🎄Christmas Smiles Festival 2025: A Celebration of Hope for Refugee Children

By BBLM Communications Team
Posted: 3rd December 2025

Every December, the world prepares for Christmas – a season of love, family, joy, and shared meals. But for thousands of refugee children in Kyaka II Refugee Settlement, Christmas often passes quietly, without celebration, without gifts, and sometimes without even a proper meal.

At Blessed to Bless Life Ministries (BBLM), we believe that no child should be forgotten during Christmas – especially children who have survived war, displacement, loss, and trauma.

This is the heart behind our Christmas Smiles Festival.

Why This Festival Matters

For many refugees, life in the settlement is filled with daily struggles:
fetching water, long distances to school, food shortages, trauma, and lack of emotional support.

The Christmas Smiles Festival is more than an event – it is:

• A day where every child feels seen, valued, and loved
• A moment of dignity for parents who often cannot afford festive meals
• An opportunity for children to showcase their talents
• A chance to strengthen families and communities
• A bridge that connects supporters around the world to the lives of refugee children

It is a celebration of faith, unity, resilience, and joy.

Building Towards 22nd December

For weeks leading up to the festival, children have been practicing:

• songs of hope and worship
• traditional dances from Rwanda, Congo, Burundi, and Uganda
• poems written from their own life stories
• modelling routines
• string figure tricks
• scriptural readings

Parents have also been invited to participate in planning and giving contributions in any way they can – through food, volunteering, decorations, or sharing ideas.

BBLM volunteers have been working tirelessly to:

• prepare children’s gifts
• train performers
• mobilize families
• organize logistics
• ensure safety
• and raise the small budget needed for the day

What Will Happen at the Festival?

On 22nd December, beginning at 9 AM, the festival will unfold in a beautiful sequence:

• Opening prayer and welcome
• Performances from the children
• Bible readings and Christmas message
• Community walk for peace
• A shared meal with meat – a rare privilege for most families
• Gift distribution
• Awards for outstanding children
• Family testimonies and parent speeches
• End-of-year blessings and closing prayer

This will be a day of joyful noise, laughter, dancing, storytelling, and true Christmas spirit.

The Budget and the Need

To make this possible, we require only UGX 1,350,000 (€335).
This small amount will feed 200 people, provide gifts, awards, and logistics.

However, BBLM also lacks:

• visibility materials (pull-up banner, teardrop banner)
• road safety signs
• reflector vests
• a large screen TV for teaching children
  These items would strengthen our programs beyond Christmas.

How You Can Stand With Us

You can support in any of these ways:

• Donating towards the Christmas budget
• Providing food, drinks, or gifts
• Sponsoring a child in the KIPODI Program
• Sharing our GoFundMe link on your platforms
• Praying for the children and volunteers
• Joining us on the celebration day

Your support does not just fund an event – it writes a memory in a child’s heart.

A Message From Our Executive Director

“I founded BBLM because I know what it means to grow without support, without protection, without opportunity.
Every child in this settlement deserves a chance to smile, to hope, and to dream again.
Christmas Smiles Festival is one way we show them that they matter.”
— Iraguha Jure Castro

Final Word

This Christmas, you have the chance to make a refugee child smile.
A simple gift, a small donation, a shared link, or even your presence can restore hope where it has been fading.

Together, let’s create a day that these children will never forget.