About us

Benjamin Abunuasi is Congolese by birth. A university graduate in social sciences became a refugee in Uganda in 2017 following natural disasters and political insecurities in his country of DRC-CONGO. He survived on $1 per day making 500 adobe bricks per full day for three months upon which he was hospitalized. Following dark circumstances upon suffering trauma during his migration journey, he after got the opportunity to join an entrepreneurship scholarship at the Social Innovation Academy SINA. He rose to turn his life around to become a resolute changemaker, working hands-on to build refugee communities. As a result, he founded YINNOH (Youth Innovation Hub) to empower refugee and marginalized youth from the host community as job creators and innovators providing them with the ability to turn their challenges into realizing dreams of creating opportunities through entrepreneurship, self-discovery, and harnessing technology. During onboarding, Magamba Michael (from Uganda) joined the board as Co-Founder. Mulungi Raniah and Nelson Kasaranga Fidel (a refugee born in Dr-Congo and who was rejected by his parents due to his albinism). Refugees in Uganda are 35% points less likely than Ugandan nationals to be employed. This is particularly true among women and men (age 16-30 years), where 50 percent of refugee males and 41 percent of females are unemployed, compared to 14 percent of Ugandan males and 16 percent of females. Following self-funding, informal, and formal funding sources, have successfully led YINNOH’s construction of its first Innovation Hub to serve as a free, safe physical, and self-organized learning space for enabling self-organized entrepreneurial learning, fostering cultural exchange, technology, and job creation for refugees. The challenges that Yinnoh is currently addressing include the accomplishment of the Hub that help refugees to attain peer-support for wellbeing. There are challenges in sustaining the operational cost of program delivery and providing basic needs provision to scholars such as meals, soaps, and sanitary pads, particularly to impoverished refugees unable to afford these basic needs during attendance for half-day YINNOH training. Contact yinnoh at: info.youthinnovationhub@gmail.com For immediate or emergency reach out at: benjaminabunuasi@gmail.com

Annual Operating Budget: 20,000 USD

Annual Beneficiary Reach: 90