Who knows the needs of refugees better than refugees themselves? Refugee led organisations in Uganda offer crucial expertise and trust needed to succeed in the local communities. Join the screening of the film Filling the Gap or Taking the Lead? which highlights the initiatives that refugees and refugee-led organisations develop to support their own communities followed by a sofa conversation with Kuol Arou Kuol, one of the refugee leaders featured in the film.

Uganda hosts Africa’s largest refugee population of nearly two million people. The short documentary Filling the Gap or Taking the Lead? highlights the initiatives that refugees and refugee led organisations develop to support their own communities. This includes farming groups, savings schemes and other forms of collective action, as well as more formalised  work that often receives far less attention than the international aid system.

The documentary was produced by the Refugee Law Project (RLP) together with NTNU and Makerere University under the PRIO led project AidAccount (with continued work through the EXPAND project). The film raises wider questions about the humanitarian localisation agenda and what changes when refugee‑led actors are recognised as central, not supplementary to aid. After the screening, there will be a sofa conversation with Kuol Arou Kuol, one of the refugee leaders featured in the film.

The event will take place at Sellanraa at Litteraturhuset in Trondheim on Monday the 2nd of March from 19:00-21:00. The event is free and open to all, but everyone has to register to get a ticket.

Kuol Arou Kuol, a South Sudanese living in Uganda as a refugee and a co-founder of the refugee youth-led organization called the Shabab Peace and Environment Action Group (SPEAK) that fosters peaceful co-existence between the refugees and their host and among the refugees themselves. Kuol is also a fellow at the African changemaker fellowship, the Young African Leaders Initiative and the Peacebuilding Institute in Rwanda.

Hilde Refstie, Associate Professor at the Department of Geography and Social Anthropology at NTNU. Refstie is currently working on the EXPAND project: Expanding the search for new ways of working along the Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus (2024-2028).