

gives us the

facts about

Fabrix

Since its establishment Rafiki Fabrix has been taking baby steps towards building up its portfolio Opening Rafiki Fabrix has furthered XP mission of helping a large network

of urban refugees in Nairobi to improve their standards of living by providing employ-ment opportunities and also by providing an alternative source of funding for the edu-cation program

Currently Rafiki Fabrix has a wide selection of products that can make unique gifts fit for any occasion The items include pyjamas, kids clothing , adult clothing , laptop cases, duvet covers and table cloths with matching napkins just to name but a few The business has received a major boost from sales that are being made in the UK, es-pecially in St Andrews where a team of students have been working tirelessly to mar-ket the different products among the student body Also several ex-volunteers have played major roles geared towards helping the business grow , with this we feel that though small businesses typically lack technology and market information necessary to compete effectively in the global market we have been very lucky to receive help from the above named and also pray for continued support from all of you

Edigar Kawooya talks us through the English Camp

Xavier Project, a community based intervention

for the plight of refugees of all origin, surveys

established educational barriers to refugees It

has found that key among which is the language

question Most refugees that seek our help tend

to be Congolese and Rwandan These two

coun-tries being francophone, makes it hard for

chil-dren from such a back ground to study in

Ugan-dan schools where English is the official

lan-guage used

Therefore in a bid to remedy this barrier, Xa-vier project has organized a two month English Camp during the December school holidays for

50 refugee children to learn or improve on their English language skills

By so doing we believe that the refugee chil-dren will be in a better position to express themselves and read and write comfortably in English, which will in turn aid their ability to learn and be integrated in the Ugandan schools

A venue secured and a number of competent facilitators in place, the camp commenced on Monday 10 th December 2012 and will run until January 25 th 2013 We had a large number of applicants but were only able to accommodate

50 for purposes of class management and effec-tive support to the learners

We hope the class will be a success and a help to the students

EDGAR KAWOOYA GIVES US THE SCORE

To give our hands a rest from laptops and office work, Xavier Project

organ-ised a football match XP staff joined forces with YARID and took on Soccer

without Borders (S.w.B) Our joint team used the ‘God help us strategy’

since we had little time for proper preparations

This memorable match took place at Nsambya Ggogonya playground 120

fans attended of which 75% were children and the rest fans came from the

Refugee Grass Root Network (RGN)

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers, both teams, and the

fans for making this initiative a success

In case you’re wondering — the combined forces of Xavier Project and

YARID were not enough to take on the S.w.B team, we lost 3-1!

Uganda closes border with DR Congo (Bunagana) I read it in today's Daily Monitor

Will #M23 actually pull out from #Goma or will the goverment fail to meet their demands?

Does UNHCR know the real needs of refugees? They need education, health care, resettlement, etc

UN should prevent wars in the world by supporting African new leaders with new politic project in the objective to eradicate wars

Please support TAMUKA! and our attempts at facilitating

refugees in speaking out Follow us on @TamukaHub to

read the texts that have been sent in via our Tamuka

num-bers and on @XavierProj to get all the latest XP updates

Things are developing well so far Refugees are enthusiastic

about the platform and we have a few regular users

We are now looking to build a system which will organize

the incoming messages by putting them in different

catego-ries

On the right are four of the texts that have been sent in since

the middle of November

Chananja Schoof

There are a number of ways that you can get involved with Xavier Project if you would like to do so:

We are looking for individuals with the initiative to present ideas and work on them , those who can work within the project to inspire and guide it in new di-rections we also seek people with the courage to tackle intense experiences

If you are interested in coming for any length of time please email :

edmundpage@hotmail.com

We are promoting a guest house in both Kampala and Nairobi for visi-tors £9 per night includes full-board, clothes washing and hot run-ning water

For more information email:

edmundpage@hotmail.com

Post: Xavier Project

Furzey Hill, Meysey Hampton Cirencester, Glos, GL7 5LD, UK

Email: info@xavierproject.co.uk

Website: You can find us on our website www.xavierproject.co.uk

Twitter: Follow us on twitter @Tamuka Hub or @XavierProj for updates Facebook: Like our Xavier Project page on Facebook

Just Giving:: www.justgiving.com/

xavierproject

Direct Transfer:

Bank: Xavier Project

Account Number: 00021387

Sort Code: 40-52-40

Cheques: Please send cheques to the above

address made payable to ‘Xavier Project’

Fundraise: Whether it’s a lunch, sponsored run Cake sale, or just spreading our word to family and friends, all are greatly appreci-ated

Volunteer: Please see below for details on how to volunteer

Since the inception of the Xavier

Project we have been running with

the help of volunteers We are

ex-tremely grateful for their help

with the growth and development

of the project’s programmes Their

new ideas, excitement ,

enthusi-asm, and the assortment of

differ-ent skills are invaluable to our

project

We need people from all walks of

life that are as passionate and

committed as we are to make a

difference in the lives of others