Bread for the Needy (BREFON) is an indigenous, voluntary, non-political, non-religious and non-profit humanitarian and development organisation founded in 2019, with its head office in Gulu City, Northern Uganda.
BREFON works to improve the lives of vulnerable individuals, families and communities through integrated humanitarian assistance and sustainable community development programmes. We implement work across mental health and psychosocial support, healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene, education, child protection, cultural and spiritual restoration, livelihoods and economic empowerment, disaster preparedness and response, and community resilience strengthening.
Special attention is given to children, women, youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, refugees, returnees and war victims, and other vulnerable groups affected by natural and human-made disasters.
Why we exist
Northern Uganda carries the long tail of the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency. Communities returned from displacement camps to land, homes and relationships that had been broken for a generation. Survivors came back with injuries that were not visible. Children conceived in captivity came back to communities that were not sure they belonged.
The emergency ended. The need did not. Mental health services remain scarce, stigma remains heavy, and the households carrying the heaviest burden are often the ones with the least income. BREFON was formed by people from these communities to close that gap — with clinical care where it is needed, and with the practical means for a household to stand on its own.
Trauma, poverty and exclusion do not arrive one at a time. We do not treat them one at a time.