
Background of DF
Committed to Making a Difference in the Lives of Fellow Refugees
Our journey can be traced back to 2015 when our great mentor and friend, the late Kur John Mamos, birthed the idea of fostering the love for education through mentorship amongst fellow students. He formed “Dongriin Library,” a student association with help from his mentee, Dhieu Mayom Deng, where fellow students would share academic materials and tutor each other. An association member was mandated to donate educational materials to others upon high school completion.
Over the years until 2017, Dongriin Library increased in influence, and its mission expanded to include many schools across Northern Uganda as refugee youth, more enthusiastic about service, joined. They started lobbying for bursaries and sponsorships for their fellows and academically gifted refugee students facing financial constraints. Many of these beneficiaries would later become the co-founders of the Dongriin Foundation.
On December 30, 2019, 10 Executive Members of the Dongriin Library held a memorial assembly in Koboko District led by the then-president of the association, Anyieth Philip Ayuen a successor of Grace Ajah Kueth who contributed greatly to the growth of the library as the association president. They evaluated their progress, the impacts of the association, and the education gap created by the 2013 civil war in South Sudan. They recognized that many refugees needed access to good schools, and the girls lacked the opportunity to attend school like the boys.
Thus, they transformed Dongriin Library into a Foundation to serve a more significant portion of the community in Northern Uganda, especially the refugees. It was also to cement the impacts of Kur John Mamos in the lives of many students as he was a committed community leader and a mentor. Dongriin Foundation then became a youth forum for activism, mentorship, knowledge sharing, local leadership training, and practice with a functional constitution edited by Law students led by David Mayen Manyoun. It retained all the goals under Dongriin Library set by the late Kur John. Since then, Dongriin Foundation, as a student forum, mentored, offered financial support and lobbied for bursaries and sponsorships to over 15 academically gifted students. Except for those just completing high school, many of these beneficiaries later received scholarships to post-secondary institutions in Uganda (under Dafi by Windle International Uganda or Mastercard Foundation scholarships) or Canada (under Student Refugee Program by World University Service of Canada).
However, on 24th August 2021, We registered DF as a Community-Based Organization with Koboko Municipality in Koboko District in Northern Uganda. This was with requests from Dongriinians and their friends across the world. We operated a mobile office as CBO since many executives were still University students. But as many graduated and volunteers joined our cause, we shifted our area of operation to Adjumani District (Nyumanzi refugee settlement) as our goal has always been to serve the refugees in close proximity. We were registered as CBO with Dzaipi sub-county Local Government, Adjumani District, on April 26, 2023. We serve the refugee settlements around Adjumani District even though many of our programs benefit all refugees across Northern Uganda.