Emma Yaaka snaps his fingers to make sure his audience is listening. He wears a chartreuse polo shirt and AirPods as he speaks into the camera. “Please, whenever you cough,” he says as he fake coughs into his fist, “cover your mouth.” He pauses for emphasis between each word and ruffles through some papers on his desk. He holds up a picture of himself, partially disguised in a baseball hat, with a tissue over his nose. “COVID-19” is typed across his forearm. A banner at the top of the page reads “COVER YOUR COUGHS AND SNEEZES.” “Please do this,” he says.
Yaaka was born in the Manafwa district of eastern Uganda in 1992. He fled violence in his household as a teenager. After years hiding in Uganda, Yaaka arrived at the Kenyan border in 2015 at the age of 23. He befriended a truck driver whom he convinced to smuggle him across the border. Yaaka arrived in the capital city of Nairobi confused and alone. He wandered until he came upon a group of people sleeping on the streets. He soon realized they were refugees waiting to register with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, or UNHCR. He had learned about refugees in school, but never imagined that one day he would become one. He got in line too.
She met Yaaka in 2018, who by then had lived in Chicago for a year and wanted to speak at an event called the Chicago Jews for Refugees Assembly. Morrison offered to help him write and edit his speech. The event took place the day after a shooter stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 Jewish worshipers. The shooter said he targeted the synagogue specifically for its work with HIAS. In the shadow of the massacre, the audience sat captivated as Yaaka stood on the stage and spoke about his journey from Uganda and the challenges faced by refugees in the U.S. “We are helped by [the] government and the agencies which brings us here,” he said. “They help us for three months, and then they’re done with us. We are still new. We don’t know anything.” Many came up to him after to ask how they could help, and if he wanted to speak at other events. Yaaka soon found himself looped into a network of well-meaning Americans (and some Canadians) who had the time, resources, and desire to help refugees, but who didn’t quite know where to begin.
The biggest challenge for the two-person operation has been language. So far, WordOut only has English-language videos. Yaaka and Morrison ideally want community members to help produce videos in languages like Arabic, Amharic, and Rohingya. It’s hard for Morrison to edit in a language she doesn’t understand. They’ve considered dubbing the existing English videos, or even Zooming while Morrison edits so Yaaka can translate in real time.
