By Derrick M.
The Refugee families mostly from Kyangwali and other refugee camps in Uganda who resettled in the U.S, Canada and Australia four months ago had reached a deal to establish a confederation of charity to help themselves through amity and monthly contributions but this project, which seemed to be inspiring to many, did not survive. The Project named United Families Community (UFC) just at its beginning nominated Pastor Timothy Mburara from the state of Texas U.S.A as its president and was seconded by Sheikh Ismael Ndizeye as his vice.
This after a few weeks raised a lot of disagreements among the group members who did not support this leadership, with some members asking pastor Timothy to resign the position and have his vice replace him. According to sources familiar with the founding of this group some people wanted Sheikh Ismael to replace the founding leader because he was violent in his communications to the group and did not support the designing of the constitution that most members hoped would help strengthen their unity. One member said, " we need to replace him with someone who is kind in words and committed to this cause". Pastor Timothy although hailed by some as a religious and committed person, many regard him as partisan and lacks organisational skills that were required to build this great confederation of about one hundred families from these great nations.
" we need to replace him with someone who is kind in words and committed to this cause", member.
Despite the fact that people called for the vice to replace his boss, sheikh Ismael remained silent and avoided making both private and public comments regarding this issue. Pastor Timothy was also accused of discouraging the inclusion of a clause in the group constitution that limits number of terms a members could serve on the committee and also the election of new president and his vice. Besides this political tension, other factors that disabled the progress of the group include disagreement on the amount of monthly contributions and low computer literacy among the group members. The computer literacy would make the whole system fail because the group depended on web based programs entirely due to geographical separation of families or even individual members. To further expound on the collapse of this group, it is necessary to look at the religious differences where a member said that the whole conflict was aggravated when a member who asked not to be mentioned posted a christian song on the WhatsApp group and received criticism from the Muslim counterparts in within the group especially from the re-known Muslim cleric, sheikh Badru who warned that a rule has to be passed on what qualifies as legitimate to be posted on the group. He said, "We have Muslims and Christians in this group, this is not good if we involve religion." According to a report obtained by Kyangwali news, many of the members of the failing project wanted to keep the group running but the nature of the founding leadership was very weak to establish a successful charity confederation that would help million of refugee descendants. The treasury that was started by Madam Jackie Agasaro who is based in the state of New Hampshire after the death of the late Nelly Uwituze and the success of the fundraising effort founded by Pastor Timothy that spearheaded the starting of this great overseas refugee project has seen the whole idea go in flames after just a short time. The founding president in his audio messages to the group in December accused some members of the founding committee of envy and plotting to remove him from the position for no clear reason. Pastor Timothy in an audio message obtained from the group was heard saying, "It's not going to school or knowing a lot about computers that will build this community, its about honesty and integrity."
Among other people that had joined include a group of refugees that had gotten resettled to Belgium, Sweden and Norway in Europe.
When this European refugee group joined the group, many of them were so happy and immediately started contributions and often active in most cases. The sense of unity was felt for a very short time.
After the religion scenario that left members of the group, mostly single mothers humiliated, many people looked at the administration as weak and incapable of being successful. A most respected figure in the administration, sheikh Ismael, accused members of the committee of failing to cooperate, rumour mongering, and myopic and disgraceful in their acts. This group has seen a sharp decline in the members from 100 to 80 in the last two months and the number is expected to decrease further during the course of this year.
Just at the climax of this collapse, Dr. Francine Arajabu of New York was very worried of this precedence and quickly teamed up with single mothers to establish the prototype of this confederation that is based on love. " We need love and this group is True Love," she said in an audio she left to the group just at it's launch. This small group that started with a few women has seen the number grow into what she said was classified for administrative reasons. She said that the refugees resettled abroad need to be unity and need to take care of their fellow refugees citing that resettlement alone can not solve their challenges. She said True Love is open to all those that are interested in joining irregardless of whether one is a refugee or not. K-News has also learnt that the success of this group is based on the level of direct democracy within it, willingness of the people to uphold its founding objective and worry of not losing it like how the other bigger group, United Families Community.
Compiled By:
Muhumuza Derrick
Senior News Correspondent, Kyangwali.
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