Living Water Ministries Uganda

Elevate Prize funding and support would be an added advantage for us to connect with a diverse set of global problem solvers, investors, mentors, and passionate individuals who are dedicated and willing to offer all they have to ensure that we preserve human dignity and elevate lives. The prize and support would also be essential for us to develop the project brand for target beneficiaries across East African Refugee Settlements and reach our objectives: increase the production/sales of the brand's products in the online shop, the sale to other local business/spaces enabled in social events/fairs, increase our presence in human rights events, schools/universities, and to reach >150 refugees contracted directly by the project and through our struggle getting occupational plans by the city council with laboral contracts of at least 1 year duration and achieve legislative changes against immigrants discriminatory laws. For this we would need to have a wider space to store the products, expand the silkscreen equipment, garments and sewing workshops, and have our own transport vehicles as well as register the brand officially and carryout strategic marketing aimed at awareness creation and the sensitization of the public and our beneficiaries.

Living Water Ministries Uganda is a Christian based NGO which exists to elevate lives in poor Ugandan communities while inspiring change that is based on the Christian message and values. We are convinced that we could better address the plight of the people in our region and the world around us through coordinated and joint efforts targeting and uplifting the living standards of the people in the community. And that is why we have taken a conscious decision to respond to the wholistic challenges faced by people in our communities to ensure that they live empowered, productive, successful and self-sustainable lives. In our efforts to bring about change and transformation in the lives of communities, we carry out strategic projects that aim at rebuilding the lives of individuals especially the marginalized and forgotten communities. Our projects include elevate projects for refugees and forcibly displaced persons, raising and/or receiving and administering gifts, offerings, donations, grants and other contributions for the work of community empowerment, relief and rehabilitation as a way of supporting the organization’s mandate of contributing to the life of individuals as well as their social and economic well-being. In efforts to transform lives, we do this without discrimination based on race or color but rather based on opportunity and availability of resources.

Our non-profit organization is composed of a diverse caliber of powerful men and women from all walks of live including those formerly street children, refugees, migrants and racialized people who make up a collective of those that experienced displacement. Part of our work is permanently in the anti-racist struggle, to denounce and combat racism and colonialism. For purposes of this Elevate Prize Foundation Challenge Competition, We propose *AmNoTillegaL* as a project that is aimed at overcoming the exclusion suffered by our refugee vendors' collective. Refugee vendors across East Africa are victims of multiple discrimination: because of their race and class, because of the work they do and their socioeconomic status (such as housing, access to resources, etc.). Our goal with AmNoTillegaL is a platform that allows migrants/refugees in East Africa to overcome the situation of their businesses that violates and criminalizes them, creating a space of security and common work, in which collectively they can create answers to the various problems that concern them. Our project and self-management model is set to inspire all vulnerable groups and extend to all countries of the world, so that migrants can work and reside legally in the country to which they migrate.

Current legislation in Uganda/East Africa and institutional racism prevents migrant people fleeing their home countries, whether due to poverty, war, violence or persecution, from accessing legal and decent work. Even though in documents refugees are free live and work in these countries, in reality they are not. These people are refugees/migrants/forcibly displaced persons and they are people of peace; they risk their own lives fleeing from their countries in order to have a decent job and help their families to survive. Upon arrival to any East African country like Uganda, their dreams are broken, they are treated as beggars, criminals, low-class-people, some are imprisoned or deported and not having the right to residence and work, neither access to basic social services such as education, housing and health. In order to regularize their situation, they are required to remain in Uganda for at least 2 years, but they have no right to work. In order to survive, they work as street vendors, but it is considered an illegal activity and when they are detained by the police, this criminal record prevents their regularization for another 3-5 years. They are thus trapped by the system, which prevents them from having a decent job and criminalizes them, being the constant target of the police, politicians and the media. That is why having observed these injustices against them, we have chosen to join in with them together to launch AmNoTillegaL - a model of self-management and social transformation through clothing brands that give voice to their situation of injustice, persecution and vulnerability, to find them a solution to their labor problem, to improve their living conditions collectively and fight together for legislative changes.

AmNoTillegal is mainly composed of migrants and racialized people. We work permanently with several migrant and racialized groups across East Africa in the anti-racist struggle, to denounce and combat racism and colonialism. Our project is aimed at overcoming the exclusion suffered by the marginalized refugee/migrants collective. Refugee street vendors are victims of multiple discrimination: because of our race and class, because of the work they do and their socioeconomic status (such as housing, access to resources, etc.). Thus, the project allows them to overcome the situation of the street that violates and criminalizes us, creating a space of security and common work, in which collectively we can create answers to the various problems that concern them

We believe that a commercial activity can have a social and solidarity function. Through the activities of our project we seek to promote centric solutions to the problems they live and face each day as a migrant or refugee collect.

We also believe that our project model can be extended globally to
all vulnerable migrant groups in the world. This is how we understand
self-management, and political innovation for a more just and hopeful
horizon.

AmNoTillegal project is set to be a social and solidarity project based on four main pillars:

• Seek labor solutions to the group of refugee street vendors in Ugandan cities and the exclusion suffered due to the current immigration legislation that practically prevents migrants from accessing a decent job and life. Migrant vendors are victims of multiple discrimination: race and class, because of the work we do and our socioeconomic status (such as housing, access to resources, etc.). By offering a one-year labor contract, migrants can opt for a work and residence permit. With this measure we could not only offer them the possibility of work, but also regularize their situation and help them demonstrate their worth and to improve their living conditions.
• Building bridges with local community: integrate their collective into society, improve our living conditions, dignify our work, demonstrate our value and contribute to the economy of the planet and our country of residence, and in the future when the project grows, we can also collaborate with the economy of their countries of origin through cooperative projects.
• Legal advocacy: through our project we want to make known to society the situation of social injustice and vulnerability, which prevents them from working legally, condemning them to work as slaves with unworthy wages. The current Immigration Law in Uganda is good on documents but in reality, it goes against Human Rights, preventing the free movement and the right to work of migrant persons. Through our project we want to promote and contribute to the elimination of discriminatory laws, policies and practices and active participation in the formulation of policies that can make a difference in the fight against poverty, inequality and the fulfillment of human rights.
• Contribute to the sustainable development of our planet, through the use of environmentally friendly, ecological and fair-trade textiles for cloth manufacturing and branding.

For the past one year while engaging refugees in 4 refugee settlements in Uganda, one critical message has been communicated by these migrants.

"We want to fulfill the greatest of our dreams: to be able to work legally and contribute to the social economy of our country and of the world".  

The creation of employment for the people who integrate the project, as well as for migrant street vendors and salesmen in general, allow the sustainability of their lives and their families - in Uganda and S.Sudan- what we believe constitutes a important principle of the Feminine economy.

In 2019 we partnered with African Union and Giz to implement RefuConnect in 2 refugee settlements in Uganda as a form of support among the migrants in the face of the complicated situations of their lives and trade in Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania: street sales. In addition, creating this project was a form of fight and defense against institutional racism, persecution and criminalization of our work, which aims to provide solutions to our labor problems. Our project starts in June 2021, when we intend to officially launch the AmNoTillegal brand to “take their colleagues off the street and create new opportunities”. The brand aims at improving the living conditions of its members and seek alternatives to imitation products.  

Our project has demonstrated a clear and measurable impact and has produced a real and positive change. The project has proven that it can allow allowed the migrants (refugees, and forcibly displaced persons) to dignify our work, create and register our own own businesses, with which we want to regularize the administrative situation of the street vendors that live in Uganda and integrate it into the city and make aware to the population on our current problem, eliminate racism and get the necessary support from society and political groups to modify the current legislation that discriminates against the poorest and most vulnerable collectives.  

The greatest achievement has been and will be the elimination of stigma of our collective: so people are able to ask what is behind the brand. We are not only vendors, there is much more and people have lost their fear of asking us about our lives. A breakthrough for the normalization and integration of the Sudanese community within Ugandan cities.  

We still have a long way to go. Our goal is to continue growing to be able to get all the Street vendors out of the street so they can work and reside legally.

Our project and self-management model will begin to be implemented in other cities in East Africa and we believe that it can inspire all vulnerable groups and extend to all countries of the world, so that migrants can work and reside legally in the country to which they migrate, be able to demonstrate their worth, their knowledge and culture, have a dignified life and strengthen ties with the host community. This is how we understand self-management: political innovation for a more just and hopeful horizon.

We want the AmNoTillegaL project to have value. Many of us have been in Uganda for more than 10 years and for the first time we feel that something is changing.

For our brand, there are currently the following businesses within the same territory:

• From social ethics: The Invisible City
• Non-ethical social: conventional clothing brands 

The differences between our product and the added value with regard to its services / activities are:

• From social ethics: vs. The Invisible City: our project is an initiative for and for street vendors specifically.
• Non-ethical social: vs. conventional clothing brands: our customers do not like clothes made by big brands that exploit their workers.