From Relying on Food Rations to Growing Acres of Food

Robert John is a 29-year-old South Sudanese Refugee currently settled in Imvepi Refugee Settlement in Terego district, West Nile Sub-region of Uganda. Married with four children, Robert also lives with 12 other dependents, including his mother, sisters, and brothers. They fled their home in Torit County, Eastern Equatoria State, in 2017 when war broke out.

In the settlements, Robert, and his household of 16 members were mainly surviving on food assistance given by WFP. Even though the food assistance was inadequate to sustain his household for the intended period, they would still sell part of it to raise some little money to meet other pressing needs. The situation was worsened with a 40% reduction in food ratio by WFP.

The turnaround for Robert was in February 2021 when Oxfam advertised an opportunity to offer Vocational skills training to participants from zone one of Imvepi Refugee settlement. Robert applied for an opportunity to get trained in Agriculture.

He went through successfully and was taken to Lodonga Polytechnique institute for three months’ training in horticulture. Upon completing the training, he received a set of start-up kits comprising a Knapsack sprayer, Tomato and Onion seeds, a hoe, gumboots, and pesticides. On return to the settlement, through his friend from the host community whom he had met at the institute, he built rapport with other members of the host community and was able to get land totalling to two acres to use temporarily for farming.

Robert is currently growing ¼ acre of tomatoes, ¼ acre of Eggplants, an acre of maize, ¼ acre of cabbages, and ¼ acre of Sesame. He anticipates earning a good amount of money that will enable him to construct and establish a retail business that will greatly help his community. He also expects to scale up the farming with more specialization on the high-value crops for improved income.

Robert is no longer worried about the food insecurity of his household and appreciates Oxfam so much for the support.

Prepared by Jasper Ocen. EFSVL assistant, Oxfam - Imvepi field office

Oxfam in Uganda, with funding from Oxfam IBIS, has been implementing an Emergency Food Security and Vulnerable Livelihoods ( EFSVL) project within and around Imvepi and Omugo zone of Rhino camp refugee settlement in West Nile sub-region. The project is titled Enhancing youth entrepreneurship and employability skills for sustainable livelihoods in refugee and host communities, West Nile, Uganda. The project seeks to empower vulnerable South Sudan refugee youth to have sustainable access to employment opportunities and dignified livelihoods. the project is a continuity of Oxfam’s previous intervention to introduce livelihood support programs, enabling refugees and host communities to rebuild their productive assets and enhance their entrepreneurship aspirations.