Many of those living in the devastated, conflict-afflicted region of Northern Uganda are receiving life-changing improvements, thanks to African Women Rising (AWR), a nonprofit based in Santa Barbara and Gulu, Uganda.

AWR was created 17 years ago to address the destruction of a brutal war that displaced the rural population of Northern Uganda and destroyed the local economy. The region also bears the brunt of the refugee crisis, with an estimated 1.6 million refugees who have been displaced into Uganda, the vast majority of whom are women and children.

AWR focuses on three key areas: microfinance, education and agriculture, with a mission to empower women with the tools to rise out of extreme poverty. They’ve been very successful thus far.

“African Women Rising has created a global model for feeding communities in crisis using resilience design practices,” said AWR board president Carrie Randolph during a gathering at her home celebrating the recent success of AWR’s inaugural on-site resilience design training in Uganda

“It’s incredibly exciting that we now have a training program in place that can help feed thousands, even millions, of people,” said Randolph.
 
In 2022, the Ugandan government awarded AWR the opportunity to develop approximately 13 acres of what was considered barren land at the heart of the Palabek Refugee Settlement next to the UN headquarters and the Office of the Prime Minister.

The Palabek camp currently hosts more than 81,000 refugees who have fled conflict and flooding in South Sudan. Eighty percent of those displaced are women and children. AWR calls this land LOK NENO, which translates to “let’s change our mindset” in the local Acholi language.

Under AWR’s expertise, the land – as well as the mindset – has been transformed. It is now a vibrant demonstration, training and research farm dedicated to regenerative agriculture.
 
The experts steering the regenerative solutions and leading the training are Santa Barbara residents Thomas Cole and Warren Brush, who spent a decade testing and writing the industry standard manuals in partnership with USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs.
 
Cole, an agroecologist with some 30 years’ experience is co-founder of AWR along with his wife Linda, whose humanitarian work spans three decades in diverse African conflict and post-conflict areas.

Her extensive fieldwork managing complex emergency operations, community needs assessment, preventative health interventions and small-scale farming contributed to her receiving the Leah Horowitz Humanitarian Award.
 
Brush is a global resilience design consultant and co-founder of Quail Springs Permaculture and True Nature Design, yet he may best be known locally for having founded Wilderness Youth Project more than 25 years ago with his wife Cynthia Harvan.
 
“We are thrilled to be able to apply one of the world’s first regenerative agriculture approaches to help solve a humanitarian crisis,” said Brush, who worked alongside Cole and the core agriculture team from AWR to lead the recent hands-on two-week training program.

The program brought more than 50 participants together from 16 different organizations working across nine countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Among those were the United Nations World Food Programme, UN International for Migration (IOM), Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, DanChurchAid, International Rescue Committee (IRC), NASA, and Action Against Hunger.
 
All gathered at LOK NENO to learn practical, nature-based solutions to some of the most vexing humanitarian and climate-related problems facing the world today.
 
“What’s so distinctive about AWR is that it’s run by people who live in the community, and reap the benefits of their work,” said Brush. “It’s home-grown leadership.”
 
“In addition to providing food, we are also helping to restore ecologies that give health to the community, which is important for the economy of the women and their families.”
 
Brush describes AWR’s nature-based approach as having a cascading effect, yielding long-term, nutrient-rich, disease-resistant food sources.
 
“We look at patterns in nature, backed by three billion years of natural research, and mimic those in a human production system that can be adopted by larger NGOs working globally.”
 
The Resilience Design training is based on the permaculture design system and agroecological principles. It is practical and field-based, supporting the participants in learning the theory, the science, and the practicality of applying regenerative agriculture approaches into their communities, greatly improving food security.
 
“This is critical as food aid rations for refugees continue to be cut – often with devastating impacts on those households,” Brush said.
 
For more about African Women Rising, the Resilience Design RegenAg trainings they offer, or to contribute to the team restoring and regenerating landscapes and communities, visit https://www.africanwomenrising.org.