My parents were killed by ruthless rebels in Uganda who used children for sacrifices. I was only 7 years old…. Now I am training yoga in the refugee camp. It helps people to forget about their painful life experiences. Yoga is a tool for healing the wounds and to relight hope in people. I am Namurembe Rita Brown, I am 28 years old, Ugandan by nationality. I am a single mother of one kid. I fled from my country in 2000 due to a civil war between the rebels and the government. These were the worst rebels in the world. For instance, they chopped off ears, lips, noses, and other delicate parts of the body. My community was the most targeted, because we were from the government side. When we were attacked, I was only 7 years old.  Both my parents got killed. My twin sister and I were abducted. They tortured us badly.  We were forced to carry a hot pot on our heads. We got burned and if you let go of the pots, you would be killed on the spot. The rebels used children for sacrifices. Luckily, a rebel woman pitied us. She did not want us to be used as a sacrifice and helped us to escape. We later teamed up with an old woman who was traveling to Kakuma. Eventually we arrived in the refugee camp in 2000. We were received at the UNHCR reception. And uniquely, a man from our community took us to his home and we began a new chapter of our life. We found Kakuma the best place because you could move freely. There is freedom, security, and free education. We did not have the fear of being threatened or killed. The place was quiet and peaceful. But still faced many challenges. For instance, we missed parental love. We felt isolated and lonely. Our only hope was education and surely, we went to school and finished successfully. But whenever I am alone, I often think of my past and that easily reminds me of my painful life experience. Therefore, to stop thinking about my past, I found it important to always do exercises. So, I developed regular exercise as my normal routine. I like jogging and I used to jog along the road always in the morning until I was attacked and my phone was taken.  Then a friend introduced me to a gym located in the Lutheran World Federation premises. I was happy to get this opportunity. But unfortunately, I had limited access to the gym because I am a refugee, and refugees are not allowed to enter to the LWF compound at the evening hours. It was frustrating for me but I did not give up, I continued looking for a better way of doing the exercise. Thereafter, I met with a female friend from South Sudan who have had yoga training in Nairobi. She was teaching at Turkana Cafeteria. I joined her yoga training. It was a hard training because, for the first few days, I was unable to sleep due to aching all over the body. But I never gave up and I persevered until I became professional and mastered everything about yoga. After a while in 2018, I received a letter from African Yoga Project. They needed interested applicants for yoga training. I applied and was picked as one of the successful candidates. And I went to Nairobi for training for three weeks. After I came back to Kakuma, I started training people about yoga, and after six months I successfully mastered all the eleven sequences and fifty-three posts. I went through the evaluation and was qualified. So I was given a task to teach yoga in the refugee communities and schools. And I was given a small token of appreciation in form of money. From there I started teaching yoga in Kakuma under the African Yoga Project. Yoga is important in many ways. For instance, it helps people to forget about their painful life experience.  It is used as a tool for healing the wounds and relight hope in people. Also, yoga is very important to people who are stressed up, traumatized, and those with mental illness. It helps them to start a new life through meditation. Besides, yoga is a great tool for making a change in the community. For instance, in Kakuma, we have mothers, fathers, and youth who are abusing drugs and indulging in immoral activities like prostitution. Yoga is used to change their lifestyle. You learn a lot from others through yoga and this easily changes the perception. So far, I have changed youth through yoga and they are doing great in their families. Yoga has played and is playing a great role in my life. For instance, since I joined yoga, I have greatly changed in terms of thinking and creating change in the community. It helps me to think positivity and to focus on life by embracing change in myself and my community. It has helped me to forget about my past and focus more on life. Also, through yoga, I get a living. Before, life was tough but now life has changed because I earn money and use it to support myself and my family. Lastly, my message to the world is that yoga is not evil. Many people think that yoga is an evil practice. But this is contrary to yoga. It is good and unique! Anyone can do yoga and through yoga, we can greatly improve in our life through learning from the life experiences of others. It can heal our wounds. My dream is to change people through yoga. I am now planning to have a large room that will give people the opportunity to learn yoga and change their lives.

Interested to get into contact with Namurembe? Email: info@i-am-kakuma.online