Knowledge is Peace

Community-run libraries for brighter futures in Uganda's refugee settlements

Our Mission

Uganda's Imvepi and Rhino refugee settlements were established to shelter people fleeing conflict in South Sudan. Today, one of the greatest needs that these communities face is access to education and reading. Creative Learning Haven was founded to meet this need by creating libraries and learning spaces, run by members of the communities they serve.

Support Us

Our libraries and activities are entirely crowd-funded. We have already reached 800+ people and circulated 2,000+ books. With your help, we can continue to provide educational resources and creative activities for these communities.

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Who We Are

Hear from the teams in our two libraries. Imvepi CLH is run by Hope Rising South Sudan and Rhino CLH (Ocea) is run by Youth Social Advocacy Team Uganda.

What We Do

Community Libraries

We establish and maintain libraries and learning spaces run by community members, providing access to educational resources. When you enter one of our libraries, our library team explains the book categorization system, recommends books, and introduces new activities.

Literacy Classes

Schools in the settlements can have as many as 300 students per teacher. Many primary schoolers don't get the literacy education they need. To fill the gap, we offer literacy classes for students in primary 3 to 5. We cover the alphabet, basic phonics, and use the Structured Literacy approach. This way, students can benefit from the books in our libraries and beyond.

Creative Activities

Visitors to our libraries want to draw, take photos, write, and tell stories. However, these activities have been historically undervalued in the settlements. Our activities include drawing and painting, creative writing, video workshops and a media team. We create space for art and creativity not only for the mental health benefits they provide, but to preserve the voices and stories of Imvepi and Rhino for future generations.

Women's Groups

82% of refugees in the Imvepi and Rhino settlements are women and children. To address the needs of the women and girls in these communities, we have creative arts and income-generating activities for women. We will soon begin offering literacy classes for women as well.

Art Pen Pals

Students in Winchester, MA are paired with students in Imvepi Refugee Camp to exchange pen pal emails and art they create in response to shared prompts. We have showcases of our pen pals' work coming up this fall. Check out our events page for more details!

Learn more about our activities →

Events

Check out our events page to see our exciting upcoming events, workshops, and activities — both in Uganda and the United States.

Learn More →

Students studying together in the library

Socials

We are regularly putting out new content to showcase the lives and stories of our community. Follow along with us on our social media pages to see the latest updates.