Keiko’s Story, Uganda
Keiko with South Sudanese refugee children she looks after in Adjumani District in northern Uganda. Photo by UNHCR/2014.
Many young adults and children that I work with have witnessed horrendous war and conflict and experienced tragedies in their home country. Whether you are a refugee or a humanitarian worker, home is a place where you can seek safety, comfort, love and support. Being displaced from home means losing this protection and the support of people who protected you from harm and danger. Many young adults and children I meet are in constant search of a home, a place where they can find safety and comfort and build a new life.
As a Community Services officer I help refugees to create a protection space that they can call home. I help young refugees and children develop and strengthen their groups and develop their leadership skills. I help them to plan and carry out activities that improve the well-being of all group members. Together we craft their great ideas and initiatives into actual activities that will be the building blocks for the world they wish to live in.
Most of the young refugees I engage with are not going to school. They feel lost in their lives and search for an answer to their hardships and challenges. Yet I have witnessed and continue to be amazed by young people’s resilience, by their struggle to survive, and their determination to go the extra mile to help and support others who experience similar or worse situations. It really is a privilege to work with these young people who inspire me in every courageous step they have taken to make a change in their lives and the lives of those people they care for.
I grew up without knowing wars. The time I was born and raised in Japan was the era of high economic growth with few remnants of the Second World War. However, my parents’ stories about fleeing home from bombings during the war and the extreme poverty they experienced in childhood and in the aftermath of the war, always reminds me of the importance of the work that I do with displaced people.
My parents survived the war, rebuilt their lives, and created the place called home for their family and themselves. Working with displaced people for me is a reaffirmation of the inner strength and resilience that I saw in my parents. It is a truly rewarding opportunity to work with displaced people; they continue to give humanitarian workers and the world hope for restoring peace. The change that they will bring about in their lives and the lives of others inspire us as humanitarian workers to continue to contribute to humanitarian relief and community empowerment.
Keiko Odashiro
Associate Community Services Officer
UNHCR Kampala, Uganda
