On Friday 11th July, the Uganda Olympic Committee hosted the media to brief them about the Game Connect project which is currently in phase 2.0

The project mainly targets refugees and host communities with the aim of improving psychosocial and mental resilience of the participants.

Uganda is among the leading countries with refugees and a lot has/is been done to make sure that they integrate in the community.

This project is targeting the refugees in Adjumani, Lamwo, Kyangwali and Kampala.

The project is targeting youth aged 15-24 and they would go through a couple of games which had life lessons that helped them improve their mental health.

There were improvements in psychosocial and mental resilience of the refugees and host community youth.

The youth to participate in the project were selected after a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7).

Those who scored in mild and moderate depression were the ones eligible as those above that were referred to specialist doctors.

Phase one of the project was launched in 2020 and it got done in 2023.

In that phase, the focus was on 70% refugees and 30% host community people with over 12000 youth participating and the results were great as per the reports.

“We were trying to have a new concept of using sport to deal with issues of social protection, mental health and psychosocial support to refugees” UOC President Donald Rukare said.

Upon completion, the second phase, 2.0, was launched in 2023 and this time around, it was targeting even more youth (15000+) than before.

As we speak, 2 years have passed in phase 2 and it will be ending in 2026.

There have been a number of success stories but the most notable is the ability of participants to learn the games and play a much higher level than they were before.

Some participants have also gotten international exposure such as those in Youth Sport Uganda who got to play the street World Cup in 2022 in Qatar.

The biggest of them all is Gloria Ayaa who was picked from Acholi Quarters and has since gone on to represent Uganda in Netball on the International stage with the She Cranes.

The project hopes to get more mega success stories and that is why they brought the media on board so as to amplify these stories.

“As UOC, we have been looking at how we can use sport to deal with issues of depression and anxiety and the results have been overwhelmingly successful and we look forward to taking this project forward” UOC President Donald Rukare on their goal and success.

“Our approach is flexible as it doesn’t only work for sports people, children and refugees but can be tailored for anyone” Joanita Nanyunja, Program Advisor at AVSI Foundation.

UOC intends to field a refugee team at the upcoming Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal and some of the participants in the project could get their opportunity on the International scene.

The project is funded by the Olympic Refugee Foundation, and the project is run in a consortium with AVSI Foundation, Youth Sport Uganda, Right to Play, Uganda Olympic Committee and UNHCR.