Uganda: A Country That Has Always Said Yes

To understand what we do you first need to understand where we work.

Uganda is extraordinary. While much of the world debates whether to accept refugees Uganda has spent more than seven decades simply doing it. The country signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol committing to protect those fleeing persecution when other nations were still crafting excuses. That progressive approach was renewed in 1969 through the Organisation of African Unity Convention granting prima facie refugee status to those fleeing conflict. UNHCR In 2006 the government took a further step. Uganda passed a refugee law that was regarded as a model for Africa recognising the right of the country’s refugees to work move around the country and live in the community, rather than confined in special camps. 

The Uganda Refugee Policy embodied in the 2006 Refugees Act and 2010 Refugees Regulations opened Uganda’s door to all asylum seekers irrespective of nationality or ethnic affiliation granted refugees relative freedom of movement and the right to seek employment and provided each refugee family with a piece of land for agricultural use. 

Uganda’s Refugees Act was regarded as “progressive human rights and protection oriented” and the UN called Uganda one of the most welcoming countries in the world. 

Today Uganda hosts nearly two million refugees, the largest refugee population in Africa with the majority from South Sudan (57%) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (31%) alongside smaller populations from Somalia Burundi Eritrea Sudan and Rwanda. Women and children make up 80% of the refugee population. 

This is the country we work in. It is a country that has done something remarkable: it has made a political legal and moral commitment to displaced people that is unmatched on the continent. And yet even the most progressive policy on paper does not automatically translate into safety and justice for every individual who arrives. That is the gap Second Chance Immigration exists to fill.

Our Story: Why We Were Founded

Second Chance Immigration was founded in Kampala in 2010. It began not with a strategy document or a funding proposal but with a recognition of something that was right in front of us.

Our founders, a group of human rights lawyers’ community health workers and people who had themselves experienced forced displacement, kept encountering the same situation: refugees arriving in Uganda with valid legal rights under Uganda’s progressive asylum framework but no practical ability to access those rights. They could not afford a lawyer. They could not read the forms. They did not know the difference between refugee status determination and resettlement. They did not know that someone was supposed to be registering them or that a fraud had been committed in their name or that the appeal they needed to file had a 30-day deadline that was quietly passing.

We also saw something else: the particular vulnerability of the communities that make up the majority of Uganda’s refugees. South Sudanese families who had fled intercommunal violence and arrived with nothing. Congolese women who had survived sexual violence during their flight from Goma and had never seen a counsellor. Somali asylum seekers navigating an urban protection system with no support network. Burundian parents who just wanted to know if their children would be allowed to go to school.

These were people with profound resilience and genuine courage. They did not need to be rescued. They needed to be accompanied, by someone who understood the system spoke their language and was genuinely on their side.

So that is who we became.

What We Believe

We are guided by a set of convictions that shape everything we do.

Every displaced person has inherent dignity and legal rights. This is not a sentiment; it is the foundation of international refugee law Uganda’s domestic legislation and our daily practice. A refugee ID card is not charity. It is a legal right. Legal representation is not a luxury. It is justice. We treat every person who comes through our doors as a rights-holder not a beneficiary.

Refugees are not the problem, underfunding and legal barriers are. Uganda’s refugees are farmers, teachers, engineers, entrepreneurs, mothers and children. They are economic participants. They are community builders. They are people who given the right legal protection and a stable foundation create extraordinary things. The problem is not their presence. The problem is the gap between the rights the law gives them and the support they receive to access those rights.

The most vulnerable deserve the most support. Within refugee communities some people carry heavier burdens than others. Single mothers. Unaccompanied children. Survivors of gender-based violence. People with disabilities. LGBTQ+ refugees facing persecution. People whose asylum cases have been rejected. Our approach deliberately prioritises those at greatest risk because formal neutrality in the face of unequal vulnerability is itself a form of injustice.

Community leadership is not optional, it is essential. We do not design programmes for refugees. We design them with refugees. Our teams include people with lived experience of displacement community interpreters Refugee Welfare Committee members and local leaders who are trusted by the communities we serve. The best solutions to displacement come from displaced people themselves and our job is to support and amplify those solutions.

Dignity is not a programme outcome. It is a precondition. Everything we do, from the way we greet someone at our office to the way we handle their legal file, is shaped by the belief that dignity is not something we give to people. It is something they already have and our job is to protect it.