World Refugee Day and Eco Brixs’ Expansion to the Nakivale Refugee Settlement
- Andy Teale
- Jun 20
- 3 min read
Today celebrates the United Nations’ World Refugee Day 2025, a day to honour the strength of those who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution.
The annual event began in 2001 and each year it shines a light on the rights, needs and dreams of refugees, helpling to mobilise political will, organisations, and individuals so refugees can not only survive but thrive.
Today marks many events and activities across the globe in support of refugees, whether led by refugees themselves, government officials, host communities, companies, celebrities or school children.
This year’s theme, ‘Solidarity with Refugees’, seeks for collaboration and meaningful steps to be taken in support of those who are forced to flee their homes. As the UN Refugee Agency states, “Refugees seek not charity, but opportunity: a chance to rebuild their lives, contribute to their communities, and live with dignity”.
And since last year, that’s exactly what Eco Brixs has aimed to do in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement of Uganda. We’re partnering with refugee communities to clean up plastic pollution, create green job opportunities, and empower people to access sustainable livelihoods.
EXPANDING TO THE NAKIVALE REFUGEE SETTLEMENT
A huge part of Eco Brixs’ mission is to create accessible jobs for marginalised groups. Up until last year this was largely focused on young adults, women and people with disabilities.
But as Uganda is the largest refugee hosting country in Africa, home to approximately 1.7 million refugees, we also want to use our recycling and job creation model to make a difference to these communities as well.
Therefore in 2024, we piloted expanding our work to the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, which is located in the Isingiro District in South Uganda - about 150 kilometers from Eco Brixs’ Recycling Factory in Masaka. It’s home to approximately 180,000 refugees.
Initially, we started by running training programmes with communities of Nakivale on safe waste management practices and recycling. Then, towards the end of 2024, we began to work with local organisations and local people to establish plastic recycling sites across the settlement.
People bring the plastic they collect to one of the Recycling Sites. It's weighed by the kilogram and they are paid for it
Like all our recycling sites, namely our Community Buy Back Centres and Recycling Hubs, these are spread across the district, weighing and buying plastic waste from local people. This cleans up plastic, incentivises recycling, and also creates sustainable, accessible job opportunities for everyone.
The plastic is then baled and transported back to Eco Brixs’ Recycling Factory in Masaka, where the plastic waste is transformed into Eco-Products. We then sell these items and use revenue to buy more plastic waste from the settlement - and so the cycle continues!
Six months on from when we baled the first cubes of plastic waste for recycling in Nakivale, this project looks set to be one of our most successful expansions. To date, it has removed and recycled 17,337 kg of plastic pollution from the settlement, created over 100 jobs, and placed $1,974 in the hands of the community.
A huge thank you to the Nakivale community who have made this incredible impact possible, as well as our partners: the JAC Trust, Malteser International, the Hilden Charitable Fund, and the local officials at the Office of the Ugandan Prime Minister 🙏🏿
WE'RE WORKING WITH THE NAKIVALE COMMUNITY TO CREATE IMPACT:
