For over twenty years, the red dirt and plastic-sheet roofs of the Kyaka II settlement in western Uganda have been my home.

On most days, if you walk through the paths between our mud-walled houses, you’ll hear the chatter of children playing and the smell of woodsmoke. 

We have built a life here, even if it is a life of constant, quiet struggle.

For a long time, we had a rhythm. Organizations like the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) provided a basic safety net sometimes bags of split maize and yellow split peas, sometimes a modest transfer of about 12,000 Ugandan shillings sent directly to our mobile phones. It was never enough to make us rich, but it meant we could buy soap, salt, or pay a grinding mill. It kept us going, and we were grateful for it.

But recently, everything changed. We started hearing whispers that big international donors, including the United States, were cutting their budgets. Soon, the rumors became our reality. Global humanitarian funding was shifted away to meet new emergencies elsewhere, leaving protracted crises like ours with severe shortfalls.

According to aid agencies, this perfect storm of shifting donor priorities and rising operational costs meant our lifelines had to be rationed. 

The monthly cash transfers we relied on were cut to almost nothing reduced by over half for the most vulnerable, and stopped entirely for others. The clinics and support centers run by humanitarian groups grew quiet, lacking the malaria medication and staff they used to have. When you live in a refugee camp, a budget cut on the other side of the world isn't just a headline. It means looking into an empty pot at dinnertime.

"When we first arrived, we were given small plots of land," says Isabella, one of our oldest neighbors, her hands gesturing to the narrow strip of dust outside her door. " But today, these plots are barely wide enough to walk around, let alone plant crops. The soil can hold up our small mud houses, but it cannot feed our children."

The older men and women in the camp often talk about the early days, decades ago, when families were given larger pieces of land to farm. 

Back then, people could grow their own maize, beans, and cassava. But over the years, as conflicts in neighboring countries forced more and more people to flee to Uganda, Kyaka II grew crowded. Today, there simply isn't enough land left to share.

When the institutional support began to shrink, we knew we couldn't just sit and wait. We had to rely on each other. A group of us started a Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA). Every Sunday afternoon, about fifteen of us gather under the shade of a large jackfruit tree. We bring a small blue metallic box secured with two padlocks.

Even when we had almost nothing, we would save a few hundred Ugandan shillings from our food allowance money that would have bought a single tomato or a handful of greens.

If a neighbor’s child fell sick with a sudden fever and needed medicine from the surrounding clinics, we drew from the box. If someone wanted to buy a sack of eggplants to start a small roadside stall, we gave them a small loan.

It was our own system, built on trust. It felt good to have control over our own lives. But now, because the cash assistance has dried up, our metallic box often sits empty. It is incredibly hard to ask a mother to contribute a 500-shilling coin to a savings pot when she is staring at her children, wondering how to buy a single cup of maize flour for their evening meal. Yet, we still meet under that tree every week. Even without money to count, we share advice, keep track of who is struggling the most, and make sure no one is completely forgotten.

The road ahead of us feels uncertain, and some days the worry is heavy enough to keep you awake at night. But we are still here.

Yesterday evening, as the sun was setting and the air finally cooled down, I watched my neighbor’s nine-year-old daughter sweep the dirt in front of her family's doorway with a small broom made of twigs. She was humming a song her mother used to sing back home in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We may have very little left in our pockets, and our metallic savings box may be empty for now, but we still have each other. And as long as we have that, we will find a way through.

Tomorrow morning, the sun will hit the dusty paths and cast long shadows across our mud houses, just like it does every day. 

The rest of the world might look away, caught up in newer headlines and other conflicts. But inside this settlement, our lives keep moving forward. We will still walk these narrow lanes together, stretch whatever food is left in our bowls to feed our families, and listen to our kids playing outside in the dirt. Next sunday, our community group will meet again under the big shade of the jackfruit tree. We will pull out our small, blue metallic cash box. It is dented and scratched, but to us, that box isn't just about the money we manage to save together. It represents our promise not to let each other fall, even as the global funding cuts we keep hearing about begin to hit our food rations and clinic supplies. The people managing aid budgets far away see us as numbers on a spreadsheet, but our dignity cannot be erased by a line item. We are the ones keeping each other alive.

When a neighbor is sick, we carry their water jerrycans. When the evening settles, the older women sit by the cooking fires and teach the children the songs from our old village so they don't forget where we come from. We are not just waiting here helplessly for the next distribution truck to arrive. With our own hands, we took this red earth and these blue plastic tarps and built a place where we can live with honor. As the sun goes down next sunday, we will lock that blue metallic box, pocket the keys, and walk back to our homes in the dark, ready for whatever the next week brings.