Community Empowerment for Creative Innovation – CECI Uganda

Community Empowerment for Creative Innovation (CECI) is a non-profit, refugee-led organization founded in 2017 to promote peace, self-reliance, and dignity among refugee communities in Northern Uganda. Through innovative programs focused on peacebuilding, education, livelihood, and environmental sustainability, CECI equips refugees, particularly youth, women, and girls, with the necessary tools to prevent, reduce and transform conflicts, build resilience, and rebuild livelihoods for a peaceful and self-reliant community.

Community Empowerment for Creative Innovation (CECI Uganda) is a Refugee-led Community-based Organization founded in May 2017 to address ethnic cleavages, conflict tensions, and other challenges refugees face, such as poverty, unemployment, and cultural intolerance. We prevent, reduce, and transform violent conflicts in refugee communities through locally-led innovations in peacebuilding, education, livelihood, and environment driven by local needs. We empower youth, women, and girls with the tools to build resilience, prevent conflicts, rebuild livelihoods, and participate actively in local leadership, peacebuilding, and development.

Since then, CECI Uganda has been working with over 58,524 youth and youth to stop violence and increase social cohesion in refugees and host communities in West Nile, Uganda. We campaigned against all forms of hate speech and incitement to violence and provided community-based and data-driven solutions to the problem of hate speech, disinformation, and misinformation. We have also strengthened local peace structures to respond to and prevent conflicts, rebuilt the livelihoods of 5,951 youth, women and girls, increased their safety and wellbeing, and improved access to education for over 5000 children.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in Uganda, CECI Uganda was one of the first responders to the COVID-19 crisis in refugee settlements, mobilizing resources, spearheading public health awareness, increasing access to online education and personal protective equipment, and providing livelihood support, reaching over 9389 children, youth, women, the elderly, and people with disabilities in 2020 alone.

Today, CECI Uganda‘s services have expanded to benefit 147,098 refugees and hosts in Koboko, Yumbe, and Obongi districts, leveraging the power of creative and collaborative efforts to address and assist refugees in adapting to the effects of COVID-19, recovering better, and building resilience for a more equal, sustainable, and healthier community. We increase their access to education, financial resources, knowledge, and skills in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, business, technology, entrepreneurship, and vocational training.