With a Big Grant in Uganda, the Hilton Foundation’s Commitment to Refugees Is Growing
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Street market in Kampala, Uganda. Kampala is one focus of a $10 million grant from the Hilton Foundation. DstockIL/shutterstock
During his lifetime, hotel pioneer Conrad Hilton made one thing clear: He didn’t want his philanthropy to be bound by geography. Instead, he intended it to reach the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, wherever they live, and impact a diversity of people, places and priorities.
In 2021, the foundation he created put word into deed by making refugees a new focus area. Funding started big right out of the gate. Grants from Hilton’s refugees initiative totaled $19 million that first year. In 2022, the program commitment more than doubled, awarding $46 million — or nearly 10% of its total grantmaking.
In broad strokes, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is tackling a cyclone of health and safety forces that have displaced more than 100 million people globally and made refugees of 30 million. The initiative acknowledges two things: the critical nature of the first few years of life on child development, and the fact that sustainable outcomes hinge on helping adult caregivers rebuild their own lives.
A case in point is the recent three-year, total $10 million investment it made in Kulea Watoto, an initiative to improve the lives of refugee children in Uganda. Swahili for “nurturing children,” the IRC-led program spans two generations, supporting children under five by boosting the livelihoods of the adults entrusted with their care. The program’s collaborative approach knits together local partners in rural and urban areas and takes a whole-cloth approach to helping refugees adjust to their host communities.
Here’s more about the ways the investment is living up to Hilton’s global vision.
One of seven funding priorities
What started as a philanthropic trust in 1944 grew exponentially in 2019 upon the passing of Conrad Hilton’s son, Barron Hilton, who reportedly left 97% of his estate to the family foundation. Net assets totaled $2.9 billion in 2018. By 2021, they stood at $7.6 billion.
Hilton Foundation has been honing its priorities over time. Today, it funds seven focus areas. Including refugees, four of these are essentially global in nature. The foudnation continues Hilton’s commitment to supporting the public works of the global network of Catholic sisters in appreciation of the impact they had on the founder’s life and education.
Investments in global early childhood development prioritize the essentials of nurturing care within the critical first 1,000 days of children’s lives. And a Safe Water Initiative works to build affordable, safe and reliable water systems for 1 million low-income residents across sub-Saharan Africa.
Hilton Foundation’s other two programs are centered in the U.S. One works to address homelessness in Los Angeles County through supportive services and permanent housing. The other, Opportunity Youth, helps young people successfully transition out of foster care.
The foundation is also a notably responsive disaster relief funder, stepping up on everything from the 2019 earthquake in L.A. to food insecurity in the Sahel region of Africa.
Geographic priorities
Uganda, a country of roughly 50 million people, is host to more than 1.5 million refugees who fled violent conflict, political instability and climate crises in countries like South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. Circumstances worsened during COVID-19, which disproportionately impacted both refugees and host communities.
Sarah Smith, legacy initiatives lead for the Conrad Hilton Foundation, said the decision to work in Uganda was no accident. On a state level, Uganda follows the UNHRC’s 2017 ”whole of society” framework for integration that allows refugees to move freely about their host community countries and access government and employment services.
Smith said that the UNHRC and government-led approach was one of the primary reasons for choosing Uganda, a factor that carries through to other countries the foundation prioritizes: Ethiopia, Colombia and Ecuador.
An intergenerational approach
The integrated, dual-generation approach reaches kids under five by connecting caregivers to children’s services and early learning opportunities in local communities, while building adult skills to help generate reliable income. The community at large and key decision-makers are engaged at all levels to ensure lasting change.
Cuthbert Aongat, project coordinator of the Kulea Watoto program for the International Rescue Committee in Uganda, said the approach was “derived from the different issues or problems” occurring in urban and rural settings.
Location decisions for the Kulea Watoto initiative were left to the government and landed in three Ugandan areas: urban Kampala, and rural Yumbe and Kyegegwa. Each has its own set of challenges and solutions. For example, Aongat said that urban overcrowding results in a high degree of unsanitary living conditions that impact family healthcare. In rural areas, where there are fewer income opportunities and a lower awareness of early child development interventions, poverty is still the main issue.
Four partners
The program is paving the road to self-reliance with the help of four established local partners. Aongat characterized the partnerships it’s building as fairly new, and explained how each brings its own expertise to the project.
The AfriChild Centre will generate the evidence needed to influence policies and programs impacting children. It explores which models work and helps stakeholders understand best practices for delivering results.
The Madrasa Early Childhood Programme, a project of the Aga Khan Foundation, will focus on training teachers and tutors on responsive caregiving, mostly in Kampala.
Aonget said that the Kabarole Research and Resource Centre, a local community development NGO, will generally be working to advance income generation in agriculture, while providing support for responsive caregiving, including nutrition and early learning.
The fourth partner, Literacy and Adult Basic Education (LABE) aims to break down language barriers for parents and caregivers.
Aongat’s role includes synchronizing the four partners’ work through communications solutions like in-person meetings, routine calls and emails, and the formation of sub-groups for quick sharing.
In good company
The project builds on the IRC’s experience managing other integrated refugee programs in Latin America, East Africa and the Middle East.
In East Africa, a $100 million commitment from the LEGO Foundation in 2019 is delivering the benefits of learning through play to refugee children in Ethiopia and Uganda. Funding supports an IRC-led consortium to deliver PlayMatters, which helps teachers, school communities and primary caregivers meet the challenges of continuing education in crisis settings.
IKEA Foundation took a similar approach to helping refugees by boosting long-term livelihoods in East Africa in 2021. Its five-year, total $36 million Re:Build program commitment targets 20,000 urban refugees in Kampala and Nairobi and the refugees’ host communities. The International Rescue Committee partnership focuses on economic development through levers like apprenticeships, skills training and access to financial services.
Looking forward, the two-generation approach is expected to inform future resiliency programming. Sarah Smith noted that by design, the consortium offers opportunities to connect job opportunities with caregivers already in the program, delivering dual results.
Three years out, Smith hopes to see the straightforward, improved wellbeing of both caregivers and the children in their charge. But she’s also excited to see how the project merges different sectors, as livelihood experts merge with other jobs — and early childhood centers that don’t often speak reaching out to one another.
