On 24 March, Professor Matt Baillie Smith, Dr Bianca Fadel and Dr Moses Okech joined the RC3 Long Night of Research to share experiences on the use of creative and participatory methodologies in volunteering research with practitioners from the global Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Dr Moses Okech was invited by the International Geographic Union (IGU) to share RYVU findings and approaches during the virtual roundtable “Mobilising Geographical Research Methods in Times of Covid-19” which took place on the 24th of January.

The RYVU project is taking part in the 2023 “Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages”, an opportunity to celebrate diverse languages and cultures and the connections of the North East of England to the world through a range of online and in-person events and activities.

On 5 December, Dr Moses Okech joined the African Union’s International Volunteer Day celebrations for a panel discussion centred on the roles of volunteering to promote inter-citizen solidarity in the African Union Member States, drawing upon lessons learned from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda.

The RYVU project is celebrating this International Volunteer Day with the launch of a series of policy briefings and interactive games in Arabic, English, French and Swahili, providing tools and recommendations from the research findings for improving volunteer policy and practice amongst refugee communities.

We are happy to share a new book chapter co-authored by RYVU Principal Investigator Professor Matt Baillie Smith, alongside Dr Anthony Tibaingana, from Makerere University, and Dr Robert Newbery, from Northumbria University.

In 2022, the Annual conference of International Volunteer Cooperation Organisations (IVCO) took place in Saly, Senegal, from 17 to 20 October, and was co-hosted by Forum, Crossroads International and the International Bureau for Children’s Rights (IBCR). The overall conference theme was ‘A new dawn for volunteering in development’ and RYVU team members shared key findings from the research in different activities, including a photo exhibit, interactive games and a panel discussion.

In 2022, the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) took place in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (with in-person, online, and hybrid ways to participate), between 30 August and 2 September. The overall RSG-IBG Conference theme was ‘Geographies beyond recovery’ and the RYVU project was presented by team members in two different panels.

We are excited to share the newest journal article co-authored by RYVU team members Professor Matt Baillie Smith, Dr Sarah Mills, Dr Moses Okech and Dr Bianca Fadel. It was published open access in the Geoforum academic journal.

RYVU activities and the photo exhibit “Volunteering, Displacement & Livelihoods: Photographs by Young Refugees in Uganda” were the subject of a television report in the local channel Tyne & Wear TV.

The RYVU team was pleased to host the photo exhibit “Volunteering, Displacement & Livelihoods: Photographs by Young Refugees in Uganda” at Northumbria University’s Gallery North, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Between 20th June and 29th July 2022, the exhibit was visited by nearly 500 people, including community members, university students and staff, and NGO stakeholders from refugee organisations in the Newcastle.

This year, the RYVU project celebrated the World Refugee Day across borders, with simultaneous activities happening in Kampala and the Nakivale refugee settlement, in Uganda; and Newcastle upon Tyne, in the UK. In total, the dissemination activities were attended by more than 800 people, celebrating refugees’ strength and courage while disseminating learning from the RYVU project.

On 27 April, Professor Matt Baillie Smith joined the online “Volunteer Tourism Conversation Series” jointly hosted by the School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management at Leeds Beckett University and the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education and Research (ATLAS).

We are delighted to share this update about our photo exhibit in Uganda, as a result of the project’s participatory photography methodology (see also this RYVU Snapshot about the work). The exhibit presents photos that were chosen by the young refugee photographers themselves, who are also active volunteers in their communities…

This is the fifth video of the series ‘RYVU Snapshots’ which aims to disseminate findings and reflections emerging from the Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda research. Each short video features project team members and also partners sharing insights related to RYVU work to open up conversations in volunteering and development spaces, particularly among youth…

On 19 January, the RYVU team was invited by the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy & Learning for Social Transformation, at the university of University of East Anglia, to take part on a wider Seminar Series on Education and Development focused on ‘Learning, Social Movements and Collective Action’…

Participatory photography, or photovoice, has been at the centre of RYVU’s work in Uganda over the past few months. This is an exciting part of the project’s methodology which required the development of particular tools and strategies to engage with refugee youth in participatory and creative ways…

Click here to download the full newsletter with the latest updates from December 2021…

We are delighted to present our latest Working Paper on Volunteering, Skills and Employment in Uganda by Cuthbert Tukundane & Peter Kanyandago. This paper focuses on the challenges and questions relating to the link between volunteering, skills acquisition and access to employment by young refugees in Uganda…

The RYVU team would like to kindly invite employers and recruiters in Uganda to answer our short online survey on perceptions of volunteering, skills and work. This will allow the experience of employers and recruiters to be also part of RYVU research and advance our understandings on the themes from the perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders…