Refugees Get Freedom, Right to Work, and Farmland in Uganda’s Open-Arms Policy

Uganda has not only been welcoming refugees fleeing war in South Sudan with open arms – but is also giving them opportunities to build houses and grow food in a goal to help them better sustain themselves.

The nation has 1.4 million refugees, according to the United Nations refugee agency, and is giving the incoming South Sudanese a plot of land to build on in the large settlement in Bidi Bidi, as well as freedom of movement and the right to work.

Ugandan farmers have also been helping in a rare cooperation between locals and refugees: they lend out plots of land to farm on, sometimes only requesting a share of the harvest in return – an empathetic gesture by many who were once refugees themselves.

“He (the landlord) didn’t even ask for money from me,” says refugee farmer Emily Bronte. “He said that during the Ugandan war, they (Ugandans) ran to South Sudan and that in the place where he settled, the people helped him.”