Nakivale (Uganda): the camp works to protect the rights of albinos

The Uganda Union of People Living with Albinism organized awareness sessions in schools in Nakivale camp for the protection of the rights of albino children. For albinos, this training comes at the right time.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

At the Nakivale camp in Uganda, albinos are regularly subject to verbal and physical attacks. Some children are forced to drop out of school, while adults no longer dare to go to villages to do daily work like others.

“The Source of the Nile Union of Persons with Albinism (SNUPA)”, or Union of People Living with Albinism in Uganda, then organized awareness sessions in schools in Nakivale camp to break the myth.

“Albinos are people like others, they have the same rights as others. Their children must study and be encouraged to sit in the front seats in class because they have vision problems,” officials of the organization indicated to teachers in primary and secondary schools.

Kashojwa Primary School which has many children with albinism was chosen as a pilot school.

Educators welcome the initiative, saying that many of them were unaware of cases of albinism, while others did not pay more attention to this disability. They also plead for the return to school of children in this category who have dropped out.

The organization took the opportunity to pay school fees and uniforms for eight albino children out of the total of around twenty who are in school at the Nakivale camp. It is committed to advocating for others.

Awareness sessions are also planned for the protection of the rights of albinos in churches, mosques and other communities in the camp, according to the Union of People Living with Albinism in Uganda.

Today, the Nakivale camp has 49 albinos from 27 families. They include the Burundian, Congolese, Sudanese, Somali and even Rwandan communities who live in Nakivale.
Nakivale is the largest camp in Uganda which shelters more than 140,000 refugees including more than 33,000 Burundians.

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Des albinos reçoivent de l’aide de la part d’une association locale au camp de Nakivale, août 2021 ( SOS Médias Burundi)