The issues of the Northern Ugandan people have been suffering after more than 18 years of civil war. Many children have been affected by the displacement from the family homes as well as over 25,000 abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army.
In the northern Ugandan district of Kitgum, nearly two decades of ongoing civil and tribal conflicts have devastated the region’s population. Many people have been killed, abducted, or forced into fighting. Those left behind end up in refugee camps where they live in fear and have little promise for a better future. Children and teenagers are the most vulnerable, as access to quality healthcare and education is scarce.
Amidst this despair, however, hope is on the horizon for the village of Agoro, with a population of 16,500. It is coming not in the form of large foreign aid or intervention, but support from online volunteers to the Agoro Community Development Association (ACDA), a community-based organization established by the local government in 2001. The aim of this collaboration is to increase the association’s capacity to empower the community’s residents, especially youth, through education.
ACDA’s engagement with online volunteers started in 2003 through its affiliation with RESPECT International, a Canadian NGO that links refugee communities with a network of online volunteers from the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme’s Online Volunteering (OV)
service. RESPECT and online volunteers work together to increase awareness of refugee issues by connecting non-refugee and refugee students and by raising funds and materials to assist schools serving refugee populations.
About 90% of Uganda's population live in rural areas and depend on agriculture to earn a living. Most of these rural people are impoverished with an annual income of less than $200. Many of the refugees have been unable to return to their homes
