The Uganda Scheme was a plan in the early 1900s to give a portion of British East Africa to the Jewish people as a homeland, as a response to the outbreaks of violence against Jews in Russia (the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903) . The Scheme was initiated by British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. and gained support from Theodor Herzl as a temporary refuge for European Jews facing anti-Semitism  The scheme included 13,000 square kilometres at Uasin Gishu, an isolated area in modern Kenya (and not, as its name suggests, Uganda).