Nicholas Ngota’s dream of becoming a journalist seemed to to be
coming true when he got a job as a young reporter and anchor at a local
radio station in South Sudan’s Kajukeji village in Yei River
State.
State.
The
opportunity to get a platform to practise what he had always wanted to
do since his early secondary school days, had finally presented itself.
“I
wanted to practise the profession at the highest level and maybe become
a correspondent for one of the international news agencies. I said to
myself that if I ever made it there, I would have made it in life,” the
tall, muscular 24-year-old Ngota says with a smile on his face.
His
dream was, however, cut short by the second breakout of the civil war
in 2016 when a power-sharing deal between President Salva Kiir and his
Dr Riek Machar failed.
President Kiir had earlier in
2013 sacked Dr Machar as first deputy president, accusing him and 10
others of planning a coup, plunging the world’s youngest country into a
war that has seen over a million refugees flee into neighbouring
countries.
Ngota is just one of those who in 2016 came and settled in Rhino camp’s Siripi settlement in Uganda’s district of Arua.
Ethnic dimension
Ngota’s
plight worsened when the war, which had already taken on a distinctly
ethnic dimension reached his home town, which had until then been
peaceful.
In a statement in November 2016, the head of
the UN Commission of Human Rights in the country, Yasmin Sooka, at the
end of a visit noted that there was a steady process of ethnic cleansing
underway in several areas of South Sudan using starvation, gang rape
and the burning of villages. The government dismissed the allegations.
Ngota
said government forces raided villages, tortured and killed people in
the night and reporting about such incidents became risky for
journalists like him.
“Most of the roads started
sporting roadblocks. You would wake up to find the dead body of a friend
you talked to only last night,” he said sinking his face in his palms.
“When
we reported about it, we got numerous threats of arrest and for those
who were arrested; the chances of survival were minimal.”
The
decision to leave the country came when he became a wanted man after
reading about a group of people killed by government soldiers, who were
burnt using plastics to stoke the flames.
For about two weeks, with his younger brother and sister, they trekked to Uganda, leaving their parents behind. To this day, they have not communicated with them.
“We were not used to sleeping like this. We used to have enough food, but we lost all our property, clothes… everything,” he says.
For about two weeks, with his younger brother and sister, they trekked to Uganda, leaving their parents behind. To this day, they have not communicated with them.
“We were not used to sleeping like this. We used to have enough food, but we lost all our property, clothes… everything,” he says.
Skills development
Now
Ngota, the former journalist, is pursuing a six-month course in
catering at the youth skills development centre in Siripi camp, a new
career he hopes will help him turn around his fortunes and also fend for
his siblings.
Ngota is one of the 100 students
studying vocational skills at the centre, which teaches mainly
tailoring, catering, welding and building construction to refugees and
students from the host community.
The enthusiasm at the
school is evident in the classrooms; the busy students are so intent on
their curriculum they even fail to notice a new entrant.
“Sometimes, we have to remind some that it is lunchtime,” an instructor said.
Even
in courses like carpentry, welding and building construction, which
many would see as appealing to only men, you will find female students
like 22-year-old Lucy Lenia.
Gunmen, arsonists
Siripi
centre is run by German NGO Welthungerhilfe and received funding from
Belgium’s Enabel through the $6.5 million European Union Trust Fund for
Africa’s support programme for refugee settlements in northern Uganda.
The fund is designed to support 70 per cent refugees and 30 per cent of the host community.
Most
of the refugee students are former professionals in different fields
and business people but because of the new challenges life threw at
them.
They are all trying out something new in order to
either survive in the shortrun or approach life after the camp with a
new skills set.
Take 25-year-old Joseph Lomoro for
example, a father of two who back in Langa, Central Equatorial, used to
import merchandise for a wholesale shop he jointly owned with his
brother with whom he escaped to Uganda.
As the war
raged on, their lives came under threat when gunmen looted their shop
and on several occasions tried to kidnap one of them for ransom.
Finally, their premises were destroyed by a suspected arsonist.
Under
the tree where the carpentry class is holding a practical lesson on
this hot afternoon, Mr Lomoro is sawing a piece of wood with a serious
look on his face.
“This is all I can do now. During the
war, we lost a business that was worth $25,000 and here we are with
nothing completely. I cannot just sit in the camp when there is an
opportunity to learn something new that could help me,” he says.
While
his brother, who too has a wife and two children, does not seem to have
woken up to their newfound reality, Mr Lomoro says that given the
reduced food rations provided by the UN World Food Programme, they may
not be able to feed their families if the situation does not change for
the better.
With a small start-up kit promised at the
end of the course by the centre, Mr Lomoro does not think he will return
to their wholesaling business because “it is impossible to start
again.”
He has made up his mind to start off by making
or repairing furniture for people in the camp until peace is restored in
his homeland.
Imminent return
Whereas
the initial employment opportunity for the Siripi students is the camp
itself and neighbouring towns, many hope that the skills they learn will
be a starting point when they return home.
According to Geoffrey Droma the principal of the centre, most of his former students work in neighbouring towns after industrial training.
“We follow up on them when they go for industrial training at private enterprises in other towns. A large number of them are retained. Others work in groups like the tailors and construction, offering their skills in the camps,” Mr Droma said.
Even with the South Sudanese warring factions agreeing to a ceasefire and signing yet another power-sharing agreement last month, most of these who have worked here are not yet willing to return home until the situation stabilises.
According to Geoffrey Droma the principal of the centre, most of his former students work in neighbouring towns after industrial training.
“We follow up on them when they go for industrial training at private enterprises in other towns. A large number of them are retained. Others work in groups like the tailors and construction, offering their skills in the camps,” Mr Droma said.
Even with the South Sudanese warring factions agreeing to a ceasefire and signing yet another power-sharing agreement last month, most of these who have worked here are not yet willing to return home until the situation stabilises.
Pursuit of excellence
Mr
Ngota, for example, is no longer interested in doing journalism, saying
he does not expect the situation for journalists like him to get any
better.
He wants to excel in his new field of study, hospitality.
He wants to excel in his new field of study, hospitality.
“They
will still be looking for journalists to silence, so I do not think of
going back now. I want to work here, make some money and when I have
enough and realise the situation is okay back home, my siblings and I
will go back and maybe I will open a restaurant,” he says.
Mr
Lomoro too does not plan to revive his wholesale business any more. He
believes that it would take a lot of time and money, which he does not
have, to build the kind and size of enterprise he and his brother owned.
He
has opted for carpentry but first, he has to master his art here in
Uganda and will not move back home yet, for “war could still break out.”
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