2020 UGANDA - The team head to Rwamwanja refugee camp

As a refugee who fled at the age of 10 from DR.Congo, I understand the obstacles refugee children and adults pass through when arriving in a new community like Uganda. It hurts a lot knowing that you once had a place to call home but one day you wake up and find that home is no longer home. Your dreams are interrupted which forces you to run and seek shelter where a different language is spoken but where you run to you are given shelter, not a home. All these remains in the minds and eyes of these helpless children. This is why I joined World at Play, to deliver sports and play to the refugee children and adults in Rwamwanja refugee camp.

A project like World at Play is a life changing experience for the refugees in Rwamwanja. I believe and have witnessed that sport is the best tool to bring people together. Sport is a language spoken by all communities. After a week of training from WAP at Red Chilli I went to Rwamwanja refugee camp with my team. The next day we went to meet the children to work with. To my surprise when some of the children saw us in the World at Play T-shirt, they started singing some of the songs taught to them by the previous 2019 team. I believed that they were happy to see and meet us again. The children sang “Bumalaka-chigalaka, bumalaka bumalaka -chigalaka chigalaka, bumalaka bumalaka bumalaka bumbumbumbumbumbum-chigalaka chigalaka chigalaka chigalaka chichichichichichii…

Mingle-mingle mingle mingle mingle mingle ………………”

When these songs went on being sang by the children I was like “yes yes yes yes!” and also realised that World at Play isn’t just providing sports and play sessions but also giving home to these children. When I say home I mean being able to smile and be free from thoughts of past bad experiences of life. When you have a home (a space to think positively and negatively from) what comes into mind is like I want to be a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, a politician. All this is what sport is about.

After a week of providing  play sessions to the refugees in Rwamwanja and constant reflections on each session every evening, a week ended up in a huge success to me, the team and all the beneficiaries. Each day I exchanged with either a child or adult, I kept on receiving questions like when are you coming back? I replied, we are here for 6 weeks which means we shall come back and play with you again. When I received this question constantly I believed that my decision to volunteer with World at Play was worth anything.

#WAP 2020

 By Mayele Josh