GoSoapy — A social enterprise built by refugees, for refugees.
It’s inspiring to encounter a social enterprise for refugees founded by refugees themselves.
Discover how they built GoSoapy and what impact they have made, so far.
GoSoapy was founded by out-of-school youth refugees settling in Nakivale Refugee Settlement Camp. It is one of the very few social enterprises built inside a refugee camp, and the first few enterprise founded by refugees themselves.
GoSoapy creates a ripple impact and inspiration to other youth refugees. Show your support through GoFundMe and TheBridgeInt.
Let’s first take a look where these refugees come from.
Life in Nakivale Refugee Settlement Camp
You probably not heard of the Nakivale Refugee Settlement Camp if you are living outside Africa. So let me take you there.
The camp is located in the Isingiro District near the border of Tanzania and Uganda, both located in East-Africa.
There are over 1.5 million refugees in Uganda. And Nakivale is counted as one of the biggest and oldest camp with more than 144,000 refugees.
70% of its population are youth under the age of 35. They live without future prospects, have little access to education and health care.
Life is hard. Opportunities are rare.
Where do they originally come from?
The camp hosts refugees from 6 countries. The majority of them came from the Democratic Republic of Congo or D.R.C.
Jonathan Ngangura, the lead founder of GoSoapy is one of these refugees who settled in the camp.
Due to the political conflict in DRC, Jonathan and his family left home 9 years ago. It was never easy for them to start a new life inside the camp.
There are social problems, lost opportunities, lack of financial resources, education, and little access to health care.
Good thing is, there are still organizations that give them opportunities.
A life-changing opportunity
In 2018, a life-changing opportunity has reached Jonathan. He joined Social Innovation Academy’s Unleashed Potential in Motion (SINA Unleashed).
SINA Unleashed is teaching refugee youths the skills of social innovation through training, mentoring, and workshops. The organization supports and incubate projects that are built in SINA Unleashed.
Jonathan acquired his skills through the years of attending workshops, training, and mentoring sessions. Together with his colleagues, they used their social innovation skills to build their own social enterprise — now called GoSoapy.
Thanks to SINA Unleashed’s vision of transforming these refugees’ lives. They are able to create their own opportunity inside the camp.
GoSoapy’s Story
After settling in Nakivale, Jonathan’s grandfather experienced hardships in finding jobs due to his disability. Even though his grandfather is a skilled craftsman, he still faced rejections, exclusions and inequality.
This difficult past made a mark in Jonathan’s life.
Rather than getting stuck with his family’s challenges, he thought of a way to turn these challenges into opportunities.
He formed a team to create opportunities for disabled refugees and help them sustain their lives.
Life as a Refugee-With-Disability, RWD
According to the International Disabilities Uganda, 23% of refugees in Nakivale are physically disabled. They are facing obstacles to find jobs like Jonathan’s grandfather.
Jonathan and his team started GoSoapy and trained these refugees in soap making. They wanted to start something small and easy to make.
At first, they conducted 3 workshops and trained 27 disabled refugees to make goat milk soap. They distributed 500 soaps to 450 vulnerable families in the camp to help decrease the COVID-19 cases in their areas.
GoSoapy’s Impact
Would you believe? GoSoapy doesn’t only benefited the disabled refugees and COVID-19’s most affected areas. It also creates an additional income to the goat farmers.
So far, they produced 650 soaps and purchased about 100 liters of goat milk from the farmers. A total of 87 disabled refugees were trained to make goat milk soaps and received 30% profit for every sold soap.
At the moment, 200 soaps were sold with a total revenue of 500,000 UGX (US$141). This supports the on-going soap production and daily operational cost.
However, this doesn’t make them scale.
GoSoapy’s team has a big dream of changing lives of the refugee communities in Nakivale.
They know how hard it is to become a refugee — so many lost opportunities and challenges. But this doesn’t stop them to make a change.
They believe starting small can make a huge impact in the long run.
And so, they plan to:
- establish a soap making laboratory in Nakivale worth US$3000
- sell their products outside the camp since they saw a market demand
- grow their revenue by 30%
- double their impact by employing more than 147 disabled refugees by 2023
Ways to Support
Every dollar counts! Contribute through GoSoapy’s GoFundMe and TheBridgeInt.
Check out this short video for GoSoapy’s full story.
Many thanks from the founders…
