Creating a model for sustainable, community-led connectivity
After refurbishing a connected community centre in Uganda’s Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, UNHCR and Hello World set about ensuring its users had what they needed to take ownership.
Connectivity can be a lifeline for people experiencing forced displacement — a way to access education, work opportunities, leisure, and services. For years, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has worked to ensure that refugees in Uganda are able to benefit from our connected world. While significant investment has been made in connectivity, connected infrastructure, and individual aspects of digital inclusion, efforts to bring these different threads together have often fallen short.
So, in 2023, with the support of the Government of the Netherlands through its PROSPECTS Opportunity Fund, UNHCR sought to address these gaps through a multifaceted approach: revitalizing an existing connected community centre in Bidibidi refugee settlement, establishing a community-based management structure for the facility, and providing digital skills trainings to the centre’s users to enhance access to digital livelihoods.
Implemented by Hello World in collaboration with partners Imagine Her and Roke Telkom, this project has not only repurposed existing infrastructure to advance the digital inclusion of refugees, it has also tested forward-thinking sustainability models, reached more than a thousand community members, and delivered critical lessons to inform UNHCR and partners’ ongoing connectivity efforts.
Creating space to connect
Bidibidi, in Uganda’s northwest, is home to nearly 200,000 people — some of the millions displaced from South Sudan after violence erupted there in 2016, in addition to more recent arrivals from Sudan. In 2019, a community ICT centre was built in Village 10 of the settlement’s Zone 1, but fell into disrepair due to funding shortfalls. Rather than build a new facility, UNHCR and Hello World sought to capitalize on existing infrastructure. Over just one week in October 2023, an extensive renovation — including structural work, repainting, solar light installation, and updated tech infrastructure — was completed.
The speed of construction was due, in part, to the enthusiastic collaboration of community members, who also chose the facility’s new name: The Wahda ICT Centre. A newly constructed ‘Hello Hub’ — an additional, solar-powered connectivity hub — was also established. These two facilities, with different layouts and use cases, ensured the community had more, and more diverse, spaces to get connected.
Once reopened, the centre welcomed 120 people per week, on average — with a remarkable 9 in 10 users visiting more than twice a week, primarily for education and communication. Almost 1,000 refugee and host community members, in total, made use of the facility in the final three months of 2023.
Alex Mujuro, a secondary school student working on a physics project, was among these users. “I really appreciate … this free internet service that is helping me do my research,” Alex said. “This is helping me improve on my studies.”
One evening, primary school teacher Pricia Ezerida was using the facility to work toward furthering her education qualifications. On another night, Oyena Ajalia, a staff member of the International Rescue Committee, came to the centre after her cell data ran out while she was trying to file a report. “I was under pressure but when I thought of the hub my heart immediately settled, because the free internet here has saved me,” she said.
Building digital skills
A baseline digital skills assessment conducted at the start of the project discovered a pressing need in the community for basic digital skills training. Over the three-month project, Hello World trained 80 participants in basic computer use, achieving a gender balance and ensuring people living with physical and mental disabilities were able to benefit from these essential skills.
The training included both foundational capabilities — turning on a device, typing, accessing the internet — and more complex competencies, like setting up and using an email, staying safe online, and creating a CV using Microsoft Word. Feedback from participants following their training indicated a strong desire for further digital skills education, with demand for available trainings often incredibly high.
One training participant reflected: “My whole life has changed. The fear I had even to go and look for a job has worn out, because I already have the needed skills.” Another participant, a high-school graduate, noted that her newfound typing proficiency made her excited to engage in online learning.
Developing community ownership
From the outset, the project aimed to ensure the community took full ownership of the ICT centre. During the collaborative set-up, a community management committee was formed and a sustainability plan was developed by the community in collaboration with Hello World.
That plan sets out the following provisions:
- The centre will be managed by the community management committee. Where necessary, the committee will be supported by a local NGO and Hello World.
- Revenue to cover costs will be generated by charging community members for printing and computer skills training, and by renting the space out to organizations for events and meetings.
- The cost of these services will be determined by the committee, with reference to local alternatives.
- The committee will meet regularly to ensure ongoing oversight of the centre. Committee members will be re-elected every two years.
The centre will soon be transitioning from Hello World management to full control by the committee. Explaining Hello World’s ethos, CEO and Founder Katrin McMillan says:
“We know communities can — and should — take ownership of their digital futures. Too often communities are excluded from designing and owning digital inclusion programmes. Refugee communities have been central to our solution and the success of our work at Hello World. By fostering collaboration and community ownership from the outset, we ensure that initiatives like the Wahda ICT Centre thrive long after our direct involvement. This approach not only builds local capacity but also guarantees the sustainability of these vital resources. The results have been remarkable.”
Learning in response to challenges
This project encountered challenges on various fronts. Initial access to the site required intensive consultations, security concerns meant a dedicated guard had to be contracted, cultural and contextual factors made it challenging to achieve a gender balance in participants, high demand from the community meant additional resources could have enabled more needs to be met, and securing stakeholders’ support for the community-managed sustainability plan was not smooth sailing.
These challenges were primarily addressed through extensive engagement with community members. This rigorous, ongoing conversation enabled the initiative to overcome barriers and move toward its goal, with the buy-in of the people using and running the facility. Key learnings included:
- Directly addressing barriers is key to ensuring the inclusion of women and girls: When the project initially struggled to achieve a gender balance in trainees, the reasons for this were discussed with the community. The specific access challenges identified were then addressed directly, by, for example, organizing training times around women’s schedules and offering childcare during the sessions.
- Collaborating with the community at every step of the way is essential: The project’s success was broadly attributed to its focus on community engagement. This included, among other approaches, involving local leaders in the planning process and using inclusive recruitment practices for training sessions. Engaging stakeholders from even earlier in the process could potentially have smoothed some of the start-up challenges.
Opportunities to apply these insights are already on the horizon. In 2024, Hello World will be launching additional connectivity-focused operations. Meanwhile, UNHCR — alongside diverse partners, including refugee-led organizations — will be amplifying its efforts in both connectivity and digital employment, with both areas identified as strategic priorities of the Innovation Service. These efforts will draw on the lessons from Uganda, particularly regarding the importance of community engagement and sustainability planning.
Read more about UNHCR’s digital livelihoods work here and about the Connectivity for Refugees multistakeholder initiative here.
