A journey home: a young woman takes on sexual health in refugee settlements in Uganda

Danie is a young social entrepreneur working to improve girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights in refugee settlements in Uganda where she once called home. In this inspiring conversation with Jacqueline, one of CARE Canada’s Youth Champions, Danie breaks down the challenges these girls face in accessing contraception and education and the risks to their safety and security. She shares how TheIturian, the organization she founded, provides youth in refugee settlements — young mothers and pregnant girls in particular — with essential information and support using community-led approaches. Drawing on her experience as a young sexual and reproductive health advocate, Danie shares tips on how we all can make an impact. 

*SHE SOARS, funded by Global Affairs Canada, is the Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment Supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills project. Learn more at: https://care.ca/shesoarsproject

Episode transcripts are available in French and English at: care.ca/shesoars.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the SHE SOARS podcast are the speakers’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, standards and policies of CARE Canada. The SHE SOARS podcast is a youth-led initiative that provides space for young people to discuss global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights with the purpose of raising awareness in Canada. Listeners acknowledge that the material and information presented in the podcast are for informational purposes only and do not constitute advice or services. The podcast is for private, non-commercial use and speakers do not necessarily reflect any organization they work for.

Chapters

• 0:00 Danie's background and motivation
• 3:34 A fellowship leads to action
• 10:24 Refugee experience in Uganda
• 13:36 Sexual and reproductive health stigma
• 17:21 How to make an impact

Transcript

[00:00:00] Paniz: Hi, and welcome to SHE SOARS. Her voice. Her rights. 

[00:00:05] Jacqueline: We are CARE Canada's Youth Champions, a group of young people across Canada who are passionate advocates for Sexual and Reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

[00:00:13] Paniz: We're excited to discuss and raise awareness about young women's rights and choices in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. ​

[00:00:18] Jacqueline: Together, we will explore how these global issues connect to our lives as Canadian youth and discover ways in which we can all take action. 

[00:00:26] Paniz: We will also talk about the SHE SOARS project, which improves access to health and education, which are areas we want to see change in. Join us!

[00:00:33] Jacqueline: Hello everyone and welcome back to the SHE SOARS podcast. My name is Jacqueline. Today I am joined by a very special guest. Her name is Danie Mahirane. Danie is a social entrepreneur with a decade of leadership experience and a background in development and globalization. She is the founder and executive director of the TheIturian Organization, which is a nonprofit that uses a community-driven approach to strengthen resilience in refugee settlements, displaced person camps and host communities.

[00:01:08] Jacqueline: Her work focuses on developing locally tailored initiatives that raise awareness, foster dialogue for peace, and promote integration and inclusion. Danie also happens to be a dear friend of mine. We met during a one-year fellowship program through the Pathy Foundation, where we both had the opportunity to design and implement a community development initiative on a global issue that we are passionate about in a community that we are connected. So Welcome Danie to the SHE SOARS podcast. I would love for you to introduce yourself and share what sparked your passion for sexual and reproductive health, especially deciding to do your initiative in the refugee camp in Uganda. 

[00:01:54] Hello, everyone. My name is Danie Mahirane and I'm the founder of TheIturian. I was born in the first African war. I don't know if you've ever heard of that but it's the Congo War actually. So I was raised through the wars. The first thing you learn is how to adapt. It was a matter of survival.

[00:02:12] In Uganda, we have refugee settlements, which is very different from a refugee camp; they give you a space where you can build a house, which might not be a very durable, sustainable setting, but they will give you some tents where you can start your house, which might be just one bedroom for 10 people.

[00:02:29] When people came, some girls came alone so they had to be assigned to certain families quickly so that they can have a place or people to reach out to. On top of that, there was a lot happening behind the scenes. Some girls were getting pregnant, some girls were being raped, and there was no support. A sad reality I think when I was about 14 or 15 years-old, because there is this stigma attached to pregnancies out of wedlock, some girls opted to have secret abortions at home. 

[00:03:01] I lost two of my close friends. And since then, I thought, we should be doing something. Maybe if she was informed. Because at 13 years-old, you don't really know much about pregnancy, how to keep a child, or how to protect yourself. Girls have a right to contraception. We could start early on, teaching girls and boys, trying to inform people about contraceptives, family planning, healthy relationships and consent. I may not have the services you need, but I might give you information so that you can go get the services you need. 

[00:03:34] Jacqueline: You have such an incredible story and journey towards being an advocate for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Uganda. So Danie, would you be able to provide a brief summary about what initiatives the TheIturian has been working on?

[00:03:49] Danie: I got this opportunity with the Pathy Fellowship to live in my community again, Kyaka II, for nine months.

[00:03:54] I knew what I wanted to do. But somehow I felt limited. When it comes to the fellowship, I did not only get support, but I got mentors who I could reach out to when I'm confused and when I think I don't understand a certain topic. It provided a new family of resources so that I could get access easily to information because information is key. You might not have the knowledge but as long as you have the information you can build your knowledge. So this is how we started from a one person thing to now a six person thing here in Canada. Then we have a huge community of sisters. 

[00:04:32] The active initiatives right now, there is Sasa-RDC initiative, and there is Survivor Victim initiative. We target young mothers and pregnant girls who are under 18 years-old. Some of them did not even know that they had to ask questions when it comes to their reproductive health.

[00:04:48] Some of them are unplanned pregnancies. Some of them are married at 14 years-old or 15 years-old. So because of that, with Sasa-RDC initiative, the first thing we do is train girls on sexual and reproductive health, how going forward they could protect themselves and how they could take decisions for their own lives. That's number one. We raise awareness.

[00:05:10] The second one, after giving birth, they still have to take care of their children until the age of two because there is no daycare system or early childhood programs in the refugee settlements. So we try to provide them with income-generated activities, which could be small businesses or putting them into groups so that they can try to start a small business. We give the seed fund and then going from there, they can start saving for themselves.

[00:05:34] The third one, we realize many girls, even though they're pregnant, they still dream of going back to school. In refugee settlements in Uganda, there is a big budget cut. Those girls don't have books and they lack uniforms. Some of them have given birth and their children are already two years-old. They need to go back to school but they can't afford it. We ended up sending girls to school, which was a really great privilege I had to witness. 

[00:05:57] And for those girls who think like they cannot go back to school, we ask them, is there a practical skill you would like to learn? There are training centers but they are not for free. So for these girls, we try to clear admission fees and training fees in order for them to get knowledge, like in hairdressing, tailoring, even to learn about how they can use computers. Learning a skill not only helps you now; in the future, you can be economically sustainable and not only help yourself but you will help your family too.

[00:06:29] The other one, we call it the youth and community initiative, that's when we reach out to parents. We try to reach out to boys to have a discussion where we can brainstorm on ways to make our community better. When it comes to sexual and reproductive health, what is your role as a father? What is your role as a brother, a boyfriend, a husband? When it comes to sexual and reproductive health, who are you in this initiative? I was humbled when I saw young people reacting to it. They were trying to know more about it. This initiative is active in Uganda. It is ongoing.

[00:07:00] And there is Survivor Victim initiative. These are children, survivors of rape. Some of them have not dealt yet with the trauma that they went through. And with these girls, it’s a big stigma, like everyone knows about you and instead of addressing you by your name, they can easily just say ‘this girl who was raped.’ So for these girls, we try to see how we can support them because they drop out of school and hide themselves.

[00:07:25] They run away from the communities. Sometimes they go look for jobs, which might be like total slavery just for them to hide away from the community. With the Survivor Victim initiative, we reference them to our local authorities so that they can get some other help that we cannot offer, for example, psychological support. Other than that, we try to send them to a different school, somewhere fresh where they can start off. For parents, we want them to follow up and be close to their children so that they can monitor the evolution because some traumas you don't just get out of it. It takes years, and sometimes you learn just to deal with it. So for this reason, we have, right now, five girls that we are supporting, 

[00:08:06] Those are the two initiatives that are active right now in Kyaka II but we're trying to see how to duplicate them in other refugee settlements as well. We pride ourselves in not only, developing and implementing initiatives, but in testing them. How do we know this initiative is really working from the community level, which is a bottom-up approach? Right now we're here in Canada, but there are women-led refugee organizations doing the initiatives, which brings the community as a responsible guide when it comes to all the initiatives we do. 

[00:08:40] We call it asset-based community development approaches. You go deep into the community because every community has its own challenges. Not only do you ask questions, but you try to observe, you try to map, you try to understand where are the services? Are they still operational? The best thing is you ask the community members. What do you think is the solution or can you provide us information about how best we can use resources within this community to bring solutions to our problem?

[00:09:15] Jacqueline: It is so amazing how you have been able to take such a holistic approach to reproductive health for the women and girls. You're addressing the psychological supports, creating income-generating opportunities, addressing knowledge and empowerment to make informed decisions about their own health care. I'm sure there have been so many great impacts because of it.

[00:09:36] Danie: Yeah, we are so grateful. We are actually honoured. 

[00:09:39] Jacqueline: Again, highlighting that point of learning and gaining knowledge. Connecting back to the SHE SOARS project in Uganda, an example of this are the women's rights organizations, which after receiving their training, they actually took several steps with accountability bodies, the government, and advocating for policy changes to advocate for youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services in refugee settlements, establishing outreach clinics for different services, contraceptives and resources. So using training to advocate for change. There is so much change that we can do just as one person, but as a group change becomes exponential.

[00:10:22] So going from living in a refugee settlement yourself and then moving to Canada and having more Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights education, can you explain a bit more about that journey and any takeaways so we can understand better the differences and connections that we can draw from these two settings?

[00:10:48] Danie: Actually, moving and seeing how things are being done, everything came as a surprise. Uganda right now hosts the most refugees in Africa due to conflict and the geographical situation. There are refugees from South Sudan, from Congo, which still has ongoing conflicts since the 1990s. There are at the same time refugees from Somalia, from Burundi and some from Rwanda still in Uganda right now. When you come in a nearby country as a refugee, there are some processes which can be longer because you need to be documented, present yourself as a refugee and what brought you to that country. While they are trying to determine your refugee status, you are called an asylum seeker. Once you are determined by the government of the country you are in that yes, we recognize you as a refugee, you will be given identity, which could be like refugee cards. In Uganda, it is better because with a refugee card, you can buy a phone and you can even register for school.

[00:11:50] Some refugees, like me, I was lucky. I am so grateful I got resettled to Canada about a decade ago with my siblings. On top of that, I had a basic education. In refugee settlements you need to have the highest grade in school in order to be given a scholarship to go pursue your high school, which is an impossible thing to do because it is hard to keep your grades up, especially when you come to a new system where you speak French in Congo and now here in Uganda you have to speak English. 

[00:12:22] Being able to perform good at school depends on the amount of work you put into learning. But with girls, when you wake up, you have to do some house chores before you go to school and then when you come back, you don't have time for assignments. You have to continue with the chores. People need to eat. You need to go fetch water. You need to find firewood. You are the caretaker. You don't have time to read and when you get lower grades, you don't get access to go to high school which places you in that category of people who are unemployed.

[00:12:50] Some people die in refugee camps, but I was lucky to live there at the age that I was, in my late teen years. And that is a privilege that I still hold today. That is why I try to learn and use all the resources in front of me so that I do something with it and use it wisely to avoid, having to be here in Canada and then doing nothing with the privileges I got, which is like sharing information with you today. So I'm so grateful for that.

[00:13:15] Jacqueline: It totally shows in all of the work that you have been doing and being able to take that information that you have gained then return it back to where you grew up is incredible, and your journey to becoming an advocate is incredible as well.

[00:13:32] So now in the context of sexual and reproductive health, when you arrived back in the refugee settlement, how did your perspective change and how did you go about learning from the community about the issues that the women and girls are experiencing? What were the main challenges that women and girls were telling you? 

[00:13:56] Danie: That is an amazing question thinking about that actually. When you are young, you have a different view of what is happening around you. After some years, the more knowledge you gain, the more understanding you might gain as well from the situation. When you go, for example, to ask about, contraceptives back then, the pharmacist could insult you, they are already labeling you. If you are not lucky, you may meet the pharmacist or that healthcare provider outside of the settlement and they will be like, ‘That kid came here to inquire about contraceptives.’ When you go outside you will hear somebody say, ‘Did you go to ask about this information?’

[00:14:32] Private questions now [became] a public community matter. Everyone knows about it, which was stigmatizing because you cannot ask any question and get the answers without it backlashing on you. So that was hard and now coming back again to the same communities years later, that is when I realized things had changed because communities evolve and change with time. The more refugees the settlement is getting, a mixture of both old and new – because some refugees have been there since 1992 and they're still there – with the newcomers, you find there is a difference within the information people had.

[00:15:06] We did not have phones back then, but having phones and accessing information made it a little bit easier. And yes, the same issues continue, like not talking about contraceptives and not talking about menstrual health. You can't ask these questions. They're still taboo topics. Now I realized in the community the problem was that the parents who are raising children, they never had that education. It was a taboo topic for them and the parents simply told us, ‘I never learned about it. My parents never told me that I needed to tell my children that or it was information that I could disclose with anybody.’ So it is a secret. Your menstruation is a secret. That was the challenge because now with the knowledge I had, I had to not only bring it to the girls but to the parents as well because these parents are still young, they are still having children, and for sure they are going to have girls. So it is like from here on, what do we do? Half a billion of the population in the world today bleed. There is nothing to hide about it. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It should not be a stigma but information that people should get from anywhere.

[00:16:18] Jacqueline: We talk about these issues on a global scale but it is happening in Canada as well. All of these conversations, I can name so many off the top of my head that I have even had recently with people not knowing enough information about reproductive health. And you mentioned not being taught about your menstrual cycles. There are so many people in Canada that also never properly received that education but don't feel comfortable seeking it out or feel like it is okay to talk about it with others.

[00:16:50] There are specific stigmas that are perpetuated based off of different locations and environments but they are also similar, which encourages us even more to become advocates. Thinking globally, but acting locally, we can all be change-makers in our own way in our own corner of the world. Having that education and being able to educate others is so powerful. So Danie, I wanted to ask you, on that note, for anyone listening who is interested in engaging more in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, or even just wanting to find the courage to talk about it more or become a leader in this space, do you have any advice or messages for anyone? 

[00:17:40] Danie: Wow. Actually, I think it is everyone's duty, not just a responsibility. I think it is a duty that we owe to everyone around us, learning about reproductive health. From already 13 years-old, people have cell phones. And having access to these tools, I think we can still make better use of them. I know we spend time on social media, you know, posting, learning new tricks and new dances and everything. But once you learn something, even on social media, it is about starting a talk and engaging people. I think anybody can be an advocate. Anybody can try to learn something and you don't need to know everything. As a young person, you don't need to wait to learn about your reproductive rights. You need to learn earlier, share information and ask questions. Actually, there are many people right now involved in sexual and reproductive health. 

[00:18:32] Being able to know, is this the right thing to do right now? Whatever I'm dealing with, like Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), many young people deal with it alone because it comes with guilt. How would you ask your friend? And when you go to Google, Google will bomb you with all sorts of information. Sometimes you can be misdiagnosed. So for all these reasons, you can reach out to your family doctor and ask them these questions.

[00:18:58] It could help you to make better decisions and start advocating for sexual and reproductive health, and try to help other young people like you, like us right now. I'm so happy that the SHE SOARS [project] is reaching out in refugee [settlements] actually in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia. But on top of that it is seeing the privileges and access to services that we have. I feel like now it is our time. Not only to be there in the world, be global, but it is our time to raise awareness from the bottom up. So that even our leaders will get to learn from us because if they did not share this information with us, it is our time to share information with them. 

[00:19:38] Jacqueline: Danie, I know that I am not just speaking for myself when I say that your journey is so inspiring and you have so much wisdom and insight on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, but also in what it means to be a youth leader and to navigate this space through taboos and stigma, and how we can normalize these conversations and make an impact. I am so grateful that you were able to join me in this conversation and I am sure all of the listeners are grateful to listen and learn from you today. Thank you. I really appreciate it. 

[00:20:18] Now that we have reached the end of this episode, I want to share a special secret word that our listeners may be aware of. We are sharing a secret word each episode that in the future will be helpful for a potential surprise opportunity for you. So the secret word for today's episode is ‘advocacy.’ Danie has demonstrated what it means to be a incredibly inspiring advocate. So thank you again, Danie.

[00:20:47] Danie: Thank you very much. 

[00:20:48] Jacqueline: Thanks for listening to SHE SOARS. If you liked this episode, please share it on social media, connect with us in the comments or give us a like.

[00:20:56] Paniz: Make sure to catch our next episode by subscribing to our channel and following us wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:21:02] Jacqueline: Follow @CARECanada on Instagram for updates on our show and the project.

[00:21:07] Paniz: SHE SOARS stands for Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment, Supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:21:17] The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. Check out our global partner organizations: The Center for Reproductive Rights and Restless Development for even more project updates. 

[00:21:26] Paniz: Thanks again for listening. Until next time!