Impact Designs is a non-profit organisation based in Aarhus working with partners to develop sustainable jobs and innovative business models in low- and middle-income countries.
We are currently focused on the training of refugees and smallholder farmers in the production of edible insects for food and feed in and around the Kyaka II refugee settlement in Uganda.
Alongside this project, we collaborate with six schools in the area, where children learn to cultivate mealworm, which provides a nutritious addition to school meals. At the same time students learn about nutrition.
With 1,5 million refugees, Uganda is one of the countries in the world that hosts the most refugees. Most of them live in extreme poverty and are dependent on food aid from the UN.
The refugees each receive a small plot of land from the government and food aid and other aids from the UN. Unfortunately there is far from enough money from international donors to fulfill the needs of the refugees. Due to the large influx of refugees, it is only a few that has acces to enough land to cover a their families need for basic food.
Most refugees live in extreme poverty - 80 % live for less than 4 DKK/day ($0,60). Acces to protein and other important nutrients is extremely restricted and only about 10% of the refugees in Uganda has acces to food to cover the need for basic nutrion. Most refugees are farmers, but very few of the have acces to enough land for them to make a living. And although refugees in Uganda are allowed to work, there is very little work to get. Just 1% percent of the refugees has paid jobs. A better option to make money is to start a small business. Even though most of the refugee-camps are very isolated, the aid from the UN means, that there are monetary access in and around the camps and thus there is a functioning market economy.
This means, that there is a great need for the development of new business-models, that can give the refugees in Uganda acces to new possibilities of income.
Our approach is based on the development of sustainable businessmodels, which can be used by refugees within a short period of time. In Uganda, we offer training in how to raise insects for food and feed.
We work with the production of mealworms for human food and soldier fly larva for animal feed.
Our work is built on market research, which shows the potential in different in the different sales options on the local markets.
On the ground we work with local partners in establishing a pilot project in Kyaka II refugee camp in the western Uganda. In Kyaka II the refugees have prior been able to produce food, but because of the influx of new refugees, most have lost their plot of land. They need acute hlep to start a new production, that does not demand the same access to land.
More than 3 billion people all over the world, have traditionally been eating insects and more than 1,900 different species are used as food. Insects have a high nutrition value and are especially rich in protein. In Uganda, it is common to eat insects like termites and edible grashoppers, which are viewed as a delicacy. In DR Congo, where many of the refugees in Uganda are from, it is common to eat different kinds of insects, in particular Mopane larva.