By Patty Huston-Holm
Catherine Nafula knows a lot about refugee settlements in Uganda, which, with 1.5 million immigrants, is one of the largest evacuee-hosting nations in the world. Her knowledge is greatest about the two largest areas in Northern Uganda – Bidi Bidi and Rhino, the latter of which she has set foot in more times than she can count. 

As the Arua-area district coordinator for an Italian-based, non-profit called Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVIS), she assesses Rhino camp services, needs and progress and recommends improvements. Rhino, established in 1980 with refugees from multiple countries, strives to make residents self-supporting through jobs such as baking, tailoring, raising goats or producing crops. 

Nafula comes to her position armed with a Uganda Christian University (UCU) School of Social Sciences bachelor’s degree in development studies and a UCU Honors College Diploma in Christian Leadership while currently working on a master’s degree in Public Health Leadership-Save the Mothers through the UCU Faculty of Public Health, Nursing and Midwifery. Her master’s research topic is “The Association between Resilience and Perceived Pregnancy-Related Stress Among Pregnant Refugee Adolescent Girls in Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement, Northwestern Uganda.” 

The AVSI foundation’s “graduation to resilience” focus is embedded in 355 projects in 42 countries with the single biggest emphasis in Uganda, mostly to help refugees. 

“I am grateful to share my story because it’s not just mine,” Nafula said. “I believe in a strong message of hope.”

Nafula knows that the majority of the around 146,000 Rhino residents are there because of fear for their lives in a war of tribal and political differences and, in the case of women and girls, genocidal rape. Many have considered suicide and are angry after witnessing family and friends killed in a place that they called home. 

Speaking in the morning of a late September weekend day off, Nafula acknowledged that the higher up the ladder she climbs, the less time she is in the settlement.  These days, the 36-year-old is in one of the seven zones of the Rhino settlement of mostly South Sudanese refugees two-to-three days a week. 

That said, she knows the Rhino operation well. 

Experience with Arua-area refugee settlements goes back to her UCU undergraduate days. A combination of relationships within the UCU Honors College and the Uganda Studies Program (USP) for North American college students landed her an internship with The Mango Project, which emphasizes nutrition and empowerment through processing, storing, eating and selling mango products. 

“I remember cooking and preserving mangoes and noticing an extremely malnourished 16-year-old girl,” Nafula said. “I was told she was sick, but medication wasn’t the cure for this child’s problem. She needed food.  After one month,  she was back on her feet. Seeing her healthy melted my heart. She needed knowledge about nutrition. I realized then that we can make differences one person at a time.”

Nafula credits several people for that early work experience and her achievement today. Among them were her American USP roommates, including Iowan Talitha Whitt and Mary Kate LeLoux of Minnesota, for the nudging: Texan Margaret Noblin for mentoring on CV development based on childhood talents;  and Dr. Micah Hughes, formerly with USP and a Mango Project co-founder and now with the Baltimore Urban Studies Program at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. 

“I grew up being very social and wanting to help others,” Nafula said.  “Many people helped me realize my path.”

From the onset, Nafula knew of the need and problems for those leaving South Sudan. While Sudan’s civil war strife is known worldwide in 2024, many have the perception of normalcy in South Sudan, which became the world’s newest country in 2011. The awareness of the conflict between Africa’s Dinkas and Nuer tribes in South Sudan is less familiar. One reason the two clans commit violence against each other is money – often squabbles over land and cattle. Such disputes cause people to run and hide until, in hunger and anguish, they end up crossing the border to a Ugandan settlement. 

Once in the camp, the tribes are separated until they are able to coexist. They are helped to resolve the hate, to put violent acts seen and known behind them and understand they share a reason to be there for a better life than they had back home. 

One success story Nafula recounted from Rhino involves Rose Night of South Sudan. Suffering from a disability, Rose has been nevertheless successful because of a tailoring skill she learned in an AVSI-rural employment services project funded by the International Labour Organisation PROSPECTS program. She received a startup kit to start her journey to self-reliance. Now Rose has her own business and four goats while training five youths and supporting three children. 

‘’Rose is a true reflection of hope to the world,” Nafula said.  “Seeing her excel puts a smile to my soul.’’

Nafula understands a life without perfection. She was born in eastern Uganda’s Busia area, grew up in nearby Mbale and attended primary and secondary school in Iganga, another district in eastern Uganda. Her father died in 2015, leaving her mom,  Agnes Auma, to support her children as a peasant farmer, selling timber for building and for firewood. 

Despite finances, Nafula and her eight siblings all received a university education. 

“My family saw a nurse in me, but my biology and chemistry marks weren’t high,”  Nafula recalled. “I was late in completing S6, late to enrolling in a university, partly because my father was ill, may his soul rest in peace.”

Nafula is grateful to many, including her mother “for not giving up on me,” and all her siblings, especially a brother, Prof. Moses Okumu of Illinoi University, for “their love and support,” and AVSI Foundation, especially an AVSI mentor, John Makoha.

As Nafula earlier struggled with knowing her career plans, a woman named “Carol” from North Carolina, USA, visited Uganda with a Hope for Kids mission team. 

“She encouraged me to be creative and make African crafts from paper, beans and seeds,” Nafula said. “She took them back to the United States and sold my items, sending me the money.” 

With those funds and after some volunteer evangelical work, Nafula met a World Vision affiliate who suggested she get a counselor certificate from Nsamizi Training Institute for Social Development. She got that and a social work diploma before enrolling at UCU. 

“When you find your passion, you excel,” she said.  “Many people helped me to re-discover myself.  I want to give back and do that for others.”  

“The people of concern (i.e. settlement residents) suffer from  trauma and anxiety,” Nafula continued.  “With our skills and mentorship, we work to build their resilience to become self-reliant…we’re part of them. Unfortunately, there are not enough of us to support all of them fully.”

Nafula is daily driven by her Christian faith with special emphasis on the Bible’s Romans 5 referencing that suffering produces perseverance and character with hope. 

“Hope does not disappoint,” she said. “I’m grateful to God.  I look at this job not as work but as a faith-driven ministry.” 

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