We are people of service

Trigger warning: this article contains references to sexual violence.

Janet Katumbusa, 40, is a Congolese refugee who fled to Uganda in 2014 with her three children, now aged 7, 14 and 19. She is currently living in the Kyangwali settlement. Janet is a survivor of sexual violence, a member of her local savings group and a voice for the vulnerable in her community. 

Like many Congolese refugees living in Uganda, Janet has experienced a lot of suffering: “In Congo, I suffered from a lot of violence. We were attacked in our house and my husband was killed while I was raped. I woke up in a health facility and then they told me that they had discovered my husband’s body in a forest three days after the incident.” Janet is the first to point out that she is not the only one in the settlement with stories like this: “I saw a lot of women were stressed, oppressed and they did not want to speak out. Most of the women were single mothers, gender-based violence (GBV) survivors and some had chronic illnesses.”

The year 2018 was a turning point in Janet’s life, after she came into contact with CARE staff, who were raising awareness in the community about GBV. “In Congo, when one talks about GBV, you can be discriminated or excommunicated from the community but when CARE trained us, we understood, got empowered and knew we had a right to report incidences of GBV.” By October 2019, Janet had decided to start a savings group for women in her community. They called the group “Songambele,” a Swahili word that means “moving forward.” Janet started the group so that the women could save together and set up small businesses. She has seen the impact this has had on the women’s lives.

When she first arrived in the settlement, Janet was completely reliant on UN agencies for food. Now she survives through farming and small incoming generating activities like frying chapati and cassava fries. This meets her daily needs, while the crops cover her children’s school fees and clothes. “I feel joy within me because I have made friends from these activities…”

In November 2019, Janet’s savings group joined CARE’s global  Women Lead in Emergencies  (WLiE) programme, an approach that works with crisis-affected women to increase their meaningful participation in community and humanitarian decision-making. At first the group was sceptical: “In Congo, it was a taboo for women to talk before men. When you talk, they look at you like a spoiled woman.” But Janet and her group persevered and challenged these social and cultural norms: “We could go for meetings in the community and I could raise my hand but eventually put the hand down because of fear that when I talk they would not respect my opinion but me and others kept trying and eventually when we started talking, we saw people clapping hands, which was a good sign that the community was embracing women’s opinions.”

Before participating in WLiE, Janet was reliant on other people to help her access basic services but that has also changed: “As a farmer… if someone encroached on my land, I would use another person to escort me to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) to report the case. Or getting bursaries, I would approach another person... now I can access all these offices to get any service I want.” What is more, Janet is using her voice to support other vulnerable people in her community: “I saw one boy who had been chained and pushed in a corner... A group of people disguising themselves as security personnel to get money from people. I took his photo, went to OPM, the commandant came, and they released him.”

Janet and her group have also supported other survivors of gender-based violence to report incidents and to access health services: “A lot of this empowerment came with WLiE. In the past, if we found a woman talking about rape, we would tell them to keep quiet. But now they know they have to report and even when they go to the health facility, as long as they see you as a WLiE person, they open for you the gate and make way. They know us, we are people of service.” Janet and her group have no intention of stopping there: “There are so many children in this community who do not go to school and one of our goals is to build a nursery school in the settlement using our savings…There are only two and they are expensive.”

Janet feels like she now has more say in her community: “Some of my ideas have been taken up and even during COVID-19, I personally got a megaphone and started community sensitization. I also took the initiative of encouraging mothers to come together to make masks… And when the block chairpersons are having meetings, I am invited to give my opinions to be included in the decision-making process.” Janet even feels ready to take on new leadership roles in the settlement:  

Similar stories are emerging from Women Lead in Emergencies programming across six countries, and show that when women have access to the right tools, they have the power to lead and to raise their voices for the most vulnerable.

Women Lead in Emergencies is the first practical toolkit for frontline humanitarians to support women to take the lead in responding to crises that affect them and their communities. This approach puts decision-making – and money – in the hands of women directly affected by crisis. CARE and partners accompany women’s groups, as they increase their awareness of their rights, build confidence and solidarity, and take collective action to improve their lives and their communities.  Find out more .