Pagirinya and Rwamwanja refugees find saving grace in football 

At the age of 15, Yannick Nowa Longolongo witnessed armed militants break into their home in Beni.

This is in one of the 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) known as South Kivu, whose capital is Bukavu. This is not far away from the border point with Uganda on the western side. But while the militants were inside Longolongo’s home, they asked his father, to give them $30,000. Longolongo’s father was a businessman trading in gold. But at the time of the break-in, he only had $5,000.

Unsatisfied with his explanation, the militants shot him in the chest, before they did the same to his wife, right in front of Longolongo and his eight siblings. As they watched their parents bleed out and breathe their last, Longolongo’s 17-year-old sister was also being gang-raped by another group of the militants from the same troop.

Such was the horror the village lived on a daily; the insecurity in their village had reached boiling point. Once the militants were on their way, headed to possibly another home to wreak similar havoc, Longolongo and his siblings headed to the bushes amidst heavy shelling and gunshots.

Home was no longer safe, as there were bodies lying by the roadside, too, Longolongo recalls. So, together with his siblings, Longolongo decided to jump onto one of the trucks that were headed to Uganda. He remembers that there were probably 700 people crammed in the trucks.

All were escaping the brutality that was taking place in Bukavu, hence becoming refugees in Rwamwanja, Kamwenge district from January 2016. Life can really be difficult when one is uprooted from their home. From new surroundings, different language, culture, food and, above all, becoming an adult before your time in order to sustain oneself, life of a refugee is never a walk in the park.

It even gets worse when one has to contend with the trauma of losing loved ones, as Longolongo experienced. It can easily result in mental health problems. Yet, after all that Longolongo, who is aged 22 now, has lived through, he has overcome the agony and started on the journey of building a future for himself and his siblings here in Uganda.

At the time of the unrest in Bukavu, Longolongo was heading to what is the equivalent of senior four in the DRC. But he was unable to continue with his formal schooling in Rwamwanja settlement because of the responsibilities he carried, to try and see that he and his siblings survived.

He learnt how to be a mason on building sites within the settlement and the surrounding host communities. From the building projects, he earned some money that supplemented the rations from World Vision, an NGO that helps in humanitarian causes.

BEAUTIFUL GAME TO THE RESCUE

However, he also loved football to bits. As a young boy, he admired defenders Sergio Ramos of Spain and Thiago Silva of Brazil because of their game intelligence and technique. As a refugee, Longolongo did not see how his football dream would be realized, but the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (Jica) in Uganda has passionately been involved in refugee work here for a protracted period.

Jica has widely focused on how to create opportunities for refugees in Uganda so that they can also enjoy a sustainable future. So, through Jica’s connections with Soltilo Bright Stars, a Uganda Premier League side owned by Japanese football legend Keisuke Honda, they started football clinics in Rwamwanja, where refugees were given football training, as both players and coaches.

Longolongo was one of the first beneficiaries, and the training organized by Jica has seen his game grow significantly. He plays in the regional league (third tier of Ugandan football) for Kawunge town council football club. And with his side lying fifth on the 12-team log, he carries hope that they will secure promotion to the Fufa Big League, which is the second tier of the Uganda football pyramid.

At his football club, Longolongo is able to earn at least Shs 30,000 ($9) every week to supplement his other earnings.

“I feel Jica has been a real godsend for many of us, because I do not only play football, but the fact that they provided me with a platform to interact with the Bright Stars coaches, I now coach in an academy with kids under 12. I make some extra money from that, too,” Longolongo said.

Notably, it is not only Longolongo who sees a bright future ahead because of Jica’s intervention.

GIRLS UNITED IN FOOTBALL

Up north is the Pagirinya refugee settlement in Adjumani. It hosts thousands of refugees from South Sudan. One of those is Makpwe Anzo, 37, who moved to Pagirinya in 2016 after heightened tensions in South Sudan. But after arriving in Pagirinya, there was little activity for them, Anzo recalls. This pushed a number of young girls into early pregnancies.

“Defilement cases were very rampant because of the redundancy,” Anzo said. Beyond schools, which, because of the circumstances also took some time to be set, Anzo felt they needed to do more to protect the girls especially.

Matters started making sense when Jica (Bright Stars) set foot in Pagirinya, providing the young girls with an opportunity to play football in 2021. Now, they are in their hundreds, and because of how football brings people together, anti-social behaviours have been tamed significantly, according to Anzo.

More importantly, though, this has been a platform that has boosted the confidence of many. Consy Maridio, 20, was part of the Pagirinya girls football team that took part in the Tokyo International Conference for African Development (Ticad) sponsored football tournament in 2022 and 2023, that was held at the Fufa Technical Centre in Njeru.

Maridio said: “This tournament provided us with an opportunity to play competitive sport for the first time against better players. Yes, we lost our games, but we also learnt a lot, which can enable us improve, to become the top players in women’s football that we dream of.”

According to Gladys Mazira, 19, by meeting their peers from Kampala, Jinja and Fort Portal, for example, they have made contacts, who
can be the gateway to success in future.

Manna Kongkong 20 added: “Learning life skills, such as indigenous languages is another positive that can help us succeed in these parts.”

Kongkong, who proved to be a good goal scorer, believes that her skills can easily get her an academic scholarship in one of the top girls football schools in the country. So, she is striving and training hard, preparing to seize the opportunity whenever it arises. Her coach Anzo is not in any doubt that with more resources and sports equipment, the girls in Pagirinya can strike gold in future.

Matthew Crentsil, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) country representative, noted: “It is nice to see how warm Ugandans are towards refugees. They do not only enable them feel at home by settling into the surroundings, but they also enable them to lead a normal life like ordinary citizens without any discrimination.”

The state of peaceful co-existence between refugees and natives is clearly the mantra to a successful society. Mathias Rukira, 37, and Eric Mirimo, 32, started an NGO in Rwamwanja known as Tomorrow Vijana, which literally means Youth of Tomorrow. Its programme ensures that more and more refugees get education by teaching them how to speak English, get computer skills and book and record- keeping skills, on top of providing insight on enterprise.

For Rukira and Mirimo, they also use this platform to train refugees in the local dialects like Rutooro, Luganda and Runyankore. Beyond that, they also engage in projects of conserving the environment, tree planting and crop production, as avenues through which the refugees can earn a living, but also work hand in hand with the hosting communities.

While Longolongo and his refugee colleague, Allan Katabana, 31, with whom they aspire to reach the top of Uganda’s football pyramid, feel the future is promising, certain things are still holding them back.

Without a national ID, they cannot play in the top league, as is a requirement. For now, the young men strive against the odds to overcome trauma and not let what happened in their home villages limit their destinies.

jovi@observer.ug