Ann Le, PhD Candidate

Director

Social Ecology

annjl@uci.edu

Refugee households of up to 16 family members are expected to subsist on small 30 m x 30 m plots – an insurmountable challenge further compounded by poor-quality soil, the unpredictable effects of climate change and poor information service provision.

These structural barriers, coupled with recurrent funding cuts to essential food aid programs, have made it difficult for refugee households to produce and consume food at a survival level.  The pervasive lack of opportunities for income generation, coupled with food shortages, has prompted a rise in unstable and casualized labor, transactional sex, child labor, early and child marriage and other crisis coping mechanisms across refugee camps.

To address present community needs, refugees within the Bidibidi Refugee Camp, founded a Ugandan non-profit organization called Sina Loketa (SINAL), which has been leading programs in areas of traditional music conservation, entrepreneurship, digital inclusion, livelihoods, sustainable agriculture and environmental management for local and refugee community members.

In collaboration with SINAL and the Playing for Change Foundation, our lab aims to assess the impact of skills training with low-cost geospatial information (GIS) technologies on livelihood outcomes in Bidibidi. This assessment will determine how group training with low-cost GIS technologies can be paired with existing music and arts programs to provide opportunities for sustained resilience, community building, storytelling, social network building, skill development and access to wage employment.

More information about our partner organizations can be found here and here. To learn more about Bidibidi through the work and voice of a refugee, click on the link