Sabuni Francoise Chikunda | |
---|---|
Born | 1970 or 1971 |
Nationality | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
Awards | Nansen Refugee Award (Africa regional winner, 2020) |
Sabuni Francoise Chikunda (born 1970 or 1971) is a Congolese torture survivor, refugee, activist, teacher, and organisation founder, based in Uganda. She was the Africa regional winner of the Nansen Refugee Award in 2020.
Chikunda was attacked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1994 during the Rwandan genocide and was subjected to violence, torture, and rape from militia men who abducted her and held her for years as a slave. [1] After escaping slavery, she fled Congo and arrived as a refugee [2] in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda in June 2017. [1] By the end of 2017 she was volunteering as an English teacher in the school and a counsellor to women. [1]
Chikunda is a community leader [3] and is the founder of the Kabazana women’s centre, which is funded by the American Refugee Council and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and which opened in 2018. [1] The centre provides career training for women survivors of sexual violence. [4]
Chikunda was the Africa regional winner of the Nansen Refugee Award in 2020. [5]
Chikunda was aged 49 in 2020. [1]
Marguerite (Maggie) Barankitse is a Burundian humanitarian activist who works to improve the welfare of children and challenge ethnic discrimination in Burundi. After rescuing 25 children from a massacre, she was forced to witness the conflicts between the Hutu and Tutsi in her country in 1993. She established Maison Shalom, a shelter that provided access to healthcare, education, and culture to over 20,000 orphan children in need. Because she protested against a third term for President Pierre Nkurunziza, she lives in exile.
Annalena Tonelli was an Italian Catholic lay missionary and social activist. She worked for 33 years in East Africa, where she focused on tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, campaigns for eradication of female genital mutilation, and special schools for hearing-impaired, blind and disabled children. In June 2003, Tonelli was awarded the Nansen Refugee Award, which is given annually by the UNHCR to recognize outstanding service to the cause of refugees. In October 2003, she was killed inside her hospital by two gunmen. She is a candidate for sainthood within the Catholic Church in Somalia.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the east of the country in particular, has been described as the "Rape Capital of the World," and the prevalence and intensity of all forms of sexual violence has been described as the worst in the world. Human Rights Watch defines sexual violence as "an act of a sexual nature by force, or by threat of force or coercion," and rape as "a form of sexual violence during which the body of a person is invaded, resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim, with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or other part of the body."
Angélique Namaika is a Roman Catholic Augustine Sisters of Dungu and Doruma nun from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Sister Angélique has been working in the Congo since 2008 to assist women and girls who have been abused by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). She is the 2013 recipient of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Nansen Refugee Award for her work with Congolese refugee women. Her Centre for Reintegration and Development is located in Dungu, Orientale Province in the northeast of the DRC. Dungu has been the center for international humanitarian efforts for women and children who have been displaced by violence and war in the area.
Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement is a refugee camp in Kamwenge District in southwestern Uganda and is home to nearly 70,000 refugees.
University of Oslo's Human Rights Award honours individuals who have made important contributions in different fields. The award was launched in 1986 and since then, it is awarded every year to notable people from different walks of life. Those years when the award was not distributed are 1997, 1999, 2003, and 2004.
Alixandra Fazzina is a British photojournalist. Her first book is A Million Shillings – Escape from Somalia. In 2008 she was the recipient of the Vic Odden Award from the Royal Photographic Society. In 2010 she won the UNHCR's Nansen Refugee Award for her work documenting the effect of war on uprooted people. In 2015 she was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet.
Kyangwali Refugee Settlement is a refugee camp in the Kibuube District in western Uganda. As of 2021, Kyangwali is home to 125,039 people.
Kyaka II Refugee Settlement is a refugee camp in Kyegegwa District in western Uganda.
Aqeela Asifi is an Afghan woman teacher who has educated thousands of refugee children in Mianwali, Pakistan.
Uganda is one of the largest refugee-hosting nations in the world, with 1,529,904 refugees. The vast influx of refugees is due to several factors in Uganda's neighboring countries, especially war and violence in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and associated economic crisis and political instability in the region. Uganda has relatively 'friendly' policies that provide rights to the refugees, such as rights to education, work, private property, healthcare and other basic social services.
Jelena Silajdžić is a film producer, art promoter and human rights activist from Bosnia Herzegovina. She is the co-founder and executive director of Slovo 21, a non-governmental non-profit organization that focuses on the integration of Roma and immigrants in the Czech Republic. In 2000 she was awarded the Nansen Refugee Award in recognition of her work.
Saleema Rehman is an Afghan refugee medical doctor living in Pakistan. She is the first female Afghan Turkmen physician.
COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa, commonly known as CIYOTA is a Ugandan not-for-profit refugee-education organisation. It was formed in 2005 by refugee youth and was the Africa finalists for the Nansen Refugee Award in 2013.
Tetiana Barantsova is a Ukrainian disability rights activist and the founder of Ami-Skhid organisation. She was the 2020 European winner of the Nansen Refugee Award.
Evariste Mfaume is a Congolese human rights activist and humanitarian. He founded Solidarité des Volontaires pour l’Humanité in 2003, and won the Africa regional Nansen Refugee Award in 2019.
Traoré Roukiatou S. Maiga, recently more commonly known as Roukiatou Maiga, is a Burkinabé organization founder and humanitarian. Along with Diambendi Madiega, she was the regional co-winner of the Nansen Refugee Award in 2021.
Rozma Ghafouri is an Afghan football player and coach. Her family fled to Iran in 1996 or 1997 when she was six years old. She is the co-founder of the Youth Initiative Fund. She was the Asia regional winner of the Nansen Refugee Award in 2020.
Abeer Khreisha is a Jordanian refugee support volunteer who was the Middle East regional winner of the Nansen Refugee Award in 2019.