Ubumwe: Exploring Arts for Education and Psychosocial Support with Refugee Children and Youth Project
Kyangwali Refugee Settlement, Uganda
2023 (pilot phase 1.0) and 2024-2026 (phase 2.0)
Co-Primary Investigator: Dr. Mary Mendenhall
Ubumwe, a Kinyabwisha term meaning “unity,” will integrate the arts in education and community spaces in refugee settings to bolster psychosocial and educational outcomes, and examine their contributions to making communities safer and healthier for children and young people. Building on an earlier pilot during which we tested the proof of concept for this approach, Ubumwe 2.0 will reimagine how schools can meet the needs of children whose lives have been disrupted by forced migration.
This project is situated in the Kyangwali refugee settlement in southwestern Uganda, home to over 135,000 refugees coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, and South Sudan. Our diverse project team will work together to further develop and expand the arts curriculum for children in primary school (grades 3-6), collaborating closely with national Ugandan authorities responsible for curriculum development. Teachers and school leaders working in the refugee settlement will participate in teacher professional development on art education and psychosocial support, led by local teaching artists and mental health practitioners. We will also carry out complementary monitoring, evaluation, and research to help us understand the impact of the arts and to advocate for broader integration of the arts into school programming for refugee and community children.
Ubumwe will benefit from a dynamic, multi-agency, and interdisciplinary team centered around refugee-led and national organizations that are embedded in and/or connected to Kyangwali refugee settlement. Two schools at Columbia, two arts organizations, one Ugandan refugee-service organization, and one Ugandan research and policy center have come together to realize this vision. Faculty from Columbia University’s Program on Forced Migration and Health (and specifically within the Care and Protection of Children [CPC] Learning Network at Mailman) and Teachers College (and specifically the Center for African Education) will oversee project coordination while participatory management processes will ensure the centrality of refugee voice and decision-making in program implementation.
Publications and Resources
Multimedia Resources
NORRAG Article: Reimagining Education: Integrating Arts in Schools with Refugee Children (October 2024)
Additional Links
- Dr. Mary Mendenhall (Primary Investigator)
- Kemigisha Richardson
- Melissa Rooney (Doctoral Student)
- Alexandra Harakas (Master's Student)
- Ashleigh Sable (Master's Student)
*The following TC master’s students enrolled in Dr. Mendenhall’s Education in Emergencies course (spring 2023) also contributed to the original draft curriculum: Arwa Ayoub, Andreia Davies, Sarah Etzel, Sabrina Huang, Sujung Hwang, Victoria Jones, Claire Laslett, Kathryn Lin, Theo Ntwari, Kemigisha Richardson, Aishwarya Sadh, Rafa Sattar, and Ashley Smith.
**The following TC master’s students enrolled in Dr. Wendy Choo’s Monitoring and Evaluation course (spring 2023) developed the initial monitoring and evaluation framework: Renna Bazlen, Evan Zhang, and JooHyun Lee.
- Africhild, Arts Ignite, Artolution, CPC Learning Network at the Mailman School of Public Health, HAF Uganda, and the Nairobi Global Center
- Columbia World Projects (CWP is an initiative under Columbia Global, which brings together major global initiatives from across the university to advance knowledge and foster global engagement)