PALABEK, Northern Uganda — Imagine if you were a refugee living at a makeshift settlement in a foreign country with no way to earn a steady income.

Then someone promised you a life-changing opportunity: They'd give you a sum of money and a coach to help you turn it into a source of income.

But just as you are about to receive that support, it gets canceled.

That's what happened to some 8,100 South Sudanese refugees in Uganda this year. They were enrolled in a program with a bureaucratic name — Graduating to Resilience Scale Activity — and a simple strategy: a $205 sum for each participant along with coaching to start a small business.

That may not seem like a lot of money, but in Uganda, the average annual income is $753.

And in the Palabek camp, home to about 100,000 refugees, most p

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