Irma - I Have A Dream
A story of the Georgian female wheelchair fencing multiple times world champion. It is a compelling narrative of her overcoming her life difficulties of beeing a child refugee from Abkhazia and being diagnosed with a serious spinal cord illness with her inspiring dedication to sport and team spirit and bringing lasting fame to her country Georgia.
Information on the "Taekwondo Refugee Inclusion Centre" Project in the Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement in Uganda
The initiator and architect of this project is the private charity MW Shakhnovskiy Foundation.
The project is implemented by the Ugandan National Taekwondo Federation.
The project budget is 11,000 USD for one year.
Project implementation period: from May 1, 2019 to April 30, 2020.
Features of project’s financing
The originality of the financing method is that the StartSomeGood.com crowdfunding platform was used for it. The financing was provided by 36 individuals and legal entities. MW Shakhnovskiy Foundation was the main donor among these participants.
The Taekwondo Training Centre at Rwamwanja Refugee settlement is the first of its kind in Uganda. This is important for the integration of refugees in their country of asylum. The Centre is one of the official national centres under the Taekwondo National Federation of Uganda. It is an Olympic sport and refugees have the opportunity to participate in national and international competitions and even in the Olympic Games.
Uganda today is the country with the highest number of refugees in Africa. Their number is more than 1,200,000. Most of them come from South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes region. There are 77,000 refugees living in Rwamwanja settlement.
Among them, there are a number of albino refugees who constitute a risk group. In the DRC, where they are coming from, their lives and health are under constant threat because their skin is used in black magic ceremonies. We have a number of women and albino children at our centre, and these activities contribute to their better social integration, as well as to their greater self-confidence and ability to defend themselves.
The project has its own building. In the so-called Camp 2, near the WFP food distribution centre, a small brick building designed for a youth centre activities. It was ordered by the Prime Minister’s Office Commander and provided to the Taekwondo Training Center for free use. The coach is a refugee from the DRC, Ahmed, who has a red belt. His assistant, Jolie, is an activist from the Albino refugee community.
The Taekwondo Training Center at Rwamwanja Refugee settlement offers its students daily training programs for at least 4 hours a day. They’re completely free for the participants. All equipment, methodological assistance and coaches’ training, as well as examinations, belts and certificates are provided by the Ugandan National Taekwondo Federation. One of the most important goals of the exercise is to counteract sexual gender-based violence, which unfortunately affects many refugee women in the camp.
This project is a pilot project. To date, it has been a success. MW Shakhnovskiy Foundation has partnered with the Lutheran World Federation, an international NGO and UNHCR partner, which will take over the funding and running of this project from next year. LWF has already expressed the wish that a similar project be launched in another camp, Kyaka II, which currently hosts more than 100,000 refugees, mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In production. For release in 2024
