Paulinho Muzaliwa is a social entrepreneur passionate about regenerative agriculture and founder of the Unidos Social Innovation Center in Uganda, East Africa. 

As a refugee facing personal setbacks and challenges, Paulinho’s dream is to transform refugee camps into regenerative communities where every refugee can access clean water, abundant food, and quality education.

He believes that change and progress come from within the community and demonstrates how refugees can become change-makers by leveraging their unique experiences and skills to develop innovative solutions. 

In our conversation Paulinho emphasizes the importance of moving beyond reliance on humanitarian aid by fostering local leadership and sustainable practices. 

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader.

Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn.

#SocialEntrepreneurship #RegenerativeCulture #SustainableDevelopment #Permaculture #Sustainability #SocialImpact #RefugeeStories #Uganda #Africa #HumanitarianAid #WorldFoodProgram #UNHCR #ChangeMakers #Podcast #NewPodcastEpisode #PodcastInterview #PaulinhoMuzaliwa #StephenMatini #PityPartyOver #Alygn

TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: So Paulinho, I want to ask you just to get to know you a little bit. Growing up, were there any specific person, people, events that somehow have impacted who you are today?

Paulinho Muzaliwa: Not really. I grew up in a memory, which is a little bit modest, not so much poor and not so much rich. My dream was to be a pilot.

Once I was not being able to go to university, so I chose to being an accountant. I met in secondary school. I done business and demonstrative administration. After finish up, it was quite hard to push and walk him. And all my dream really disappeared. So I gave up to all my dream. Being a refugee is kind of starting a new life.

Stephen Matini: Going through challenges, life in general, how do you keep your spirit positive? How do you keep the hope? 

Paulinho Muzaliwa: How I keep the or stay positive is understand that all my life have been challenging. And in order to be successful or in order to have a decent life, I need to be satisfied of what I have and cherish, also connect to myself. And the most of it is if things are not good right now, as long as I work hard, so I expect something positive will come no matter the time that we spend on these things.

So I try to be optimistic because the worst part of my life is what I have done. I just want to be more positive so that I cherish all the moments that I'm having right now.

Stephen Matini: And this is something that you also share with entrepreneurs. You know, to be an entrepreneur, you must have a vision. You must constantly fight self-doubts, challenges, insecurities and problems. How did you get to social entrepreneurship? What attracted you to this? 

Paulinho Muzaliwa: Yeah, exactly. So I think there is so many facts that has motivated me to jump into this based on the challenges that are accounted in being a refugee. The first one was language barrier, which has been most affected young people here in refugee settlements to get access to employment.

Four percentage of refugee are unemployed. And this due to language barrier, lack of experience, rigid education. So all this prevents people to get access. Job markets is quite also low in Uganda. So we have been able to at least, while learning entrepreneurship, instead of relying on the system, better creates our own system, better creates our own opportunities as refugees.

So mostly from, especially from the country that I am. So the system, especially the education system, make us slaves of the system. You may be almost 100 people who are learning business and administration. And you are going to alert that the company in the city. So you are going to fund at only two companies.

So if you are not really a non-person or your parent is not a non person, so you never get a job. So this has been the fact that has motivated me a lot to, okay, let's create our own opportunities instead of relying on the system. And then we jump into this and then I get an opportunity to learn entrepreneurship at idea for Africa and path through different centers here in refugee settlement to foster my experience. And then this is where I start found Unidos Social Innovation Center.

Stephen Matini: How it is to live in a refugee community?

Paulinho Muzaliwa: It's quite hard. Psychologically, it's really hard to let it go. The life that you had in your home country and start a new one here in refugee settlements. And this is something that's traumatized most of people and not able to let it go and start a new page. But economically, they're living in refugee settlements, especially where I am in Nakivale Valley refugee settlements, Uganda.

As I've been saying, 44% of refugee are employed. So most of people are running small businesses to generate income and which is not really profitable enough to sustain their lives. So people are struggling currently due to humanitarian aid which I keep on decreasing every day.

In 2018, when I reached here, so we used to get food from the World Food Program, but currently there is no food. So they fast in when reaching COVID, they transition from getting food to get money. And then this money is keep on decreasing. And currently they give $3, which is roughly a that can buy a two liter of oil, cooking oil as they provide this as a monthly rationed food. So can someone sustain with $3 a week or month? Quite hard.

In term of education. So we have one secondary school and some private primary schools, which is not really provide the quality education. So for some parents who have at least some money, they take their children to go to learn out of refugee settlements.

I think this is how life looks like in refugee settlements. So people have been relying so much on humanitarian aid, and when this has keep on decreasing, so life becomes keep on being harder. And the food on the market keep on increasing the price. And we are going to realize that life is becoming quite hard in refugee settlements.

And some people decided maybe to go back to their countries and maybe starting hustling, no matter the insecurity that they are passing through there.

Stephen Matini: When I read your LinkedIn profile, I really loved what I read. It says, I dream about transforming refugee camps into regenerative communities where every refugee can have access to clean water, abandoned food, and quality education. Would you mind explaining what regenerated culture is?

Paulinho Muzaliwa: Yeah, sure. I think regenerative culture, I define it in two ways. So first of all, is to have access to abundance food, being able to grow food in an environment friendly way while taking care of the soil, but also growing organic and abundant food. And of course, why food? Food is currently the first need for refugees since the humanitarian aid, as I've been saying, keep on decreasing. So we need to make sure that we sustain ourselves in growing food instead of keep on relying on humanitarian agencies.

Access to clean water. I've seen people spending a week without having birth. I've seen people, young girls get raped while looking for water. And I've seen people not being able to cook. You may have a portion of food, but you don't have water to cook with it.

I've seen people struggling with typhoid and malaria just because of not having access to clean water. I've seen also people when I say about education. So education is not about only learning, but being able to co-create something which will impact as at least two people from what you have been learning.

Education is not about only learning, but it's to boost someone providing him resources that will enable these people to shift from the life that you reach or you have meet them. And when you will go and come back, you say, oh, there is a quiet difference. This person is no longer depending on someone. This is what I summarize about regenerative. Regenerative is to shift from humanitarian dependency and be able to sustain your life no matter the place where you are.

Stephen Matini: You say that in the refugee camp, there's a tremendous problem with unemployment as a result of a lack of skills. So in your experience, what are the most important skills that refugees should have?

Paulinho Muzaliwa: Yeah, so I think vocational skills are the best things that I can shift or can help them to not only learn, but also starting co-creating something that will not only impact their life, but also impact the communit