Trauma Rescue Aid History
At the time, I was doing my internship with the Darfur Network for Human Rights (DNHR), an organization dedicated to monitoring, documenting, and reporting human rights violations. The human rights monitors and investigation team would bring victims, mainly survivors of sexual violence and torture who had fled the violence in Sudan, to the office for interviews.
The interviews were deeply emotional. The survivors would tell their stories, sometimes crying as they explained the painful things that happened to them, and it was impossible not to feel their pain. Even sometimes the interviewer could cry as well.
However, DNHR’s mandate focused solely on documentation and advocacy for justice and accountability, leaving survivors without the psychosocial support they so desperately needed. Seeing this gap deeply affected me. These women needed more than just their stories recorded; they needed emotional support, they needed food, and they needed medication.

They are struggling to cope with life in Kampala, and you could clearly see it in their eyes as they are crying and narrating their stories; they don’t speak English, they only speak Arabic.
I kept thinking, how do they even ask for help at a hospital or in the market?
I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t know exactly what. I was a student at that time, without resources, connections, and honestly, I felt helpless.
One day, I shared the stories of Sudanese refugees in Uganda with my brother, Malik Kafi. We are both from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan. He is married to an American woman and lives in South Korea. I also shared the idea I had at the time, which I called Trauma Recovery Aid, later renamed Trauma Rescue Aid. Malik encouraged me to pursue the idea and offered to speak to his wife, Jennie, to see if she could help, as she is very good with social media campaigns, and I accepted.

A month later, I shared the idea with Kafi Abdulkheir and Barona Jagod, asking if they were willing to join me in this initiative to help Sudanese refugees’ families in Kampala. They were excited about the idea, and we immediately started a social media campaign advocating for Sudanese refugees in Uganda. Jennie joined us, launching a GoFundMe campaign, and together we managed to raise funds for formal registration in Uganda.
It is worth noting that Kafi Abdulkheir, Barona Jagod, and I are all refugees from the Nuba Mountains. We arrived in Uganda years ago and have grown up with the realities of being in exile since our childhood, when the war between the SPLA and the Sudanese government started many decades ago.
We know the refugee experience intimately, the uncertainty, the hardship, and the resilience it requires.
In 2024, we secured formal registration with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) and officially became a refugee-led, grassroots nonprofit organization.

We work with displaced and marginalized communities in Sudan, providing psychosocial support and counseling, advocating for human rights and gender equality, and promoting peacebuilding initiatives and livelihoods training.
Today, Trauma Rescue Aid operates in refugee-hosting communities in Seeta, Mukono District.

Our ongoing programs include:
• Psychosocial support and counseling for survivors of violence and displacement.
• Distribution of food items to vulnerable refugee families, including women and children.
• Provision of sanitary pads to young women and girls
• English classes for refugee women and teenagers
• Child-friendly spaces for refugee children
• Family reconciliation programs, addressing tensions between families divided by past affiliations with the Sudanese government or the paramilitary RSF
Most of our team are refugees themselves, giving us a unique understanding of the suffering, struggles, and resilience of those we serve. This lived experience guides our work, ensuring that every program is rooted in empathy, cultural understanding, and a deep commitment to the communities we support.
Because we put people first, every program we run is rooted in compassion and community-driven solutions.