Thirty returnees in Magwi County, Eastern Equatoria have established a new cooperative society known as Can Cayo Multipurpose Cooperative Society.
The Chairperson of the Society, Mr. Odong Anthony Okenyi said they established the cooperative group after they returned home from the refugee camp in the year 2022.
Anthony explained that the Cooperative Society will arrange loans and provide funds to the members at reasonable interest and sell their offerings at reasonable prices, thereby avoiding exploitation by middlemen.
He reveals that they formed a cooperative society with some thirty people who were later trained by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).
“I was a refugee in the camp, I stayed for a long camp in Uganda, so after we came back, we started to form a group, the group was called CAN CAYO MULTIPURPOSE COOPERATIVE SOCIETY.”
“We start with a small group, we start with the number of thirty members, so from there we got training in farming as a business the training was conducted by GIZ, so after that again UNHCR came and did training to some members,” he said.
Odong stated that he went to the refugee camp twice back then in the 1983 SPLM/SPLA and the recent 2016 conflict
He mentioned that living in the camp was terrible as most of the people could not support themselves and their families forcing him to return home voluntarily.
“I went to the camp because of the war, two times the war of the SPLM/A movement in 1993 we went to Uganda, we stayed in the Acholpi refugee camp from there when there was a peace agreement we came back we formed a group.”
The Head of Can Cayo Multipurpose Cooperative Society further mentioned that the cooperative helps the entire community during the current inflation rate as the prices of the goods are cheap compared to the market prices.
He narrates that the cooperative is benefiting its members in terms of availing tuition fees for their children as most of them came from the camp.